China wary of Android dominance over nation’s tech market
China signaled it wants to reduce its dependence on Google's Android OS, alleging that the U.S. company has discriminated against local companies over the use of the mobile operating system.
"Our country's mobile operating system research and development is heavily reliant on Android," according to a white paper from a research division of China's tech regulator, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. "Although the Android system currently remains open source, the core technologies and technology roadmap is strictly controlled by Google."
The comments, published online this month, were reported by local publications on Tuesday. Read more...
Google fattens up Android devs with Jelly Bean sauce
Google will release the latest official build of its Android mobile operating system, version 4.1, to developers today. The web giant will parcel up the source code, codenamed Jelly Bean, ahead of the rollout later this month.
Jean-Baptiste Queru, the tech lead on the Android Open Source Project, announced the release on its Google Groups page.
"We're releasing Android 4.1 in AOSP [Android Open Source Project] today," he wrote, adding:
The name of the tagged release is android-4.1.1_r1.
The name of the development branch is jb-dev. Read more...
Apple’s digital divide in China: 21 million iPhones and iPads, but urban areas dominate
Lots has been written and said about the growth of Apple and its products in China. While Apple CEO Tim Cook is focusing on China, which he recently visited and has continually heralded as a key market for the company, it is notable that a number of reports have shown Android devices considerably more prevalent in the country.
Recent data from Statcounter, among others, shows that Android is set to become the country’s single largest mobile operating system (accounting for all device types), with more than double the devices of iOS. Read more...
Baidu produces cloned Android, web apps etc
Baidu has forked Android, launching a mobile OS at its annual shindig which also saw the Chinese search outfit slotting web apps into its home page to go with its Chrome-alike browser.
Baidu has taken a leaf out of Google's book before, and "Baidu Yi" (as the new mobile OS is called) is at least based on Android code, unlike Baidu's desktop web browser, which is simply a shell wrapped around Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Android is open source, so Baidu has forked it to create its own version with its own bundle of applications on top. Read more...
Mozilla mobile OS may face future patent battles, says expert
Mozilla's plan to create a mobile operating system will probably face patent challenges, one expert said, while another called it "too little, too late."
Yesterday, Mozilla announced a new project dubbed "Boot to Gecko" (B2G) that it hopes will lead to a "complete, standalone operating system for the open Web."
Although B2G will feature new Web-based APIs (application programming interfaces) that let developers access device hardware to make calls, send texts, take photos and more, Mozilla plans to use bits of Android, including the kernel and device drivers, at the outset.
That could leave Mozilla open to the kind of intense patent litigation Android now faces, said Florian Mueller, an independent patent analyst whose blog FOSS Patents is closely followed by both patent professionals and and technophiles. Read more...
Senate bill would add protections for mobile users’ location data
Sen. Al Franken isn’t happy about the prospect of mobile operating system developers like Google (GOOG), Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT) and Research In Motion (RIMM) gathering users’ location data and sharing it without their permission.
The Minnesota democrat introduced the bill along with Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Wednesday, which would require mobile companies like Google and Apple and app developers to ask users for their explicit permission before sharing location data gathered by mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets, with any third parties. Read more...