The9 and OpenFeint Look to Boost Android Gaming

OpenFeint has been pushing to boost game development on the Android platform for quite a while, and has got a nice assortment of games that they’ve developed themselves. However, they’re looking to help taking Android gaming even farther, but partnering up with Chinese developer The9 to promote Android game development by funding developers transitioning to the Android platform.

Obviously, developing games for Android is a smart business move. Android has the largest portion of the smartphone marketshare, and it has been proven as a profitable platform to develop for. However, that doesn’t mean it’s easy for any company that already has games on iOS to just rebuild it to run on Android OS. It takes time, and it takes resources — resources that a lot of the smaller dev studios just don’t have.
Enter OpenFeint and The9. OpenFeint’s social gaming platform gives them a reason to want to help developers: To get more games in their network. Couple this with The9’s “Fund9″ program to invest $100 million in internet projects, and you have an awesome support system for independent devs who might be considering porting their existing projects.
OpenFeint and The9 will choose which projects to fund based on the strength of the developer, the quality of the app, and its success in other app markets. They are scouring the Apple App store to find the best candidates. Eros Resimi, marketing VP for Open Feint, stated that “There’s a treasure trove of great games on iOS waiting for the rest of the world to discover…This fund will help make that possible for indie game developers.”
While they are actively seeking projects out, developers can also submit a request for consideration by sending an email to androidfund@openfeint.com. (We’re looking at YOU, Tiny Wings developer Andreas Illiger!) With a project like this in the works, the Android gaming landscape is about to change, drastically.

Who's winning the smartphone race?

Viewed by operating system, Google's (GOOG) Android appears to be pulling ahead in the U.S. smartphone race, with a 29% share of sales over the past two months compared with Research in Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry and Apple's (AAPL) iOS -- neck and neck with 27% each.

But from the manufacturers' point of view, the race looks very different:

"An analysis by manufacturer shows RIM and Apple to be the winners compared to other device makers since they are the only ones creating and selling smartphones with their respective operating systems."

Android growth will double competition in 2011

In a report today, Canalys remained rosy on Google's (GOOG) Android. According to its Q3 2010 estimates, the Google-backed platform already claims 25% of the worldwide smart phone market. Those numbers are expected to grow significantly in 2011.

"The growth of Android has been phenomenal, but so too has the number of related devices launched with different hardware and software specifications," said Canalys principal analyst Chris Jones. "This has led to the market perception of it as a fragmented platform, though we believe that growth will continue as the pace of Android OS upgrades slows."

According to Canalys, vendors working on Android have taken advantage of the open source platform to push prices down and bring smart phones to the mass market. As a result, Android shipments grew more than 1,000% through the first three quarters of 2010 over the same period in 2009.

Hardware manufacturers are cutting prices, which means that a lot more people on feature phones with cheap plans will be able to make the leap to smartphones without incurring many additional charges.

Google is approaching a quarter million Android activations a day..!!!

In an excellent story on the Android Invasion, Newsweek's Dan Lyons get's some new activation numbers from Android Chief, Andy Rubin. Rubin says that Google has recently passed the 250,000 activations/day mark, though only once, yet the numbers continue to rise overall.That rate is 1 million every four days, just under 8 million a month and close to 100 million activations/year. Will Google have sold 100 million more Android handsets by this time next year? It seems pretty likely.

Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt announced that they were activating 200,000 devices/day just two months ago at the Techonomy conference in Aspen. That's up from 100,000/day in May at Google I/O and 160,000/day announced at Google's June earnings conference.

The numbers have even baffled rival CEOs like Apple's (AAPL) Steve Jobs. Jobs said there must be something wrong with the numbers at a recent Apple event, "we think our friends are counting upgrades". At the same time, he announced Apple was activating 230,000 iOS devices/day. Google retorted saying, "The Android activation numbers do not include upgrades and are, in fact, only a portion of the Android devices in the market since we only include devices that have Google services."

T-Mobile opens orders for pure Android experience

Everyone hate those skins that manufacturers put on top of Android to try to differentiate their product. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer phones are coming out without some sort of manufacturer overlay to dilute that experience.
Thankfully, T-Mobile, the carrier that originally took a chance with Android, offering the G1 almost two years ago, is now offering the follow-up to that phone, the G2, for pre-order today and delivery by the first week in October. As you can see (right), it is stock Android 2.2, pure and simple. For those customers who bought the G1 at launch in October 2008, the G2 will make for a natural upgrade. Off topic:, it is hard to believe Android isn't yet two years old.The bigger question is: Why does Google (GOOG) allow manufacturers to muck up Android with their overlays without bringing much improvement with them? Danny Sullivan talked to Google CEO Eric Schmidt about just that very topic.
Schmidt's answer: Google's interpretation of Open Source requires them to let carriers/manufacturers do whatever they want with the Android OS as long as it doesn't alter the experience to a certain level. With Bing all over the Verizon Fascinate and alternative Android Markets planned, you have to wonder where that line is drawn. At the same time Schmidt mentioned that Android was selling like crazy and that the market would force the carriers to give people what they want -- if a pure Android experience was in fact, what customers were after.

