Google's Android overview. (Source: Google)
Android Developer Challenge offers phone programmers a chance at big bucks
For only having been announced one week ago, the Google Android handset operating system from Google and the Open Handset Alliance has been generating a lot of fevered press statements, blog postings and dreams for developers and consumers. Google has now made the Android SDK available for download for -- you guessed it -- free.
Android applications are written in Java and run on a specialized virtual machine, which then runs on a Linux 2.6 kernel. Rather than using the GPL license, Android is currently licensed under the Apache v2 open-source license, which allows for innovations and features to be kept proprietary.
Supporting Windows, Intel Macs and i386-based Linux OSes, the Android SDK not only gives developers a chance to familiarize themselves with the environment before the first handsets are launched in the second half of 2008, but it also gives them a chance to collect their share of $10 million in prizes in the first Android Developer Challenge.
The first challenge will take place between January 2nd and March 3rd, 2008, with the fifty most promising entries each receiving $25,000 "to fund further development" and a shot at one of ten prizes of $275,000 or one of ten $100,000 prizes.
A slide from the Android presentation materials shown here makes it very clear that Google isn't interested in playing second fiddle to Apple, Nokia, or Microsoft -- with media playback, OpenGL ES, an ultra-light SQL database library included in the OS, and a mantra of "All applications are created equal" Google seems primed to make more than a small entrance into the mobile market later next year.
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