Google Unveils "Android" Mobile Platform

Google (News - Alert) officials today unveiled widely anticipated touch and user interface features for the company’s mobile platform, according to news reports.

 

The so-called “Android (News - Alert)” software’s unveiling, made at the Internet giant’s annual “Google I/O” developers’ conference in San Francisco, included a demonstration of a phone using the new application.

The device’s touch-screen display included a number of colorful icons that launched Web programs such as g-mail, or could notify a user of imminent appointments, reminders, notes and unread e-mail.

 

Google’s director of mobile platforms, Andy Rubin – founder of Android, which Google bought three years ago – said some of the software’s features were shown for the first time at the conference.

 

Rubin emphasized that the Android software – widely seen as the lynchpin of the Google’s so-called “Open Handset Alliance (News - Alert),” a consortium of hardware, software and telecom companies that’s working on an open source mobile platform for developers – is secure.

 

“Many of the devices used today are based on 20-year-old platforms, when security wasn’t really thought about,” Rubin said, according to reports. “Starting from a clean slate has its advantages. This is a platform that will let the carriers to more innovative things.”

 

The software will be available later this year, Rubin said.

 

Once that’s done, the alliance will make it available to different mobile devices, with the aim of creating a single, unified way to distribute mobile applications.

 

According to reports, Rubin’s demonstration revealed how the new features are built around touch-screen technology. With a flick of his finger, Rubin moved between Web pages.

 

That demo also showed one glaring way that the Android software is aiming to create something different from rival Apple’s (News - Alert) iPhone: The Android application produces a single, not multi-touch interface.

 

Google officials used a touchscreen to show Android’s applications, but said the software is flexible enough to work with input devices such as trackballs, according to reports.

 

Google demonstrated a launcher for applications that was similar to a desktop, that allowed users to place their an icon on the screen for quick launching. Google also showed conference-goers a Pacman game, as well as more common applications like Google Maps.

 

 

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