Android News of Interest

Summary: Stories about Android, accumulated in the past couple of days

Embedded

Can Android Challenge Embedded Linux?

A line should be drawn between true embedded Linux distros and Android's solitary distro adapted for embedded consumer functions, said Suse's Matthias Eckermann. He does not see Android going into enterprise areas involving integrated systems. "With flexibility, Android is one stack and one purpose. That is not the case with a full-fledged embedded Linux used for multiple purposes."

KitKat

Android 4.4 KitKat now on 1.4 percent of all Android devices: Google

Google has released the official statistics regarding the usage of the various versions of Android. Continuing the trend spotted in the previous month's report, those devices that are running Android 4.3 Jelly Bean and Android 4.4 KitKat are on the rise. Like the last report, most Android devices are running a version of Jelly Bean. Beginning April 2013, the distribution data charts are now based on the data collected from each device when the user visits the Google Play store. Google also stopped including Android 1.6 Donut and Android 2.1 Eclair in the data, as it is gathered from the new version of Google Play store app, which supports Android 2.2 and above.

Cyanogen

How Cyanogen plans to be Android’s open-source champion

The beauty of Android is that it is open source. Well in theory anyway. Google develops and maintains Android and it publishes the source code via the Android Open Source Project. From there smaller manufacturers and custom firmware makers can take the code and build their own Android ROMs. One of the most popular custom Android firmwares is Cyanogenmod. Based on Google’s AOSP code the Cyanogenmod team add a range of new features that aren’t found in vanilla Android. Back in September 2013 Steve Kondik, Koushik Dutta, and a small group of CyanogenMod developers established their own company – Cyanogen, Inc.

Desktop

Google Now comes to your desktop

You must love Google Now on your Android devices, you can have it on your desktop too. Google Now has been integrated with alpha version Chrome browser (Canary). It will provide you with notification cards, based on location, time, weather and other context specific information right on your desktop.

Games

Is Amazon creating an Android game console?

Amazon won’t say if it will be making an Android-based gaming device beyond its Kindle tablets. But it is certainly pushing hard to create tools for game developers so that they can be successful on the company’s various app platforms.

Apps

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