android 2.0

Google's Android is proving to be the first true competitor to Apple's iPhone in terms of bandwidth consumption and rich application use. If providers such as MetroPCS or Leap Wireless start offering Android-powered smartphones, it could be a big problem for some big players.

In the heart of the holiday phone-buying season, AT T handed Google a fabulous present and partner Apple a lump of coal. Both were wrapped in one spectacular network failure, which stranded thousands of the Web's most vocal and demanding iPhone users.

The quickly rising popularity of cell phones powered by Google's new mobile operating system is making one cohort of the mobile phone ecosystem nervous: Application developers could suffer if they need to keep tweaking code to work with multiple models.

Google is famous for touting its adherence to open standards and for developing on top of Open Source software platforms such as Linux. Launching Android, Google (GOOG) stated its new operating system would be open sourced -- that is, the software code would be free to download, modify and change....

The $750 million acquisition of mobile advertising network AdMob by search giant Google (GOOG) signals a new stage of the battle for the soul of the mobile Internet between Google and its arch-rival Apple (AAPL). The acquisition gives Google the strongest player in the fast-growing market for...