Man Raises Money to Send Android Phone to Space

A total of 66 backers have pledged over $2,000 to help send the first Android phone to space.

The Astdroid project hails from Danny Pier, a 25 year-old self-described computer nerd who turned to Kickstarter to raise funds to get an Android smartphone into space.

Pier believes that he can outfit a weather ballon with an HTC Evo, and use its camera, transmitter, computing power and GPS technology to track the phone’s journey into space.

Funds will be allocated to finance the expenses of the weather balloons, recovery parachutes, helium and other supplies. Pier will also write an application for the device that will take photos and videos of the journey, as well as automatically transmit the device’s location for tracking purposes.

Pier’s ultimate goal is to prove that it’s not difficult to send a smartphone in to space, capture the journey and retrieve it once it returns to Earth. He will document his successes and failures along the way using social media. Pier hopes his endeavors will encourage others to follow his lead.

Score another win for innovation at the hands of Kickstarter’s alternative fundraising application.

Google announces Google App Inventor, a simple-to-use DIY app maker.

Today Google announced a simple-to-use DIY app maker called Google App Inventor.

Google App Inventor brings Android development to non-programmers, employing a design scheme that relies on visual blocks rather than writing pages of code, the App Inventor -- In true Google style, still in Beta, of course -- has functions for just about anything you can do with an Android handset, including access to GPS and phone functionality.

I can imagine this would be fantastic in classrooms.

more information here: http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/
complete this form to apply for access: https://services.google.com/fb/forms/appinventorinterest/

.. from Android for Beginners

Google Looks to Emerging Markets for Android's Growth

Google plans to push its Android mobile software in India and China and is exploring ways for developers to make more money from applications, stepping up competition with Apple and Nokia.

To attract programmers to its Android operating system, Google may offer tools that help them sell subscriptions, virtual goods and other items from within applications on mobile phones, Andy Rubin, vice president for engineering at Google, said during an interview.

The company also aims to put its Android system on lower-priced phones made by Huawei and LG in parts of Asia and Europe, where it is taking on Nokia, the mobile market leader.

“The down-market opportunity is about to happen,” Mr. Rubin said. “It’s actually quite a revolution.”

Google is trying to get more of its software on mobile devices, opening up new opportunities to sell advertising, its main source of revenue. The total mobile ad market will grow to $13.5 billion in 2013, from less than $1 billion last year, according to the research firm Gartner.

Google lags behind Apple in mobile applications, which are a growing platform for ads and are helping to breed customer loyalty to devices. Android users have about 65,000 applications available, fewer than a third as many as Apple, which has more than 200,000.

Google is taking steps to hasten Android’s growth. By increasing its presence in new markets like South Korea, Google managed to drive up the number of users who activated Android devices to 160,000 a day in June, from 100,000 in May, the company said. The majority of the sales of Android-based phones were in the United States.

Gartner predicts that Android will pass Apple’s iOS system by 2012 to become the world’s second-most-popular mobile operating system behind Nokia’s Symbian.

Among the incentives for application developers, Mr. Rubin said, are making it easier to accept payments within the applications themselves or to sell subscriptions.

Most Android developers still make money from placing ads within their applications or from one-time fees. That makes it harder for them to earn as much as their Apple counterparts. Of the $4.4 billion that consumers will spend on application downloads this year, Apple’s App Store will receive at least 77 percent of the revenue, according to Futuresource Consulting in Dunstable, England. The Android Market application store will collect 9 percent.

While businesses like eBay’s PayPal already allow payments to be made within their Android applications, dealing with multiple companies increases the complexity, Mr. Rubin said. Since starting its in-application payments tool May 19, PayPal has been downloaded by more than 1,000 developers, said Osama Bedier, a vice president at PayPal. Most of the developers came from China.

In connection with efforts described by Mr. Rubin involving Huawei, a Chinese maker of wireless equipment, and LG of South Korea, Huawei released four Android phones and an Android-based tablet device in February.

Getting more of Google’s software on phones in China has the potential to increase ad revenue to help offset sales Google might lose if the Chinese government refuses to renew the company’s license to operate its Internet search engine there.

Smaller Chinese manufacturers, which account for about 10 percent of the global supply of mobile phones, are also adopting Android, seeking to gain market share with lower-priced devices.

Many pin their hopes on MediaTek of Taiwan, which supplies chips for lowcost phones sold in Asia, Africa and South America. The company has joined the Open Handset Alliance, the group that promotes Android, Google said. Devices based on MediaTek may cost carriers as little as $70 each, said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Gartner.

Today, the least expensive Android phones cost carriers about $200, while low-cost Symbian devices run to about $170, she said.

As more lower-priced phones reach the market, more carriers will offer the devices to consumers free.

That approach will help position Android against Nokia. While Nokia controls only a fraction of the U.S. market, it is the leading phone maker globally.

“As Android develops, the main vendor who is going to feel the pressure is Nokia,” Ms. Milanesi said.

In the first quarter, more than 41 percent of smartphones shipped worldwide were powered by Symbian. Almost 16 percent used Apple’s operating system and 10 percent ran Android, according to ABI Research, a consulting firm based in New York.

Google's 'superphone' launches in Australia

Google's much hyped Nexus One 'superphone' finally went on sale in Australia today with Vodafone Hutchison Australia snapping up the exclusive online rights to sell the handset.

The Nexus One will be available on a “first-come, first-served” exclusively through VHA's website for $0 on a $79 cap over 24 months.

The Nexus One is a Google-branded handset created in partnership with Taiwanese manufacturer HTC to showcase the Android eco-system, but its release has been overshadowed by flood of other high performance Android phones such as the HTC Desire.

Google closed down its US online store in May created especially for the smartphone after failing to market the device via the web, leaving analysts and technology bloggers questioning whether this might signal the end of the Nexus One.

In spite of this, Google last week released figures that revealed its Android operating system was winning ground from the likes Apple and Microsoft, with 160,000 new Android handsets being activated every day around the world, and over 65,000 apps now available to download from its market.

The Nexus One runs on version 2.1 of Android which is voice enabled and includes Google maps, interactive wallpapers, and enhanced social networking switching capabilities.


The handset is also expected to be the first phone to get the Android 2.2 (Froyo) update when it is launched.

VHA also announced today it would increase monthly mobile data allowance across most of its Vodafone and 3 contract plans with “anywhere from double to ten times the current data allocation, depending on the plan,” it said.

“It's great to be delivering even more value at a time when prices continue to rise on most other everyday items,” said John Casey, director of marketing.

Coinciding the with VHA announcement, Telstra cut the price of caps on its HTC Desire to $49 and $79, and increased the download limits to 200MB and 500MB respectively.