High Tech Computer (HTC) has just named its Android-based mobile. Called “Dream”, the phone would be the first one that runs Google’s software. Nevertheless, a rumor about a Samsung devices was stated in the news. Samsung also develops an Android-based mobile because they are part of Open Handset Alliance too.

A 5-inch long and 3-inch wide Dream will sport a large touchscreen and full QWERTY keyboard that will slide underneath the screen. HTC tries to deliver a phone perfect for emailing and web surfing. The Internet navigational keys are placed just below the screen. Also I can tell you that we should expect the Dream by the end of the year. There is no information about multimedia capabilities, storage or network compatibility.

The Open Handset Alliance’s project – the Android – will become the alternative to Windows Mobile and Linux Mobile. Thus many major mobile manufacturers will migrate for the new powerful mobile software.

via Yahoo News

Hours after receiving anti-trust clearance from the European Commission, Google closed their DoubleClick acquisition and took over management right away. The merger has been announced one year ago when the U.S. anti trust authorities gave it green light.

While there has been voices objecting against the ruling the EU Commission said

“Google and DoubleClick were not exerting major competitive constraints on each other’s activities and could, therefore, not be considered as competitors at the moment”

DoubleClick is one of the biggest ad serving companies and it was bought by Google for $3.1 billion in cash. Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) shares rose 4 percent after the news to $430.19.

via Yahoo!News (photo by vividcontext.com)

There is so much to tell about Android, but I will be short about it. First of all, you should know that Android is an Open Handset Alliance Project started by Google Inc.

More about the Android Project are said in the video below:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FJHYqE0RDg[/youtube]

The Android Developer Challenge intends to encourage developers to built useful apps in the following areas of interest:

• Social networking
• Media consumption, management, editing, or sharing, e.g., photos
• Productivity and collaboration such as email, IM, calendar, etc.
• Gaming
• News and information
• Rethinking of traditional user interfaces
• Use of mash-up functionality
• Use of location-based services
• Humanitarian benefits
• Applications in service of global economic development
• Whatever you’re excited about!

The most suitable apps will receive a prize too. The Android Developer Challenge will award $10 million to developers who build great apps for Android. So, the race sounds to be very hard. The team has extended the submission deadline to 14 April 2008. The 50 most promising entries received by April 14 will be rewarded with $25,000. Furthermore the selected will then be eligible for even greater recognition via ten $275,000 awards and ten $100,000 awards.

Based on the feedback from developers, a new SDK version will be released in the next weeks. According to Android blog, the new SDK will feature UI and API enhancements. Thus, the deadline has been moved to April. Here are the scheduled activities for Android Developer Challenge:

• April 14, 2008: Deadline to submit applications for judging
• May 5, 2008: Announcement of the 50 first round winners, who will be eligible for the final round
• June 30, 2008: Deadline for the 50 winners of the first round to submit for the final round
• July 21, 2008: Announcement of the grand prize winner and runner-up

via Android’s Website

One year ago we asked ourselves if we got our eyes on a GooglePhone but I guess we all knew Google was not doing a race to produce the actual device because they would make more money by releasing their own OS with preinstalled applications.

Now we’re living in the world of the Android, which is Google’s project for the mobile phones operating system and here is the first virtual tour. Thanks to the OS emulator that was included with SDK, Engadget managed to put their fingers at work to see what we should expect from Android, in order to prepare the open source community for what will come. It looks nice so give it a shot. Here’s a small gallery bellow.

This will be considered a milestone in all this Google PageRank buzz, because the last few days showed that Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) is really on it this time. Annoyed by the fact that people abuse the PR and makes money out of it, the algorithm changed to penalize link farms. This is still an assumption, though having Matt Cutts screaming everywhere about it, we believe this is the case.

So far, Google rewarded blogs that people linked to, with high PageRank and everyone used it as a method of appreciation of how good the blog is. However this changed very sudden with top ranking blogs like Engadget going from PR7 to PR5, AutoBlog going from PR6 to PR4 and DownloadSquad to PR4 down from PR5.

The problem I see now, and TechCrunch mentioned, is with small blog networks that relied on PR in order to make sales. A blog without traffic could sell because of the rank, but now if Google is trying to catch everyone I am not sure if they might close their doors.