Android

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

At a media lunch earlier today, AT&T president and CEO, Ralph de la Vega, revealed the company's plans to collaborate with Google to develop handsets that will run on Google's open source platform, Android. Demonstrations of the Android OS and discussions with the Google team that developed it convinced de la Vega that Android handsets are a must-have.

"We're now looking to see when it's ready to be developed. Now I'm in the camp where I'm positive that it's something I'd want in our portfolio," said de la Vega of a potential Android handset. He is specifically impressed with the flexibility manufacturers and carriers have in customizing the the Android OS, which

Handset manufacturer High Tech Computer (HTC) has been developing a mobile phone that will run on Google's Android software. Called the Dream, it could very well be the first available mobile device to run on the Android platform.

The Dream will have a large screen and a full QWERTY keyboard. It will measure around 5 x 3 inches and the keyboard will be underneath the screen that will either slide or swivel out. Like the iPhone, the

Bug Labs will be introducing an innovative new device next month called the BUG. It is essentially a collection of hardware modules that can be connected in various ways to form new devices. The modules, called BUGmodules, are all built with open source software and include components such as GPS, digital/video camera, color touch LCD screen, accelerometer/motion sensor, and many more.

The foundation of the device is called Bugbase, a programmable and "hackable" Linux computer with a fast CPU, 128MB RAM, Ethernet, USB, WiFi, and a small LCD (see the tech specs. The base has four connectors which link with the Bugmodules, so the user can come up with any combination he