Google hosted an android 3.0 honeycomb showcase event today at 10 a.m Pacific. The event kick-started by the quote

Our approach has been to equip developers with best possible toolkit then get out of their way

They disclosed some important details about their tablet-optimized version of an android. We have listed some of the features from the announcements of the today’s event which have been previewed in honeycomb.

Homescreen:

Homescreen is much more customizable and features a new dedicated button for the multi-tasking. The homescreen also features a notification bar, system status while the rest of the screen is left for the apps.

Notifications aren’t intrusive at all. They can also be used to control background apps.

Optimization to Run Existing Apps on Tablets:

Since honeycomb is primarily a tablet based OS and has only been showcased yet only on Xoom, one of the most important targets for the android team was to make sure that all exisiting apps run flawlessly on tablets. The team has spent considerably huge amount of time to make sure of that. If the apps follow the recommended guidelines, they will run really good on the honeycomb.

Application Fragment:

A fragment is part of an application that can be reused throught the app to perform specific funtionality. It makes the system more modular in nature. The application frgaments were explained by using the Gmail app for the honeycomb. Tapping the message slided the left most pane out to make room for a new pane, the message.

Dragging Manager:

Part of the app framework, this new feature allows you to create and manage dragging intereactions as per your wish. They are added to support richer touch based user interface. These are the generic drag-and-drop APIs.

Optimization of Graphics:

2D and 3D graphics are optimized for the honeycomb. All the 2D graphics can now be hardware accelerated. New framework has also been introduced for the animation.

Multicore Support:

Honeycomb will support multiple cores. It was previewed on a Motorola Xoom which has dual-core ARM-based Tegra 2 chipset. With that, the first game for android that works hundred percent on 2 cores, Great battles Medieval, will be released.

Market:

The market now provides plenty of methods to discover and purchase apps. The web store has also been launched which can directly be accessed through tablet’s browser to make the purchases. The market also offers advanced search with filters like device compatibility, paid, free etc. Developer and buyer can have different currencies which means buyer currency support is coming to the market.

MicroVision may not have any plans to turn the pico projector-equipped “mini-tablet” prototype it showed off at CES earlier this month into an actual product, but it looks like little-known Nioncom is now taking the idea and running with it. While it’s still a bit too render-y for our tastes, the company insists that its MemoryKick Vision device is real, and that it will hit the US market sometime in the second quarter of the year. It’s based around the same PicoP projector used in MicroVision’s prototype, but it beefs things up with a larger 4.3-inch capacitive touchscreen and, perhaps most notably, a 2.5-inch hard drive that promises to allow for 500GB to 1TB of storage (it also pushes the device’s thickness to a full inch). Otherwise, you can expect to get Android 2.2 for an OS, a 5 megapixel camera, WiFi and Bluetooth, an accelerometer, HDMI in and out, a USB port, and an SD card slot for additional storage. Still no firm word on a price, but the company apparently expects it to be in the “mid-$500 range.”

Picopros

It’s nothing new that the much-loved HTC HD2 can be hacked in order to install either Android or Windows Phone 7, but how about dual-booting?

The clever people at XDA-Developers have sussed out a way to install both operating systems onto the one SD card, effectively giving the users the choice of which OS to run at startup, writes PocketNow.

Now before everyone runs out and starts hacking their beloved HD2, be warned. This isn’t a simple process and all manner of nastiness can occur if things don’t go according to plan. If they do though, just think how cool your friends would think you are!

Not that you aren’t cool already, obviously!

Full how-to instructions can be found at the XDA thread here. Video tutorial on how to dual-boot Android and Windows Phone 7 on HTC HD2 is embedded below.

The freshly spun-off Motorola Mobility has made a huge impact at CES 2011 with the new Android-powered Atrix 4G, a dual-core Android smartphone with 1GB of RAM that can be docked in a multimedia desktop dock or an 11″ notebook dock, making it a full-blown Android PC either way.

Atrix 4G, simply stated, is the most powerful smartphone that has ever been announced. It has a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, 1GB of RAM, support for up to 48GB of storage, a 4″ (960 x 540) screen, 5 megapixel flash camera and front-facing VGA cam, HSPA+ mobile broadband, 802.11b/g/n, and Android 2.2 with MotoBLUR.

But by far the most interesting aspects of the Atrix 4G come when it’s docked. With multiple docking options, this smartphone can become an HD multimedia center or a Firefox webtop-driven notebook PC.

The Atrix and its related accessories will come to AT&T in the first half of 2011, but there is no word on its price just yet. Like many of the other gawping attendees of CES this year, I intend on getting my hands on this for a run-through with pictures and a more detailed writeup. More info coming soon!

Source: Betanews

Let the march to Android 2.3 begin, with (gasp) more smartphones running version 2.2. You’ve got to love this one-step-behind (sometimes two) innovation that defines Android. My Google-branded Nexus S runs Gingerbread (aka Android 2.3), and it’s the only phone that officially does. The carrier and OEM channels move much slower than does Google operating system development. I kind of understand the slow upgrading of existing handsets, but most everything new shouldn’t run something old. Hehe, “these aren’t the Droids you’re looking for.” Today’s 2.2 star: the HTC EVO Shift 4G from Sprint, available on January 9 for a cool $149.99 (with two-year contract and after $100 mail-in rebate). Update: After I posted, Best Buy announced presale availability of January 6.

By the specs, Sprint’s new smartphone impresses (except, perhaps the processor): 800MHz Qualcomm processor (MSM7630); 3.6-inch capacitive touchscreen (with 800 x 480 resolution), slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 720p video capture, FM radio and all the other expected stuff, like GPS, Bluetooth and WiFi. Too bad that the EVO Shift 4G is but another new Android phone running an old OS version.

In a way, my griping is unfair, since Google must deal with carriers and OEMs that face hurdles, such as manufacturing time to market and, in the United States, FCC approval, that make releasing the newest of new rather difficult. As such, not a week goes by when some blogger or journalists writes about fragmentation dooming Android. That’s hardly the case. Google has done a remarkably good job mitigating fragmentation, and Android handsets are outselling iPhones. As long as apps are compatible with the install base, fragmentation is more nuisance than problem.

Still, iPhone sets the gold standard. Apple achieved something of a carrier coup bringing iPhone to market in June 2007. Apple — and not carriers or manufacturers — control software updates. The approach was quite novel two-and-a-half years ago and still is today. Apple determines what software version ships on new handsets and has a mechanism in place to update them all to the newest iOS. Google controls software load and updates for just two handsets — the Nexus One and Nexus S.