Google Phone

Having gone to Barcelona more than a little ambivalent about Android, Vincent ended up pretty impressed by the state of Google’s mobile OS (you can read all our coverage here); from what he saw, the software and hardware partners Google has managed to bring on board are doing a pretty good job of turning what could be just another Linux cellphone distro into something capable of threatening Symbian and Windows Mobile. It looks like the BBC’s Darren Waters feels much the same way after meeting with Android developer Andy Rubin (and shooting the video you can see after the cut); despite demonstrating an alpha version of the software stack, the handset Rubin brought was still capable of browsing the full internet, smoothly showing Google Maps and even the hitherto desktop-only Street View location-image app.

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Google has released a new version of the Android SDK, m5-rc14, making significant GUI and API changes that, in many cases, have been prompted by developer feedback. Layout animations have now been included, making transitions within and between apps smoother, a greater number of audio codecs are supported (including Ogg Vorbis and MIDI) and there’s a geocoding process that streamlines location searches in the mapping software.

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Inputting data into a handheld device - and extracting data in a meaningful, easily interpreted way - is a hurdle that, although seemingly low-level, presents a real problem for developers looking to produce data-rich applications.  In Japan, the QR barcode system has been implemented with some degree of success, using matrix codes that can store address or URLs revealed by ’scanning’ them with a cellphone’s camera; Android developer Tom Gibara has created what could possibly be the next level of matrix coding - a system he calls Moseycode - which not only uses matrices to input data but can then overlay the visual output in real-time on the cellphone’s screen.

As the video (after the cut) shows, the Android software can recognise a 2D barcode glyph and then, according to its physical orientation, display varying information overlaid onto the glyph itself or, as in the second video, near to the glyph.  In this early demo, running on the Android SDK platform rather than as a mockup, the Moseycode tracks the four categories (author, location, status and comments) and can be zoomed in/out by moving the matrix code closer to or further from the cellphone’s camera.

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One platform, a predicted mass of devices built on it; that’s the future of Android as Google and the Open Handset Alliance would have us believe.  Yet Nikita Ivanov envisages another application, turning the collective deployment of handsets running the open-source platform into an interconnected grid capable of worldwide peer-to-peer processing.  Ivanov works as part of the GridGain project, developing a free, open-source Java-based grid computing technology that can offset CPU-heavy tasks between multiple workstations (or cellphones) operating concurrently, and they’re now looking at how they can leverage Android’s unified APIs to facilitate an ad-hoc swarm grid between handsets.

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Perhaps most developers won’t be so lucky as to get to test their software on Google’s Android prototypes, but the open-source nature of the platform means options aren’t limited to official reference handsets.  Bug Labs, who manufacture an “open source, web-enabled, modular software and hardware platform” called BUG, have announced that their segmented device will be compatible with the Android platform and as such could be used as a way to prototype and test new software for the upcoming gPhone market.

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If you’re going to pull in 30+ companies and unite them under your OHA banner, you need a swish demo handset to first wow them; according to Forbes, the device that did all that coercing is called the Dream and it’s a custom design from HTC for Google’s demo stable.  Rumor has it, though, that HTC are considering a commercial version of the cellphone for release in the second half of 2008, with CEO Peter Chou (somewhat narcissistically) calling the concept “the best one we’ve seen.”

Similar in appearance to the iPhone, while no images of the Dream exist outside of Google and HTC’s corridors it’s apparently a side-swivelling, thin device approximately 3-inches wide and 5-inches long with a rectangular touchscreen.  Screen orientation flips from portrait to horizontal when you open the full QWERTY keyboard out, and they’ve added interesting time-sensitive functionality to the UI so that when you hold your finger down the area you’re selecting expands.  That could open up a palette of context-sensitive tools, or simply make navigation with a blunt fingertip more precise.

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Suggestions that HTC have one or more Android-based Google cellphones already waiting in the wings have been percolating for months now, and so Google-Phone’s Vincent Nguyen spoke to the handset manufacturer to see just what affect the open-source OS might have on their range.  Key among HTC’s concerns was that Windows Mobile - the OS that currently powers the majority of handsets available either under their own name or with operator branding - has not been ousted by Android.  Instead, models based upon both platforms will be available, and while we couldn’t get HTC to elaborate on specific details for their Android model(s) they confirmed that it would be a heavily data-centric device designed to fully leverage Google’s suite of web-enabled applications.

Further indication of future Android cellphone development comes from the presence of Synaptics, cryptically listed in the Open Handset Alliance member directory as supplying ”a variety of user input solutions for mobile devices”.  Our sister-site, SlashGear, scored an exclusive hands-on late last year with one of Synaptics concept devices, the Onyx, which at the time was rumoured to form the basis of Apple’s iPhone.  Instead, Apple went with a relatively home-grown model and Synaptics licenced their multiple-touch-sensitive capacitive display to rivals such as LG for use in their Prada cellphone and, more recently, in Samsung’s F700 “Croix”.

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