Google Android Open-Source Code

Google today released the open-source code which powers its Android mobile operating system.

The open-source code comes a day before the launch of the Android-based T-Mobile G1, Google's challenge to the Apple iPhone.

The G1 offers many of the features of the iPhone and Research in Motion's popular BlackBerry including a touch screen similar to that of the iPhone, a trackball for navigation, high-speed Internet browsing, Wi-Fi, email, instant messaging and SMS texting.

Google hopes to establish Android as the standard operating system for mobile devices and to improve the quality of web-browsing for handset users.

It already held the first annual "Android Developers Challenge" and given away five million dollars in prize money for innovative software tailored to the platform.

U.S. software giant Microsoft also has a Windows system for mobiles and a separate consortium is working on an open-source Linux solution.

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