SlashPhone » open source

Motorola Removing Google Search and Maps from Android Devices in China

Evan Selleck — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:17:49 +0000

When this was brought to our attention, the sad truth is that we weren’t really all that surprised by it. For one, it’s not like this is the first time that China and Google have been in the news together recently, so something like this almost seems natural, if not a direct response to those past events. But, is that really even the reason? Should we really be upset that Motorola has chosen to use Microsoft’s Bing as its primary search engine in China?

According to Reuters, this could very well be the reason. It’s a sad truth that politics can come between a great many things, and if this situation is indeed the case, then chalk this one up as another loss. And while many think that an Android-based device isn’t an Android-based device if it’s lacking such distinct features as (Google) search and (Google) maps, that’s simply not the case. No matter how you look at it, the Android mobile Operating System is planted firmly in the open source market. Meaning, once someone decides that they want to use Android on their device, it’s fair game.

We’ve seen such travesties before, naturally. Sure, it doesn’t help Motorola’s case that the last great debacle featuring a missing Google feature happened on another one of their devices, but this just seems to be a case of freedom of choice. The manufacturing company has decided to stake their claim in an open project, and by the result of that, can do whatever they want with the platform once it makes it onto their hardware. (Let’s not forget that AT&T is more than likely also very much to blame for the Yahoo! Search on the Motorola Backflip, the other handset in question.) As much as we all expect, or even need our Google-centric applications on Android devices, the nature of the beast is far more robust, and has a lot more options.

MeeGo build for N900 & Atom by end of March 2010

Chris Davies — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:54:13 +0000

The team behind Nokia and Intel’s latest open-source endeavour, MeeGo, have revealed the first part of their release timeline, and it’s certainly ambitious. According to Valtteri Halla – half of the MeeGo Technical Steering Group (TSG) – the team plans to open the MeeGo repository by the end of March 2010, with a basic source and binary repository to build the platform on Intel Atom devices and the Nokia N900.

We already know that MeeGo will include Qt, OBS and RPM. According to Halla, much of the other technologies discussed in relation to the new platform are “still under discussion”:

“Further selections are mostly still under discussion and beyond a few obvious ones (X, connman, ofono, gstreamer, dbus,…) can be considered as working assumptions for MeeGo 1 release” Valtteri Hall, TSG, MeeGo

MeeGo brings together Nokia’s work on Maemo, the current OS for the N900, and Intel’s work on Moblin, the open-source OS for netbooks and other low-power devices.

LiMo Foundation Completes LiMo Platform Release 1

Kim Poh Liaw — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:58:20 +0000

LiMo Foundation announced the on-schedule availability of LiMo Platform Release 1. Release 2 of the LiMo Platform is now being specified and developed within a collaborative process involving a range of LiMo members and is planned to be completed in a late 2008 timeframe.

Third-party developers can use LiMo’s application programming interface (API) specifications-available now at www.limofoundation.org-to build new applications. Middleware components for the LiMo Platform can be implemented in either C or C++ programming languages. Software Development Kits for Native, Webkit and Java operating environments will be released from the second half of 2008, further empowering mobile application developers.