Microsoft adds App for Android OS

Microsoft has added one of its rare contributions to Android with word of Bing for Android. The search application closely mirrors the iPhone version and supports images, maps, movie Showtime and other specialties. It likewise uses spoken search for hands-free requests, even for complex searches such as flight schedules.

The app is free and available in Android Market but is currently restricted to Verizon phones. More networks are likely in the future but weren’t confirmed today.

Despite Microsoft’s clear competition with Google, it has said it plans to develop Android apps whenever cross-platform reach is important and earlier this year put out a Tag reader for Android. Bing on mobile has regardless been symbolic of Microsoft’s struggling Smartphone approach as the iPhone and now Android versions are occasionally more advanced than the Windows Mobile version. Bing will get its biggest help this fall when Windows Phone 7 ships with Bing searches as a core part of the OS.

Resources: http://www.4zb.net/microsoft-posts-bing-app-for-android.html

Android (operating system)

Android is an operating system for mobile devices that includes middleware and key applications, and uses a modified version of the Linux kernel. It was initially developed by Android Inc. a firm later purchased by Google, and lately by the Open Handset Alliance. It allows developers to write managed code in the Java language, controlling the device via Google-developed Java libraries.

The Android operating system software stack consists of Java applications running on a Java based object oriented application framework on top of Java core libraries running on a Dalvik virtual machine featuring JIT compilation. Libraries written in C include the surface manager, OpenCore media framework, SQLite relational database management system, OpenGL ES 2.0 3D graphics API, WebKit layout engine, SGL graphics engine, SSL, and Bionic libc. The Android operating system consists of 12 million lines of code including 3 million lines of XML, 2.8 million lines of C, and 2.1 million lines of Java.

The unveiling of the Android distribution on 5 November 2007 was announced with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 65 hardware, software, and telecom companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices. Google released most of the Android code under the Apache License, a free software and open source license.

Resource: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)