* Updated December 17th, 2007

Android is a mobile phone platform based on the Linux operating system and developed by the Open Handset Alliance. The unveiling of the Android platform on 5 November 2007 was announced with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 34 hardware, software and telecoms companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices. When released in 2008, the Android platform will be made available under the Apache v2 open-source license.

Features

• Handset layouts
  The platform is adaptable to both larger, VGA devices and more traditional smartphone layouts.

• Connectivity
  Android supports a wide variety of connectivity technologies including Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, and WiFi.

• Messaging
  Both SMS and MMS are available forms of messaging including threaded text messaging.

• Web browser
  The web browser available in Android is based off of the open-source WebKit application framework.

• Java virtual machine
  Software written in Java can be compiled into Dalvik bytecodes and executed in the Dalvik virtual machine, which is a specialized VM implementation designed for mobile device use, although not technically a standard Java Virtual Machine.

• Media support
  Android will support advanced audio/video/still media formats such as MPEG-4, H.264, MP3, and AAC.

• Additional hardware support
  Android is fully capable of utilizing video/still cameras, touchscreens, GPS, compasses, accelerometers, and accelerated 3D graphics.

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The Open Handset Alliance‘s Android may not exactly be the platform we all anticipated, but the flood of developers we’ve already seen working on it suggests it won’t be long before some half-decent hardware running the open-source Google-spawn emerges.

The latest public demo comes from Willcom, with the PHS operator showing a core module based on Android in Tokyo last week. Aside from demo-ing a spot of multi-tasking by receiving a call while browsing Google Maps, everything is pretty much as expected. Check out the pics for yourself over at Keitai Watch at the link below.

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