Google Acquires Mobile Development Startup- Android

[Mike Temporale]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2005/tc20050817_0949_tc024.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2005/tc20050817_0949_tc024.htm</a><br /><br /></div><i>"In what could be a key move in its nascent wireless strategy, Google has quietly acquired startup Android Inc., BusinessWeek Online has learned. The 22-month-old startup, based in Palo Alto, Calif., brings to Google a wealth of talent, including co-founder Andy Rubin, who previously started mobile-device maker Danger Inc. Android (<a href="www.android.com">www.android.com</a>) has operated under a cloak of secrecy, so little is known about its work. Rubin &amp; Co. have sparingly described the outfit as making software for mobile phones, providing little more detail than that. One source familiar with the company says Android had at one point been working on a software operating system for cell phones."</i><br /><br />I wonder what Google is up to? Could we really be looking at a new mobile device operating system, Thoughts?

[Jerry Raia]

Oh good! Another product in perpetual beta! :rotfl:

[Kirkaiya]

Even in "BETA", most of Google's apps just rock. I have Google Earth, and it's just amazing, I love doing the "suborbital hop" from Bangkok back to my former home in Maryland, and seeing such detail.

Their search is the defacto gold standard for the web, their news site is top notch, and their translation site is second only to Alta-Vista's site - and all of that is in beta except the search part.

I wish Google would come up with a really cool web-oriented smartphone OS. I'm using an Axia A108 (which I just got the other day, and managed to install some of my PPC2K apps on already), and while it's slick, Windows CE was not designed from the ground up for mobile telephony, and it shows sometimes (I am withholding judgement on CE 5.0, which I just downloaded from MSDN, until I see it in action, but still).

The Danger Hiptop thingies (whatever they were called) were never really my thing, but they looked cool anyway.

[sojourner753]

I would say they're working on a new OS. But definitely mobile apps that interface with their own services.

e.g. A way to tie GPS into Google Maps and Google Earth on your phone/pda.