Android

It was widely rumored last week that the Verizon Droid (Motorola Droid) would be receiving an OTA (over-the-air) update from Verizon on January 22nd. The update was supposedly being issued to update Motorola Droid phones sold by Verizon which currently run Android 2.0 or Android 2.0.1 (depending on when the phone was purchased). Unfortunately, as noted by Android blog Operation Android, to the dismay of many Droid owners, the update failed to arrive.

The article on Operation Android details how, despite the fact that the 2.1 update brings little in the way of features, many Droid owners are eager to receive the update due to

T-Mobile today announced the availability of the myTouch 3G, the next generation of its popular Android powered G1 phone. myTouch 3G has a sleeker (and lighter) design than the G1 and comes with a host of new features.

Although it comes in only three colors, black, white and red, one of the selling points of myTouch is plethora of options the user has to personalize his or her experience. According to Denny Marie Post, chief marketing officer, T-Mobile USA, "T-Mobile myTouch 3G puts you first, so you can create a mobile experience that is truly your own... There’s no cookie-cutter approach to myTouch. Inside and out, there

Despite rumors that Samsung's Android device production would be delayed until late 2009, the South Korean company yesterday introduced its first Android powered device, the I7500, which according to JK Shin, Executive Vice President and Head of Mobile Communication Division in Samsung Electronics," is "most innovative Android mobile phone." It will be the third Android powered device on the market, after the HTC Magic and the T-Mobile G1.

The I7500 is a candy bar style phone with a 3.2 inch HVGA (320 X 480) AMOLED touch screen. It measures about 4.5" X 2.2" X .4" and does not have a physical keyboard. It has 8 GB internal memory

Even though Android is open source and Google has repeatedly emphasized that Android would be freely available for all devices, this is a bit of a surprise, especially coming so soon. Well it actually isn't available quite yet, but doors have been opened that suggest it will be available shortly. Android is based on the Linux kernel and the iPhone runs on its own operating system. The folks at the iPhone DevTeam have changed that, however.

Apparently the iPhone DevTeam has been working on a project called iBoot for several months now, which runs different OS boot loaders than the standard iPhone jailbreak. With iBoot users will have the

Last night, Wal-Mart spokesperson Melissa O'Brien confirmed rumors that the mega-retailer would begin selling the new Android powered G1 phone at a discounted price beginning tomorrow, Wednesday October 29th. Wal-Mart will carry the G1, which is sold through Deutsche-Telekom's T-Mobile USA, in 550 stores at the reduced price of $148.88. This amounts to a $31.11 savings over the $179.99 price found at T-Mobile stores. The offer is available to both new customers and existing customers eligible for an upgrade, who enter a two year agreement.

The G1 is the first available phone to operate on Google's open source Android platform. Users can download hundreds of applications, as well as upload their own applications for distribution. The market is similar to Apple's App Store in that customers can easily find, purchase and download

T-Mobile, in partnership with Google, has announced the launch of the world's first Android powered phone, the G1(the phone is not called the Android, as I have already seen a few news stations refer to it as such, Android is the OS). The G1 will officially be available on Wednesday, October 22nd.

The G1 is made by the Taiwanese handset manufacturer HTC and is similar in design to the Sidekick series. It is a dual-band UMTS HSPA and quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE phone that also has Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth connectivity. It has a 3.2-inch 320 x 480 (HVGA) resolution capacitive touchscreen and

With T-Mobile's debut of the first Android phone (an HTC Dream) just five days away, the carrier today announced that it would be expanding its 3G network, which first went online in 2006. Plans include offering 3G service in several major U.S. cities by mid October, which is when the Android based HTC Dream is expected to be available (unofficial reports place availability between October 13th and 21st).

Google today announced the opening of a software distribution system, Android Market, that will be used for downloading content to the soon to come Android powered devices. Android market will connect users and developers, thereby creating an efficient environment for finding, purchasing and downloading various content.

Android Market will be similar to YouTube, complete with a feedback and rating system. It also looks a bit like Apple's App Store. Developers will be able to display their content by registering as a merchant,

Attendees of Google's annual developer conference were privy to the most extensive demonstration of the Android platform to date. Android is Google's highly anticipated, open source software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and applications. Developers can create applications for it with the Android SDK using Java.

Wednesday's demonstration gave programmers a glimpse of some of Android's features. The demonstration used touch screen technology, similar to that of the iPhone, though project leader Andy Rubin said it can be customized to work with a track ball as well. With the touch screen users will be able to unlock their phones by drawing a unique figure rather than using a password. One application

CEO of Opera Software Jon von Tetzchner announced Thursday that the highly popular Opera Mini browser will be available for Google's Android browser. The release is basically a technical preview for the Android development community to test the build and provide feedback to Opera for development of the beta version. "Today we're glad to deliver our mass-market mobile browser to the Android development groups," said von Tetzchner during the announcement. He added that "Opera Mini will be able to empower users of Android-based handsets with access to all of their favorite Web sites with popular features for smooth effects and scalable, tailored viewing."

Opera Mini is known around the world for its cross-platform portability, and has over 40 million users worldwide. This announcement bolsters that image. Opera enables web browsing on all levels of