Think you can develop the next killer cellphone application? Google will pay up to $10 million to find out. Similar to developer challenges Facebook and Google itself have launched to much success in the past, Google’s Android Developer Challenge aims to encourage programmers to, in not so many words, put Apple’s iPhone to shame.
Here’s how the payouts break down:
In the Android Developer Challenge I, the 50 most promising entries received by March 3 will each receive a $25,000 award to fund further development. Those selected will then be eligible for even greater recognition via ten $275,000 awards and ten $100,000 awards.
The contest debuts on the same day the Open Handset Alliance, a group of over 30 tech and mobile industry companies including Samsung, T-Mobile, NTT DoCoMo and High Tech Computer Corp, makes the software development kit available.
Is it too much to ask for someone (Google?) to write something to reliably play YouTube videos on a handset without encoding everything in a format other than Flash?
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The Gphone will make all media more ubiquitous, including websites with maps where one can input there location and figure out easily how to find their destination. That can benefit both consumers and investors. The NewsVisual article on Google’s Open Handset Alliance http://www.newsvisual.com/newsvisual/200 7/11/google-and-moto.html implies that it’s really personal connections among business leaders that determine future success in the competitive marketplace. But consumers can also benefit from the new products those alliances spawn.
- Posted by John Smithyes, the Gphone is making it easier to figure out how to find locational coordinates and this is beneficial to the consumers. But it’s destinations like Facebook, MySpace, MySummer, YouTube and the like that really make it a personal experience. Consumers can and will benefit from these products and alliances.
- Posted by Adianna