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If this is true, there is more money form Android market for Microsft than new Windows Phone OS?

Image via Flickr The CBI

According to Citi analyst Walter Pritchard, who released a big report on Microsoft this morning, Microsoft gets $5 for every HTC phone running Android

Microsoft is getting that money thanks to a patent settlement with HTC over intellectual property infringement.

Microsoft is suing other Android phone makers, and it's looking for $7.50 to $12.50 per device, says Pritchard.

We knew hardware companies were paying Microsoft, we just didn't know how much. (In October Steve Ballmer said, "Android has a patent fee. It's not like Android's free.")

Via Businessinsider

Just recently at CES 2011, Sony Ericsson revealed a new high-end Android phone XPERIA arc. Besides very thin case, it will come with Gingerbread Android 2.3 OS. Some of the specs include:

• Android 2.3 Gingerbread
• Camera 8.1MP, HDMI connector
• Screen 854x480 pixels on 4.2" 16,777,216 colour TFT, LED backlit
• Memory microSD™ (supported to 32GB) + -- Phone memory Up to 512MB
• Size 125.0 x 63.0 x 8.7 mm / 117g

We must recall the moment X10 was announced, SE failed to deliver the final product to the market, and then it became outdated, with old Android version. This could be big for Sony Ericsson. The device looks great, and it was even noticed with Android 2.4 at CES, which was later dismissed. The guys at Engadget and Swedroid got a chance to play with it and we have official videos as well. We have to wait a bit and see ourselves are the screen and camera that great as they say…

And for the end, courtesy of Swedroid, side by side photo near Google Nexus S.

Based on the displayed ads on mobile devices, Millenial Media has presented the charts for the December of 2010. The interesting part is the smartphone pie showing dominance of Android. Wide array of manufacturers, with plenty entry level devices had helped this OS presented in late 2008 to gain this significant market share.

The most popular device maker is Apple, with Samsung and HTC at the next two spots. Windows based devices barely made it with only 1% of the smartphone market. Will the upcoming update for WP7 and more devices change anything ? Source: SlashGear

LG smartphone LU3000 (known as LG Optimus Mach) has been launched in South Korea. Besides being a very fast Android 2.2 phone, it features unique ringtones and theme songs from no other than legendary Ennio Morricone (The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Mission…). LU3000 features 3.8" WVGA display, HDMI-out and 1GHz Texas Instruments OMAP 3630 processor.

Source: UnwiredView

Google has just released a new version of YouTube application for Android. Some of the new features are: In-page playback: you can read the video description, browse related, rate or flag videos without having to interrupt video playback. Posting comments: you can post a comment while the video is playing, just like on the desktop website. Subscription updates: we've made it easier to access new videos from your subscriptions. If you are signed into your account, you will see all your subscription updates right on the home screen of the app. New full-screen UI: To enter full-screen mode simply rotate the phone. The new player controls make it easier to seek within the video, and you can pause or resume the playback by just tapping on the screen.

This new version works on Froyo and above and applies to 43% of Android users that have it. A good move from Google to update apps regardless of the system updates.

Check out the video demonstration on Nexus S.

Source: IntoMobile

Mozilla has announced that first Firefox 4 beta 1 (Fennec) is available for mobile phones on Android and Maemo platform.. Overall performance and responsiveness is improved by new architecture. Firefox 4 Beta now includes Firefox Sync in order to enable seamless experience and synchronization with desktop Firefox so you can now take your browsing history, bookmarks, tabs, passwords anywhere with you. Also pinch-to-zoom is supported on multi touch devices. Detailed information is available at release notes or at Mozilla mobile engineer blog.

for easier download and installation ai.rs has provided you the following QR code.

Via Mozilla blog

So, you are digital photography junkie, and 8MP on your HTC Evo 4G / Desire HD is not enough? Fear not, 'cause Altek is coming to the rescue. Its new Android smartphone called Leo, sports 14MP camera with 3x optical zoom, 720p recording capabilities, and xenon flash. Other components are pretty basic, and you'll get 3.2" capacitive screen, and Android 2.1 (yawn).

You can expect this baby to show up in Asia until the end of current year, and if you are from Europe, expect it somewhere in Q1 of 2011.

Source: Engadget

If you are an active Android developer, you have probably already heard this: Google has expanded its support for paid applications selling and buying on Android Market.

Developers from following countries can now start selling their applications: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland and Taiwan. This brings total sum of countries that can sell applications on Market to 29.

Users from following countries can now buy applications from Market: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Sweden, and Taiwan. This expands Market to a total of 32 countries that can buy applications.

Google is also announcing that it will bring paid apps to even more countries in the following months. We're keeping our fingers crossed that Serbia will be in at least application buying category in the following expansion of Market.

Do you feel like you are robbed of some of the Android experience because your country is not yet in paid applications ecosystem? Do you think that Google contributes to software piracy by not expanding paid apps Market faster? Would introduction of vouchers (like those for iTunes) speed up expansion of paid apps Market? Drop a comment, and let us now what you think.

Source: Android Developer's blog

ai.rs blog Exclusive

We present you with more pictures of just announced HTC Desire HD and Desire Z. We have noticed a couple of interesting features as well:

• There is an option to import contacts from older HTC, iPhone, BlackBerry… phones directly via bluetooth
• Black-list application comes preinstalled
• Desire HD is more pleasant in hand than HD2, just feels better
• Desire Z looks like a great device but 5-row keyboard on Touch Pro 2 cannot be beaten with a 4-row keyboard

Enjoy the pictures.

[View with PicLens]