L&T Infotech Joins Open Handset Alliance (OHA)

L&T Infotech, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the USD 9.8 Billion Larsen & Toubro, announced here today that it has joined the Open Handset Alliance™ (OHA). The OHA has developed Android™, the first open and free Mobile Platform. OHA is a partnership of more than 65 global mobile industry leaders who have come together to accelerate innovation in mobile technology and to offer consumers a unique, simplified, less expensive and better mobile experience. L&T Infotech is a leading provider of IT & engineering services offerings, solutions and Intellectual Property components in the Telecom Domain. L&T Infotech provides services to handset OEMs, ODMs, telecom service providers and platform vendors. L&T Infotech‟s services portfolio includes platform & application development; middleware solutions; device testing and support services.
L&T Infotech‟s expertise on various Android releases has been instrumental in
assisting handset OEMs to launch their Android-based devices in a short span of time.
L&T Infotech has also demonstrated solutions on various convergent and
entertainment devices, enabling proliferation of Android into multiple device
segments. L&T Infotech will strongly advocate for the Android Platform to become
the platform of choice for the enterprise segment in their mobility strategy, by
developing value adding enterprise solutions. “We are very excited to join the OHA. We have a very strong engineering team that adds value to our clients in the Telecom domain on a continuous basis. By joining OHA, we will continue to demonstrate our focus and commitment towards the Android platform.” said Mr. Sudip Banerjee, Chief Executive Officer of L&T Infotech.

Android Netbook

Android Market

Android Market is an online software store developed by Google for Android devices. An app called Market is preinstalled on some Android devices and allows users to browse and download applications published by third-party developers, hosted on Android Market. The website itself, rather than the Market app, only provides details of a very limited subset of available apps in terms of those that are termed Featured, Top Paid and Top Free.

               By the end of March 2010, there were over 40,000 applications available for download in the Android Market. Recent months (in 2010) have shown a growth rate of approximately 8,000 additional applications per month

What is Android?

Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications. The Android SDK provides the tools and APIs necessary to begin developing applications on the Android platform using the Java programming language.

Open Access
Android was built from the ground-up to enable developers to create compelling mobile applications that take full advantage of all a handset has to offer. It was built to be truly open. For example, an application can call upon any of the phone's core functionality such as making calls, sending text messages, or using the camera, allowing developers to create richer and more cohesive experiences for users. Android is built on the open Linux Kernel. Furthermore, it utilizes a custom virtual machine that was designed to optimize memory and hardware resources in a mobile environment. Android is open source; it can be liberally extended to incorporate new cutting edge technologies as they emerge.

All applications are created equal
Android does not differentiate between the phone's core applications and third-party applications. They can all be built to have equal access to a phone's capabilities providing users with a broad spectrum of applications and services. With devices built on the Android Platform, users are able to fully tailor the phone to their interests. They can swap out the phone's homescreen, the style of the dialer, or any of the applications. They can even instruct their phones to use their favorite photo viewing application to handle the viewing of all photos.

Breaking down application boundaries
Android breaks down the barriers to building new and innovative applications. For example, a developer can combine information from the web with data on an individual's mobile phone -- such as the user's contacts, calendar, or geographic location -- to provide a more relevant user experience. With Android, a developer can build an application that enables users to view the location of their friends and be alerted when they are in the vicinity giving them a chance to connect.

Fast & easy application development
Android provides access to a wide range of useful libraries and tools that can be used to build rich applications. For example, Android enables developers to obtain the location of the device, and allows devices to communicate with one another enabling rich peer-to-peer social applications. In addition, Android includes a full set of tools that have been built from the ground up alongside the platform providing developers with high productivity and deep insight into their applications.

Architecture Of Android

The Android software stack is composed of the elements such as Linux kernel and a collection of C/C++ libraries are exposed through an application framework that provides services for, and management of, the run time and applications.

Linux Kernel : Core services (including hardware drivers, process and memory management,security, network, and power management) are handled by a Linux 2.6 kernel. The kernel also provides an abstraction layer between the hardware and the remainder of the stack.

Libraries : Running on top of the kernel, Android includes various C/C++ core libraries such as libc and SSL, as well as:
* A media library for playback of audio and video media
* A Surface manager to provide display management
* Graphics libraries that include SGL and OpenGL for 2D and 3D graphics
* SQLite for native database support
* SSL and WebKit for integrated web browser and Internet security

Android Run Time : What makes an Android phone an Android phone rather than a mobile Linux implementation is the Android run time. Including the core libraries and the Dalvik virtual machine, the Android run time is the engine that powers your applications and, along with the libraries, forms the basis for the application framework.
* Core Libraries While Android development is done in Java, Dalvik is not a Java VM. The core Android libraries provide most of the functionality available in the core Java libraries as well as the Android-specific libraries.
* Dalvik Virtual Machine Dalvik is a register-based virtual machine that’s been optimized to ensure that a device can run multiple instances effi ciently. It relies on the Linux kernel for threading and low-level memory management.

Application Framework :The application framework provides the classes used to create Android applications. It also provides a generic abstraction for hardware access and manages the user interface and application resources.

Application Layer : All applications, both native and third party, are built on the application layer using the same API libraries. The application layer runs within the Android