Google launches Android SDK

As promised, Google released the SDK for the Android mobile phone platform today. There's no actual phones running Android on the market yet, but the early release of the SDK means that as soon as you get your hands on an Android phone, there's a good chance you'll be able to slap some third party applications on there without having to wait for hackers to unlock anything.

In fact, Google is encouraging third party development by giving away $10 million in awards to individuals and companies that come up with useful applications for the new mobile platform.

Of course, cellphones rely on hardware and not just software to make your life easier. But it looks like Android supports a wide array of hardware, including touchscreen devices, VGA screens, and 3G wireless connections. There's also support for 3D accelerated graphics, and MPEG-4, h.264, AAC, and MP3 audio and video files.

Tags: android, cellphone, mobile-phone, mobileminute, osupdates