Android - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

• Android devices can be managed remotely with new app

  Rsupport this week launched a new application that will let IT departments remotely support and manage their users' Android-based devices.

• Judge in Oracle-Google Android lawsuit gets a lesson in Java

  Lawyers for Oracle and Google gave the judge overseeing their Java patent dispute a tutorial on Wednesday that underscored the complexity of the case between the two companies.

• Android battery: How to make your Google phone last longer

  Google Android smartphones excel in many areas; a wide variety of quality hardware options; slick software interfaces; valuable and entertaining applications; endless customization possibilities; etc.

• Google building fiber network in Sprint's backyard

  Sprint and Google are apparently going to be working close by each other in addition to more closely together.

• Windows Phone 7 to surpass iPhone, BlackBerry sales by 2015, IDC predicts

  The early days of Windows Phone 7 have been all about positive reviews, not much market share, and a botched update that caused some phones to stop working.

• Aussies prefer BlackBerry over iPhone, Android

  A worldwide survey into mobile platforms has confirmed what many CIOs and IT managers already knew: Apple's iPhone leads the way when it comes to consumer loyalty, but it faces stiff competition from Android.

• Three Ways Royal Caribbean Has Embraced Mobile

  Consumer devices continue to stream into the office, whether CIOs have sanctioned them or not. Managing a mix of devices can pose challenges in application development, security and maintenance. For Bill Martin, CIO of Royal Caribbean Cruises, providing access to various mobile tools has benefits for customer service that are worth the added effort.

• How Apple played hard to get and seduced the enterprise

  Active Interest Media, which publishes magazines like American Cowboy, Black Belt and Vegetarian Times, always had a somewhat liberal "bring your own device" policy for employees.

• BlackBerry PlayBook to run Android apps: What it means

  BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion (RIM) this week dropped a bombshell on the mobile world, confirming earlier rumors that almost seemed too far-fetched to believe when they hit the Web in January: RIM's new BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, going on sale in the United States on April 19, will run applications originally developed for Google's popular Android mobile OS.

• Opinion: Why Microsoft declared war on Google over Android

  Is Microsoft trying to kill Google's Android OS by blasting lawsuits at device sellers like Barnes & Noble and device makers like Foxconn and Inventec? I don't think so. The software giant is more likely trying to make a buck through licensing deals. That's not to say winning business at gunpoint is a tactic I admire, but that's very different than assuming that Redmond sees Android as a deadly threat and wants to fit it with a pair of cement shoes.
  However, Android is in deep legal trouble. This week's suit against the Nook crowd is just one of 37 — count 'em — Android-related lawsuits filed during the operating system's short life, according to open source activist and patent watcher Florian Mueller.
  Why so many? "It's a combination of Google's arrogant and reckless approach to other companies' intellectual property rights, Google's gambling at the expense of its partners who bear the brunt of this, and the weakness of Google's own patent portfolio, which is small and not sufficiently diversified to solve Android's [intellectual property] problems with cross-licences," Mueller says.
  Watching patent suits generally matches paint-drying festivals for excitement, but this bunch is different. It touches on the biggest names in techdom, including Apple, Oracle, Microsoft, Google, and Motorola; it exposes yet another flaw in the Google/Android business model; and it shows once again how badly the US patent system is broken.
  Why Microsoft went to war

• iPhone, Android, Windows and Linux: Microsoft now manages them all

  Microsoft hates when customers buy products that weren't built in Redmond, but Steve Ballmer and crew aren't going to miss a moneymaking opportunity, even if that means managing iPhones, iPads, Androids and, yes, even Linux computers.

• Microsoft sues book retailer over Android

  Microsoft has filed a patent lawsuit against bookseller Barnes & Noble, accusing the company of running infringing software on its Android-based Nook e-reader.

• Verizon's LTE network delivers the goods in 4G walking tour of Boston

  Since Verizon released its first <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/060710-tech-argument-lte-wimax.html?ap1=rcb">LTE</a> phone this week -- and since it's a lovely day out -- I decided to spend my morning strolling through Downtown Crossing in Boston and testing out self-proclaimed "<a href="http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/031511-4g-breakdown.html">4G</a>" <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/slideshows/2010/061510-smartphone-history.html">smartphones</a>.

• Google Android thumps Apple iPhone in page load speed

  Android hasn't just surpassed Apple's iPhone in terms of total device sales, but in Web page load time as well.

• Android violates Linux licence, experts claim

  The Android mobile operating system's usage of the Linux kernel may violate open source licensing with a misappropriation of Linux code that could bring about the &quot;collapse of the Android ecosystem&quot;, some intellectual property experts are charging.