GOOGLE PICS TOP ANDROID APPLICATIONS

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) said today that it has picked the top 50 applications from its Android Developer Challenge Part 1, Round 1, which is being used to spur development for its mobile phone operating system, which has not yet become commercially available. The winners were actually determined last week, but today, they are posting a list on the Android Developer Blog. For now, the details are limited to the developer and application names, but apparently, a more extensive listing is on the way. The reason there’s actually only 46 names on the Top 50 is because four participants think what they are doing is so great they needed to remain in stealth.
It’s hard to know what these applications will do, but a couple of them sound like games, such as “goCart, GolfPlay and Jigsaw.” Others sound like practical things like “CallACab, Phonebook 2.0, and Writing Pad.” Others definitely sound like they have a GPS component, like “gWalk, Locale and BreadCrumbz.” And some sound interesting, but who knows what they might do, such as “Mobeedo, MyCloset, Cooking Capsules, Marvin and Eco2go.”
Some of the participants were from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where a professor challenged about 20 computer science students to design a software program for cellphones on Google’s Android system. Most of the students, who were featured in a USA Today story, developed Locale, which lets users configure their phones to adjust so it automatically goes into vibrate mode in the office and silent mode at the movies. The conclusion of the story is that the students were able to reveal the power of an open platform, like Android, which has the ability to shake up the mobile industry.
These finalists didn’t just do it for the fun, they’ll get a combined $1.25 million, Silicon Alley Insider reminds us. They also took the time to track down links for some of the participants