ANDROID TABLETS

Last post before the long weekend, catch you all on Tuesday!

Angry Birds has arrived on Android, and we don’t mean an Android viewable version of “The Birds,” either. Instead, we mean the extremely popular iOS game, which has now landed on Android, as announced by the company on Twitter.

The goal of Angry Birds is to shoot, well, Angry Birds with a giant slingshot at the enemy pig houses and destroy the pigs inside. Naturally, each stage is more difficult, and you have to strategize to find weaknesses in the houses.

This is the beta version, but Android users should be happy anyway. The company Rovio said that they had originally been mulling a closed beta. This one is open.

This week, we were planning to run a closed beta test of Angry Birds Lite for Android. Due to the massive response and demand from the Android community, we have decided to make Angry Birds Lite Beta available for everybody through the Android Market this Friday.

Please note that this will be the beta version of the application which is still undergoing final testing before official release. Angry Birds Lite Beta is presented on an “as is” basis, and we cannot guarantee its functionality on every Android device.

Want it? Go get it.

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For all its success, the iPod touch has few dedicated media player competitors capable of matching its big-touchscreen, WiFi, and voluminous App Store. Until today. Philips just went official with its GoGear Connect featuring the full suite of Google Mobile applications pre-installed with access to the Android Market for pretty much everything else. Spec-wize we’re looking at a 3.2-inch display, WiFi, sound isolating earphones, built-in camera, and microSD slot. Sorry, no mention of the Android OS version though we’ve seen it listed at retailers with 2.1. Syncing your music is done over Bluetooth or a USB tether to your PC with Philips’ Songbird providing the software assist. The MP4 player also supports Maps and location-based services — presumably accomplished with the help of Skyhook and not via a GPS radio (though the Philips post is tagged “GPS”). Look for the GoGear Connect to land in Western Europe, China, and yes, the US, starting in late October with the price pegged at €249 (about $315) for the 16GB model.

Trackback: Engadget

Google is not taking the Oracle patent lawsuit against Android sitting down and the search giant is pulling out of the JavaOne conference.

Joshua Bloch of the Google Open Source Programs Office told Reuters:

We wish that we could [present at the show], but Oracle’s recent lawsuit against Google and open source has made it impossible for us to freely share our thoughts about the future of Java and open source generally. This is a painful realization for us, as we’ve participated in every JavaOne since 2004, and I personally have spoken at all but the first in 1996

The JavaOne conference is schedule for Sept. 19-23 and Google was going to be a major participant in multiple sessions. Google said it is proud to be part of the open source Java community.

The lawsuit comes as Android is on a rocket ship, as the operating system outsold its competitors in the United States for the first time. Oracle purchased Sun for about $5 billion and many think the ability to go after the search giant in the courts was one of the reasons the acquisition was finished.

Sun open sourced parts of Java but other parts were still under Sun’s control. Sun was also able to sue Microsoft over its use of Java and it wound up costing Microsoft at least $1 billion.

Google has called the lawsuit baseless and said:

We are disappointed Oracle has chosen to attack both Google and the open-source Java community with this baseless lawsuit. The open-source Java community goes beyond any one corporation and works every day to make the web a better place. We will strongly defend open-source standards and will continue to work with the industry to develop the Android platform.

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