Stephen Shankland
Google demonstrated its Android mobile phone software on Wednesday at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco. The project, under development by Google and a number of partners in the Open Handset Alliance, is due to ship as open-source software when the first Android phones go on sale later this year. This is a view of the home screen, demonstrated by Steve Horowitz, Android's engineering director.
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Android has a central notification area where users can see incoming email, calendar reminders and missed calls. The notification service is available through a single button click on the phone's touchscreen.
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Google Maps' Street View works on Android. And using the compass built into Horowitz's phone, the view would change according to his orientation, panning left or right as he turned around.
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A swipe of the finger moves from the home screen to this view, which shows a movable click. Here, Horowitz holds his finger on the screen to set up a shortcut link.
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The 'create shortcut' function provides a variety of choices. Clicking one produces a small icon on the Android home screen.
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An Android screen with two shortcuts: one for the New York Times Web page, and another for the contact information for a person in the Android contact list.
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Android phones come with a gesture-based authentication system. You have to connect the dots in the correct order.
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A view of Gmail running on the Android phone.
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What would an Android phone be without Google search? Google is working aggressively on building infrastructure to sell ads on mobile phones, including those using Android.
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Android has a built-in zoom function that lets users magnify a part of a Web page for easier reading on small screens.
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Google Maps, including this view with a satellite photo, are available on Android phones.
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More options on the home screen show a Pac-Man game and a YouTube application.
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Pac-Man in action.
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Steve Horowitz, Android's engineering director, discussed the software project and demonstrated some of its features.
Credit: Stephen Shankland/News.com
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