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Google Puts $10m Bounty on Android Development

Google, as promised, put the Android SDK out in early access - along with a $10 million pot for the best apps
By Maureen O'Gara
Article Rating:
November 19, 2007 05:00 PM EST
Reads:
 20,059
Google, as promised, put the Android SDK out in early access - along with a $10 million pot for the best apps written for its open Android mobile platform by third-party developers.

It said the platform would be open and it's going about proving it. It also needs the buzz - and a killer mobile app - for Android to hit a homerun.

The first $5 million will be paid out in $25,000 prizes for the continued development of the 50 most promising entries submitted between January 2 and March 3 2008 to the Android Developer Challenge I.

These 50 entries will then be winnowed down by the end of May to 20 finalists - 10 that get awards worth $275,000 each and another 10 that'll each get $100,000.

There'll also be another contest - Android Developer Challenge II - that starts after the first so-called Google phones become available in the second half of next year.

The judges will come from the members of the Android-backing Open Handset Alliance (IHA) that Google unveiled last week as well, it says, as technology and mobile experts from the industry in general.

Anybody can play this game - except for Google and IHA folk and developers who live in Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, and Myanmar (Burma) - because of US laws - or Italy or Quebec - because of cockamamie local restrictions.

Google says developers will retain intellectual property rights to their applications while granting Google a license to evaluate and test it for purposes of the contest as well as a license to display the application to promote the Android platform.

It suggest possible apps in:

· Social networking
· Media consumption, management, editing, or sharing, e.g., photos
· Productivity and collaboration such as email, IM, calendar, etc.
· Gaming
· News and information (weather, traffic, sports, stocks, etc.)
· Rethinking of traditional user interfaces
· Use of mash-up functionality
· Use of location based services
· Humanitarian benefits (monitoring and response for diseases, climate change, natural disasters, etc.)
· Applications in service of global economic development for the 3 billion people living on less than $2.00 per day

The SDK with its documentation, sample projects, development tools, emulator and libraries is at http://code.google.com/android/download.html.

Published November 19, 2007 – Reads 20,059
Copyright © 2007 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
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More Stories By Maureen O'Gara

Maureen O'Gara the most read technology reporter for the past 20 years, is the Cloud Computing and Virtualization News Desk editor of SYS-CON Media. She is the publisher of famous "Billygrams" and the editor-in-chief of "Client/Server News" for more than a decade. One of the most respected technology reporters in the business, Maureen can be reached by email at maureen(at)sys-con.com or paperboy(at)g2news.com, and by phone at 516 759-7025.

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Most Recent Comments
mobile TV 11/29/07 05:01:52 PM EST

I am working on a business advisory group made up of broadcasting
companies and networks. Samsung, LG and Thompson have developed ways
to use existing broadcast spectrum and deliver over the air television
to mobile devices (moving 100 miles per hour). We're just getting
started, but what you all are doing here with open source development
has inspired us. In February 2009 many broadcasting stations will
start sending live video content to mobile devices, but many in the
group don't want to make it shovelware (as in simulcast the stuff
we're doing already and leave it at that)... We want to activate our
new channels and content with your great ideas... We need ad delivery
solutions/ideas, measurement solutions/ideas, LBS solutions/ideas...
We need utility apps (like programming interfaces), intent trigger
apps (like turning on the tuner when it senses a keyword), advertising
apps... Just throwing it out there to begin a conversation, find out
if there is any interest in combining what you do with what we do and
what would motivate you to begin thinking about building a new kind of
mobile tv (that is better than what currently exists). The chipmakers
are building the receivers and the handset makers will embed them, but
we need new thinking and a new model. So, there you have
it...handsets and other mobile devices that soon will be able to
receive local broadcast TV signals (and won't clog up 3G pipes with
video)... Show us the way... Where would you begin?
Google News Desk 11/19/07 11:17:42 AM EST

Google, as promised, put the Android SDK out in early access - along with a $10 million pot for the best apps written for its open Android mobile platform by third-party developers. It said the platform would be open and it's going about proving it. It also needs the buzz - and a killer mobile app - for Android to hit a homerun. The first $5 million will be paid out in $25,000 prizes for the continued development of the 50 most promising entries submitted between January 2 and March 3 2008 to the Android Developer Challenge I.