As reported on PC World

Google has signed a deal with digital-map maker Tele Atlas which allows Google to use the firm’s map data on a host of devices including cellphones and gadgets based the much anticipated Android operating system. Under the terms of the 5-year deal Google will also continue to use Tele Atlas mapping data on a host of Google services such as Google Maps and Google Earth.

Tele Atlas owns GPS device maker TomTom which assures a cozy relationship between Google and TomTom. Under the terms of the deal Google has agreed to send end-user mapping data back to Tele Atlas when it concludes user edits to maps. This, one would hope, would be a very efficient way for end-users help both Google and Tele Atlas to more accurately update maps with road closures and other type of mapping information.

This Wiki style of map making by using user edits has already been a tremendous help to both Google maps and TomTom devises through the Map Share feature, however now edits made on one map system will be carried over to the other. It’s possible now that by sharing the edited maps between TomTom and Google maps it could create the most accurate road maps around. And Tele Atlas wouldn’t even need to do any additional research to create those maps.

As reported on SearchMobileComputing

Though Android won’t make its official debut for several more months, information concerning the details of the OS indicates that it will take advantage of many of Google’s online services. Android icons will most likely link back directly to Google services such as Google Maps and Gmail.

The release of the first smartphones running Android is still months away, so information on the Android operating system is still emerging.

Google is heading up the development, and the company’s director of mobile platforms Andy Rubin recently gave a demo of it to CNET.

This isn’t the first time Android has been demonstrated, but a few facts came to light that might not be widely known yet.

Not surprisingly, this operating system and bundled software will be strongly tied to Google’s online services. There will be client applications for Gmail, YouTube, and Google Maps, for a total of 20.

Android will definitely support multi-tasking, and Rubin said steps had been taken to ensure that applications running in the background won’t hog system resources, slowing down the foreground app.

A small icon of an exclamation point on the upper-left corner of the display will notify users that something has happened in the background that they need to be aware of, whether it’s a new email or a system error.

Some videos of Android in action are available in this earlier article.

What about hardware?
This demonstration was done on a device which was described as being similar in size and shape to the HTC TyTN II (a.k.a. the HTC Tilt). No pictures of this smartphone were allowed, but the description fits the HTC Dream, which will supposedly be the first Android-based device to hit the market.

The minimum hardware requirements for this operating system are a 200 MHz processor.

More about Android
The group behind this operating system is called the Open Handset Alliance, and it’s a collection of 30+ companies, including Intel, TI, Sprint, T-Mobile, HTC, Motorola, Samsung, and Wind River, but being led by Google.

Android will consist of a Linux-based operating system, middleware, and key mobile applications. Many of these are likely to tie into Google’s services, like Gmail and Google Maps.

Because this platform will be open source, the Alliance hopes it will be quickly extended to incorporate new technologies as they emerge.

In addition, it will be open to third-parties to create applications using Java.

The initial smartphones running Android are scheduled for release later this year. The first of these will be from HTC and will debut in the United States, but this will be followed up by devices from a variety of companies and wireless carriers a round the world.

As reported on CNN Money.

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Instant messaging, a tiny cog in the alliance between Google Inc. (GOOG) and Yahoo Inc. (YHOO), may turn out to be a large motor of growth in the long term and make the companies best friends forever.

While instant-messaging services don’t generate much revenue, they serve as guideposts directing users to various Internet portals. Google’s push to make Yahoo’s more popular Messenger work with its own lagging Google Talk demonstrates the importance placed on the feature. Instant messaging, or IM, is seen as playing a key role in the battle for eyeballs in the mobile arena - and possibly more so with Google’s mobile operating system Android.

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Posted by Maryam Kamvar, Software Engineer

We all know that typing on mobile phones can sometimes be a headache — especially if the phone in question has a small 9-key keypad. On those kinds of devices, we estimate that it takes an average of 40 seconds and 41 key presses to enter a query. When it comes to key presses, that’s more than double what it takes on other phones!

