I am sure you guys have already noticed the Indian government’s plan to launch a $35 tablet PC for students. They are planning to bring it down to $10 in near future. Many of the big gadget websites have covered it.
Is this tablet running on Android Operating system by Google ? Or a modified version of it ? Okay, lets check out two screenshots.
First Screenshot is from a random Android phone. Search android UI in Google and you will find many of them.
Now, let us see how a screen capture from a video report on a National channel about our Indian tablet, ( wish it had a name !! ).
Click on the image above, to view full size. I’ve added the original video also, in case you don’t believe this .. So now you tell me, Is Indian government’s new Tablet PC running Android ? Did they announce on the press meet ?
I have been reading about the phone a lot these days, and all those android blogs I am following is filled with Nexus one news pictures and videos these days.
What is the latest News ?
Well, the latest info is the greatest. Google has invited press persons for an “Android Event” on January 5th, 2010. We have strong reasons to believe that they will be announcing the phone during this event.
Now, the basics for a Newbie.
Wondering what this google phone is ? Let me give you a brief introduction, and all the basic info you need to have, about Google’s new venture.
Why is it called the Google Phone ? : It runs Android, an open source mobile operating system developed by Google. Hardware built by HTC, but sold and supported by Google. Yes, Google is going to sell this phone directly !
Specs of Google Nexus One
Android 2.1
11.5mm thick
512MB RAM,
512M B ROM,
4GB microSD in-box expandable to 32GB
5 megapixel camera with mechanical AF and LED flash
3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED display
Sounds good ? Nexus one is going to be one powerful plus beautiful device, and with google supporting it and selling it ( price subsidies, may be ? ), there seems to be a good future for this phone. Apple, iPhone .. watch out !
A few Google Employees were lucky enough to get this device few weeks back, as part of a test run. Google had confirmed this news through a blog post and that’s from where all these pictures of the device come from.
For more pictures, news and videos, click here and also, subscribe to the RSS feed here, and you will get more updates from me too !
We waited for Android to come to Netbooks and Laptops, and then Google said, wait it’sChrome OS Tips, and we got confused, now, allow me to confuse you more, with Live Android, a project hosted on Google Code website, providing you live iso file for android.
You can download a normal live iso image file for android to use on your laptop or netbook. Burn it on a cd, ( DvD won’t work ), insert cd to the cd drive, and reboot the computer/laptop, and you will have it ready to test, without making any change to your system.
Creating a Live USB for Live Android
You can contact them on twitter, if you need help. I did get help through twitter, really fast. I was trying to create a Live USB using the iso file, but they said, its not ready for using on USB drives.
So, netbook users ( most of those netbooks come without a cd drive ) you may need to wait until version 3.0. The current version has some problem with usb file creator. When it’s ready, you can use this program to create a Live USB.
Me ?
I have downloaded the file, but I couldn’t burn the cd correctly, so, I need some more time to test this. Will update you all once I get this to work on my laptop … stay tuned .. you know what is RSS feed right ?
Surprise !! you can now download Android Live ISO file, and test your skills on android OS ! Download it from this page. I will try this cd and let you all know about how it works ! Stay tuned !! and yes, you can follow them on twitter here
I know this is too much to ask for now, but, still I am really interested to learn this. Installing Android on netbook/laptop that is.
It may take some more time before we actually see Android on Netbooks, and Laptops etc. But, there are some news here and there about people installing Android on their netbooks and nokia phones etc. I am still searching for an article that explains how to do this. ( if you guys know something of that kind, please leave a comment here )
I find tutorials on how to install Google Android SDK ( well it works only on Linux, or Apple’s OSX as of now !! ) but no luck on finding something about installing Android OS itself.
The answer is yes. There are reasons to believe so. Google’s Android is not just a mobile phone operating system. In future, you can expect Andriod being developed as a Desktop Operating system based on Linux. So, next time when you see the question ” Is Google Creating an Operating system”, say “YES” ( poor Microsoft .. first they lost the web to Google, and this time, their Desktop is in Danger ).