android

Android
What is Android:
Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications.Android's mobile operating system is based on the Linux kernel.

History:
Android, Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, California, United States in October, 2003 by Andy Rubin (co-founder of Danger), Rich Miner (co-founder of Wildfire Communications, Inc.),Nick Sears (once VP at T-Mobile), and Chris White (headed design and interface development at WebTV) . Android Inc. operated secretively, admitting only that it was working on software for mobile phones.

Google Inc .purchesed the initial developer of the software, Android Inc., in 2005..The Android Open Source Project (AOSP) is tasked with the maintenance and further development of Android. The Android operating system is the world's best-selling Smartphone platform.There are currently over 200,000 apps available for Android.The unveiling of the Android distribution on 5 November 2007 was announced with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 80 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.
Android Architecture:
The following diagram shows the major components of the Android operating system.

Features:
Application framework enabling reuse and replacement of components.
Dalvik virtual machine optimized for mobile devices.
Integrated browser based on the open source WebKit engine.
Optimized graphics powered by a custom 2D graphics library; 3D graphics based on the OpenGL ES 1.0 specification (hardware acceleration optional).
SQLite for structured data storage.
 Media support for common audio, video, and still image formats (MPEG4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR, JPG, PNG, GIF).
GSM Telephony (hardware dependent).
Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, and WiFi (hardware dependent).
Camera, GPS, compass, and accelerometer (hardware dependent).
 Rich development environment including a device emulator, tools for debugging, memory and performance profiling, and a plugin for the Eclipse IDE.
licence:
With the exception of brief update periods, Android has been available under a free software/open source license since October, 21 2008.
Version:
Android has seen a number of updates since its original release.The most recent released versions of Android are:
2.0/2.1 (Eclair), which revamped the user interface and introduced HTML5 and Exchange ActiveSync 2.5 support.
 2.2 (Froyo), which introduced speed improvements with JIT optimization and the Chrome V8 JavaScript engine, and added Wi-Fi hotspot tethering and Adobe Flash support.
 2.3 (Gingerbread), which refined the user interface, improved the soft keyboard and copy/paste features, and added support for Near Field Communication.
 3.0/3.1 (Honeycomb), a tablet-oriented release which supports larger screen devices and introduces many new user interface features, and supports multicore processors and hardware acceleration for graphics.