Google - News, Features, and Slideshows

Features

• What Android's impressive growth means for you

  Rather than bore you with an opening line about how Android phones outsold the iPhone last quarter, I'm going to begin with an anecdote:

• On strengths of Linux, Android will win mobile contest

  Mirror, mirror, on the wall, which mobile operating system is fairest of all? That's a common question, given the many contenders in the mobile arena--and the well-publicized glitches that have recently come up.

• Android and Apps

  The more I use the HTC Incredible, the more I like it. And the thing that really makes the Incredible, er, incredible is its operating system, Android<.

• Visual tour: Visiting the Googleplex

  I recently visited the "Googleplex," Google's expansive headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., for an interview, and took the chance to snap a few pictures of life inside what must be one of the most entertaining workplaces in America.

• The state of the Android ecosystem

  As the second-generation Android devices debuted, there were serious questions about the state of the platform. Unlike the release of the <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/product/39727/review/g1.html">HTC G1</a> (also known as the "Dream"), which was for a short time the only Android handset available, more phones and more versions of the Android OS meant that manufacturers and wireless carriers had to make decisions about what which hardware and software to support.

• Android and Lego come together to solve puzzles

  What do you get when you combine the brains of Android with the body of Lego? If you're UK-based chip designer and Lego enthusiast David Gilday, you get a DIY robot capable of solving a Rubik's Cube.

• Asus tablet: Hello Android, bye Windows?

  Beyond Apple's iPad, the tablet computer market is a murky place inhabited largely by vaporware.

• With 2.2 release, Android for the enterprise deserves a second look

  Just last year, with the arrival of Android 2.0 mobile operating system, I warned that Android devices were not quite ready for the enterprise.

• Here lies the Google Nexus One: 2010-2010

  The Nexus One is dead, Jim.

• Google and Zynga: 5 burning questions

  Popular social games like Farmville, Mafia Wars and Fishville may soon be available to Google users, if recent rumors turn out to be accurate. Google has reportedly invested between US$100 and $200 million in the social gaming company Zynga, and the search giant plans to make Zynga a major part of a Google-branded gaming platform called Google Games.  

• Five Android apps we desperately need

  You say your secret ambition in life is to build the world's greatest mobile flatulence app? Here's your chance.

• SLIDESHOW: The strangest sights in Google Earth

  In the olden days, the ancients recognized Seven Wonders of the World; but thanks to Google Earth, you can now spot thousands of "I wonder what it is" head scratchers.

• Android gains, Apple wanes -- yes, yet again

  Don't look now, Apple fanatics, but Android's just made another noteworthy leap in mobile market share.

• Who really runs Facebook?

  Quick: Who's the CEO of Facebook?

• Meet the father of Google Apps (who used to work at Microsoft)

  Three weeks into his tenure at Google, Rajen Sheth -- former Microsoft and VMware employee -- met with Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt to propose a way of turning Gmail into a business-class e-mail system. And he was soundly rejected.