Google Android

HTC made a presentation of its two social networking phones and introduced its first computer tablet. Besides, the Taiwanese smartphone maker also unveiled new versions of its hit models Desire, Wildfire and Incredible. All six devices run Google Android software.

"We believe customers want choice; one size does not fit all," said Philip Blair, product director at HTC Europe.

HTC positioned the tablet in the premium price category, but said its was ready to sell new social networking phones at keenly competitive price levels.

Dell Inc unveiled its new tablet device for business users that will run Microsoft Windows operating system. While many experts believe current version of Windows is not very good for tablet environment Dell says its commercial customers give preference to a familiar and secure architecture of Microsoft software.

Previously the computer maker launched its tablets on Google’s Android operating platform.

A new video footage placed on twitvid.com shows how iDroid hackers managed to ‘encrust’ Android Gingerbread onto the iPhone 3G. The phone has dual boot capability allowing to have both operating systems onboard. The iDroid team has been putting various versions of Android onto iPhones for the last six months, and achieved some significant levels of stability and utility.

Wireless networks are under the risk of overloading because of increasing use of Google Android smartphones such as Samsung's Galaxy S which use more data services than other smartphones. The popularity of Android running devices comes as handsets increasingly overtake computers as the most used devices for surfing the Internet and knowing this wireless operators strive to please their consumers while not hasting to inform that their networks are not capable to support such workloads.

According to the latest stats from Millennial Media, 2011 will be a significant year for Android operating system as developers are gearing up to focus on it. The statistics diagrams included in the State of the Apps Industry 2010 Report show that 600 professionals stated that their top priority will be Android platform, a good news for Google, while Palm is the last of the OSs that interests developers.

Retrevo reported the results of the study that polled more than 1,000 non-Retrevo users on their interest in Apple iPad.

Thus, the study found in particular that:

• 52% of people surveyed say they "don't need" an iPad
• 38% of people say the iPad is "too expensive"
• 10% of people are "waiting for a good excuse" to buy an iPad

As Apple iPhone remains flat in its market share while Google Android is gaining more and more popularity the Cupertino company’s smartphone was displaced in the United States during the first quarter by Android which made Google’s brainchild occupy the second place after Research in Motion.

Latest reports showed that smartphones on Google’s Android operating system made up 28% of the US unit sales in the first quarter behind Research in Motion whose BlackBerry phones shared 36%.

Last week there were some speculations about a possible hack that would allow installation of Google Android mobile OS on the Apple iPhone devices. While they were only rumors now people posted a video on YouTube that proves the theory in practice showing a 68-step guide on how to convert a second generation iPhone into an Android running smartphone.

The video shows that the hacked model can boot to either OS at startup. The person behind the video piece says that even if you install Android on the device iPhone can still run its own OS normally.

According to a recent study by market research firm Crowd Science users of BlackBerries are going to leave their handsets for iPhone or Google Android devices when their contracts come to the end.

40% of BlackBerry users say they will change their mobile phones for iPhone with 32% willing to trade in their BlackBerry for a Google Nexus One.

As Google has banned the use of its applications on Android phones from Chinese wireless operators Motorola is adding Microsoft's Bing search engine onto Android phones in China.

This week Motorola confirmed that by the end of the quarter it will add a Bing browser bookmark and a Bing search widget to new phones based on Google's open source OS along with the mobile phones already in the market. However, Bing will not be integrated as a default search engine.

Google launched a new free application called Google Shopper to enable Android phone owners to become smarter consumers. Using the application shoppers can easily look up product specs, check out reviews, and compare prices.

Google Shopper features recognition abilities offered by Google Goggles along with the barcode-scanning feature Google Product Search for mobile introduced in May. Besides, it has also a functionality of some voice recognition.

Omnifone, the digital music service provider, announced that it plans to make its MusicStation service available to all mobile phones based on Google Inc's Android operating platform. It would debut its service on the Google Nexus One and HTC handsets at the Mobile World Congress industry event in Barcelona.

MusicStation for Android will offer all users on the Android platform immediate access to a catalog of over 6.5 million tracks, with additional features such as search and discovery systems, social networking aspects and news updates.

Flash of Genius, a small mobile applications developer was instructed by Apple to remove any mention of Google Android in its product description if wants to continue offering the software on the iPhone App Store website.

Flash of Genius develops applications for students preparing for their college entrance exams. "Flash of Genius: SAT Vocab" debuted on the iPhone, and at the end of last year, a version was introduced for Android as well.

Zenius Solutions, a leading NFC software company, has announced the integration of its software to an NFC add-on for GSM phones, offering the ability to easily enable interactive NFC capability on current mobile phones.  The solution expands on current NFC offerings in the market by supporting multiple NFC applications, providing control to the user from the handset screen, and supporting remote pro

 Mobile phone manufacturers will soon meet a new competitor in the face of the US largest PC maker Dell. According to a source the company plans to introduce Android based smartphone on carrier AT&T's network.

While the move will help Google boost its operation platform it may be a hard task for Dell to conquer its niche in the overfull mobile phone market.