Electronics, Android | featured news

Research In Motion shares were sharply lower Friday, after the company issued a steep first-quarter earnings warning late Thursday, heightening fears that the BlackBerry maker is buckling amid competition from Apple and Google.

Apparently, the iPad isn't the only tablet in town capable of selling out. While the Asus Eee Pad Transformer might not have the big-name appeal of its Apple rival, the $399 16GB Honeycomb tablet managed to sell out online at Best Buy's website in its first day on sale.

Politicians and privacy experts demanded answers of Google and Apple Friday following the discovery that smartphone software from the tech giants regularly transmits information about a user's whereabouts back to the companies.

Apple will remain firmly in control of the tablet market through 2015, according to market research by Gartner, which also shows Google’s Android will take the baton from Nokia’s Symbian to dominate the smartphone market through the same time period. Experts agree, though, that it will be strong ecosystems, allowing for tablets and smartphones to deliver a combined experience, which will take the day, possibly weakening Research in Motion’s capacity to deliver in a new environment.

Much attention in the battle between Android and iPhone goes to the availability of apps on each platform. But one of the most important feature of a smartphone might not be the availability and performance of native apps but the performance of the mobile web browser.

Let's cut to the chase -- the iPad 2 that Apple just released pulls further ahead in the battle with the only real competitor on the market: the Android OS 3.0 "Honeycomb" Xoom tablet from Motorola Mobility. In our previous comparison of the first-gen iPad and the Xoom, the Xoom showed its mettle as a serious contender, beating the iPad in areas such as its inclusion of cameras and ability to mirror its video display.

A major software attack that distributed malicious programs to around 260,000 Android phones has put pressure on Google to do more to secure its market for smartphone apps.

Google have admitted they are far from happy with the amount of apps they are selling.

When it came to translations, you used to either need an interpreter or a book to navigate another language. That was either costly or cumbersome, respectively. Then the Internet came along and made things significantly easier. Except you had to be chained to your computer to translate something. A year ago, Google made things easier again by launching their Translate app for Android.

Many mobile manufacturers are making sure that their company portfolio is loaded with Android based cell phones that can grab the attention of the world audience. Have a quick look at some of the new Android based cell phones that are available at the CES 2011.