In an effort to help our mobile users, we studied the effect of incorporating a feature like Google Suggest on mobile phones with 9-key keypads. We found that these users respond favorably to query suggestions: Users who were shown suggestions while typing their query rated their overall enjoyment higher and perceived workload lower than users who were not shown suggestions. Users who were shown suggestions also reduced their overall key presses by half. Surprisingly, the time to enter a query for these users was not significantly less than the average time needed to enter queries for users who were not shown any suggestions.

You can find a more complete discussion of our results and findings in the PDF version of “Query Suggestions for Mobile Search: Understanding Usage Patterns.” It was presented at the CHI-2008 conference last month. Also, we’ve incorporated Google Suggest on Google’s iPhone interface, so try it out if you haven’t already!

[via Official Google Mobile Blog]

Posted by Chris Barton, Google Strategic Partner Development Team

Today we’re happy to announce that we’ll be working with Sprint to provide quick and easy access to Google search, Google Maps for mobile, YouTube, and other Google mobile services on Sprint’s new generation of consumer devices. Google will also be the default search provider on the Sprint portal, and Sprint will enable users to take advantage of location data for Google search and Google Maps for mobile on certain devices.

On some of Sprint’s upcoming devices, you’ll be able to get to the web with even greater ease with one-click access to Google search from your phone’s home screen. In the spirit of openness, you’ll be able to add, change, or delete your preferred search provider at any time. Also, having more location data available for Google Search and Maps will make it easier and faster for you to get directions and search results for nearby restaurants, shops, services, and more.

We’re always looking for ways to work with carriers, device manufacturers, software providers, and others to help you get the information and content you need, whenever and wherever you need it. To learn more about how Sprint and Google will be working together, take a look at our press release.

We also announced today our investment alongside Sprint, Comcast, Intel, Time Warner, and others in a new wireless broadband company, Clearwire. The company is developing a nationwide mobile WiMax network that will adopt open standards and policies that can ultimately make your mobile broadband experience more internet like. Read more on the Official Google Blog.

[via Official Google Mobile Blog]

Posted by Ulf Waschbusch, Product Marketing Manager, Google mobile team

Google fürs iPhone jetzt auch in deutsch! Et en français .. en in Nederlands and in many more languages. When we launched our new Google interface for the iPhone at Macworld in San Francisco last January, a number of you approached us at our booth and asked when you could use our new interface in your home country. (Yes, San Francisco IS a very cosmopolitan city.) I am happy to say: the time has come. Today we’re launching our new integrated Google experience for the iPhone and iPod Touch in 33 new markets and 16 new languages, from Argentina to New Zealand, from Swedish to Chinese.

Google on the iPhone is a great way to access your most used Google services. Some of its benefits include

• Fast and fluid search with one-tap access to News, image, local, or web results and search query suggestions when you start typing
• Automatic delivery of Gmail messages (no need to refresh your browser!), and auto-completion of email addresses when typing
• A combined month-and-current-day view of your always-in-sync Google Calendar, and the ability to share pictures with friends and family using Google Photos

Today we’re also launching a special Google News edition for the iPhone. Browse the front page or search for results straight from the home page. Enjoy the full catalog of Google News sources and even watch associated YouTube content.

To try out the new Google interface, just point your iPhone or iPod Touch web browser to www.google.com.

Furthermore, if you use Google Apps - now is the time to use your domain name on the iPhone as well. Just bookmark http://www.google.com/m/a/YOURDOMAIN for fast one-click access to Google. Please make sure to replace YOURDOMAIN with your actual domain name.

