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Android is a mobile phone platform based on the Linux operating system and developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance. The unveiling of the Android platform on 5 November 2007 was announced with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 34 hardware, software and telecom companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices. When released in 2008, most of the Android platform will be made available under the Apache free-software and open-source license. With the release of the SDK, features and specifications for Android are slowly being released.
Key Features Include:
Handset layouts The platform is adaptable to both larger, VGA, 2D graphics library, 3D graphics library based on OpenGL ES 1.0 specifications, traditional smartphone layouts.

Storage SQLite for structured data storage

Connectivity Android supports a wide variety of connectivity technologies including GSM, Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, and Wi-Fi.

Messaging Both SMS and MMS are available forms of messaging including threaded text messaging.

Web browser WebKit The web browser available in Android is based on the open-source WebKit application framework.

Java virtual machine Software written in Java can be compiled into Dalvik bytecodes and executed in the Dalvik virtual machine, which is a specialized VM implementation designed for mobile device use, although not technically a standard Java Virtual Machine.

Media support Android will support advanced audio/video/still media formats such as MPEG-4, H.264, MP3, and AAC, AMR, JPEG, PNG, GIF.

Additional hardware support Android is fully capable of utilizing video/still cameras, touchscreens, GPS, compasses, accelerometers, and accelerated 3D graphics.

Development environment Includes a device emulator, tools for debugging, memory and performance profiling, a plugin for the Eclipse IDE.    [edit]