[via Official Google Mobile Blog]

Posted by Alexandra Kenin, Product Marketing Manager, mobile ads Google

Last week we launched our new mobile image ads, which give mobile web publishers the flexibility to display image ads in addition to text ads on their sites. As of today, AdSense for mobile content publishers who have configured their sites to display mobile image ads can now have ads served to their sites from DoubleClick Mobile. This means more advertisers for AdSense for mobile content publishers, more inventory for DoubleClick Mobile advertisers, and more ad relevance for browsers of the mobile web.

[via Official Google Mobile Blog]

Posted by Alexandra Kenin, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads Google

The mobile ads team is happy to announce the launch of mobile image ads. These look like standard image ads for desktop web pages but they are smaller to fit on mobile screens and they run on the mobile content network. Take a look at the mobile image ads example page to see samples. Also, watch the video below to see my interview with Sanjay Agarwal, a mobile ads engineer, and his demo. Note that all mobile image ads are keyword-targeted, are priced on a cost-per-click basis, and must link to a mobile web page.

For advertisers, mobile image ads serve as a branding tool and have shown to have good clickthrough rates. Advertisers using mobile image ads will also benefit because we only show one image ad per mobile page. For publishers, mobile image ads provide added flexibility. They can now choose to show text ads, image ads, or a mix of both and Google will dynamically return the ad that we expect will perform best at the time the ad is shown. Publishers who are already using AdSense for mobile content just need to update their AdSense code to start displaying mobile ads on their site.

For those of you who are mobile web surfers, mobile image ads provide a new way to interact with mobile content. Contextual targeting keeps ads relevant, and with only one mobile image ad shown per page, you can uninhibitedly browse mobile websites while clicking only on the ads that interest you.

Mobile image ads are currently available in Australia, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, the UK, and the US. As always, leave questions and comments below or on our YouTube channel.

[via Official Google Mobile Blog]

Another “You Better Know Your Mobile” series by the guys over at the Official Google Mobile Blog.

Posted by Chris Nguyen and Tom Dimopoulos, Mobile Product Specialists, Google mobile team

Have we mentioned that we like doing things faster? In the spirit of speed and helping you to Better Know Your Mobile, the next couple of videos in our series will show you how to use all the great features, and even open Maps for mobile at the push of a button.

Last time we explained how to get My Location [0] and Traffic [7] with the help of some of your phone’s shortcut keys. We’ve got a new video that shows all the most common numeric shortcut keys in one place. And you may have seen Steve and Mark’s duel video setting “convenience keys” for speedy access to your favorite apps on BlackBerry, Blackjack, and Nokia N95 devices. Now we’ve added a shorter video about the convenience key settings on BlackBerry devices. Time to stop fishing around in menus and start impressing your friends with fast-as-lightning mapping!

As always, we’d love to get your ideas for more features you’d like to learn about, so give us a shout on the blog or video comments. To see all our videos in one place, check out the Google Mobile Help channel. You can always subscribe to it to get the latest videos on using Google Mobile.

[via Official Google Mobile Blog]

Posted by Hazel Mary, Software Engineer at Google

Have you ever wanted to check if your buddy responded to your scrap about this evening’s plans, but not been close to a computer? Do you wish you could pass the time on your long commute home by browsing through your friends’ profiles?

Fret no more — if you have a web-enabled phone and a data plan, just point your mobile web browser to m.orkut.com, and stay connected to your friends anytime, anywhere.

We understand that often your phone’s data network isn’t as fast as your computer’s, so in designing orkut for mobile we focused on offering the features that are most useful when you’re on the move, instead of replicating all the desktop features. For example, we’ve made it easy to send, receive, and respond to scraps on our mobile interface so that you can step away from your computer and have conversations on the go. From your phone, simply click the new “Reply” link to respond directly to a scrap from your friend. You can also read recent updates from your friends, view upcoming birthdays, look up and add friends, and accept friend requests.

After you try out orkut for mobile, we’d love to hear what you think. From the m.orkut.com homepage, click on the “help” link at the bottom of the screen to send us your feedback.

Happy mobile orkuting!

[via Official Google Mobile Blog]