After releasing a major update to its iPad app last month, CloudOn is today bringing its Microsoft Office virtualization technology to Android tablets.

And, going alongside support for cloud storage services Dropbox and Box, the company also announced that it has integrated Google Drive into its Android and iPad apps as well.

Unlike competitor OnLive Desktop, the free CloudOn apps don’t distract you with a full Windows desktop. Instead, the apps offer direct access to Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, as well as Adobe Reader for viewing PDF files and a universal picture viewing app. Making up for the confusing file systems in iOS and Android, CloudOn lets you tap into the above cloud services to share and access your docs.

I haven’t had a chance to try out the Android CloudOn app yet, but I was impressed with what I saw of the iPad version last month. CloudOn chief executive Milind Gadekar demonstrated the app  running on a new iPad over Verizon’s LTE 4G network. He was able to open and edit files from Dropbox without issue, and the experience seemed only slightly slower than a typical PC. The CloudOn app lets you use all of the advanced features of Microsoft Office as well, including track changes in Word, and pivot tables in Excel.

Essentially, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based CloudOn is attempting to create a virtual desktop computer. You don’t have to worry about installing and configuring Microsoft Office, and thanks to cloud storage, your files are accessible anywhere you can get an Internet connection. CloudOn and its ilk are a big step for tablets, which need killer productivity apps to evolve from being mere consumption devices.

Microsoft’s Smoked by Windows Phone campaign — in which consumers battle their smartphones against Windows Phones in various speed contests — has been a smashing success for the company, generating over 100 million consumer impressions across a variety of media.

The numbers come from Microsoft evangelist Ben Rudolph, also known as Ben the PC Guy, who has been spearheading the campaign. It’s a good sign for Microsoft, which received a lot of flack for a recent incident in which one Android user was reportedly cheated out of the contest by MS store employees. Rudolph has since apologized to that user and offered up a free laptop and Windows Phone.

Other highlights of the Smoked by Windows Phone campaign: Over 50,000 smartphones tried to take on Windows Phones, and Microsoft’s platform won over 98 percent of the challenges. The campaign’s YouTube videos have generated over 8 million views on YouTube, and they also appear in two of YouTube’s Top 5 lists.

Microsoft launched the contest at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, in an effort to show how much faster Windows Phone can perform certain tasks. It has since evolved into a larger marketing campaign to show up its smartphone rivals. Microsoft initially offered a $100 prize to potential winners, but as of this weekend it has ramped up the prize to a laptop worth $1,000. (Losers also have the option of getting a free Windows Phone.)

While Smoked by Windows Phone certainly helped to get the word out about the mobile platform, it was evident from the beginning that Microsoft had the distinct advantage in many of the tests. They often took advantage of key Windows Phone features, like the camera button and live tiles, and didn’t give competing customers much of a warning to prepare their phones for the contests.

Ultimately, there was always something gimmicky and circus-like about the contest that rubbed me the wrong way. And while it may have generated more consumer awareness of Windows Phone, it’s tough to tell just what people think of the platform now. They’re certainly not buying Windows Phones en masse — despite the Lumia 900 being one hell of a deal.

Photo: Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

An early release of the Android version of social news reader app Flipboard has leaked out for anyone to install on their own devices — diminishing an exclusive Samsung scored to debut the app on its new Galaxy S III smartphone.

The Flipboard Android installation file, or APK, has been ripped and posted online at the XDA-developers forum. You’ll need to allow your Android device to install apps from “untrusted sources” to use the app, which is a very clear reminder that this is far from an official release.

From what we’re seeing, the leaked Flipboard version works fine across new and old Android devices. Like the iPhone version, the app allows you to follow news from topics you’re interested in, as well as news posted to your social media streams. Flipboard has long been one of the prime examples of well-designed mobile apps on iOS, so just like Instagram finally heading to Google’s mobile platform, it’s something Android users have long been waiting for.

Via SlashGear

Japanese phone maker Kyocera has a long way to go before it can really penetrate the U.S. market in the smartphone realm, but its just-announced Rise smartphone — with Android 4.0 and a pleasant physical keyboard — might help.

Kyocera introduced the new phone at the CTIA Wireless conference and we had a chance to get test the device out to see what it has to offer. While the phone is not impressive in any one way, it’s solid all-around package that will likely appeal to those on pre-paid carriers like Boost and MetroPCS.

For specs, the Kyocera Rise offers a 3.5-inch screen with 480 x 320 resolution, a 1-GHz processor, a 3.2-megapixel camera with LED flash, and a 1,500 mAh battery. Frankly this isn’t that impressive and looking closely at the device, the screen looked terrible with dull colors and a cheap-feeling plastic case. But on the plus side, the device is lightweight, the keyboard offers a nice typing experience, and its basic performance was fluid thanks to its Ice Cream Sandwich software.

The pre-paid market doesn’t get the sexy hyped phones like the Samsung Galaxy S III or HTC Droid Incredible 4G, but those who prefer more reasonable plans on the pre-paid carriers still want power and versatility out of their devices. That’s a completely fair expectation, and it’s admirable Kyocera is tackling that. In the same category as the Rise is the Kyocera Hydro, a waterproof smartphone with Ice Cream Sandwich that was also announced at CTIA.

A Kyocera spokesperson told me on the floor of the convention that Kyocera doesn’t even register in the top 10 manufacturers by smartphone market share in the U.S. But its strategy of putting cheap Android phones on carriers like Cricket, MetroPCS, U.S. Cellular, and Boost Mobile seems a smart way to gain more traction since the post-paid market is overcrowded with Android phones.

Pricing and availability for the Rise are both up in the air, but Kyocera said the device will arrive on pre-paid and post-paid carriers. We expect the device to be free with a 2-year contract or less than $200 upfront on a pre-paid carrier.

Check out our slideshow below of the Rise:

Virgin Mobile is now offering a 4G WiMax service without a contract.

This crazy scheme will be set into motion at the end of the month. The star of the show is HTC’s Evo V 4G, a mid-range Android smartphone which the carrier is selling for $300, with month-to-month plans starting at $35 for unlimited data and messaging.

The carrier already offers a couple no-contract 4G products, including a WiFi stick and the Overdrive Pro mobile hotspot. However, the Evo will be Virgin Mobile’s first 4G WiMax no-contract phone. The Evo, of course, also functions as a hotspot when needed. All of the devices will run on Sprint’s WiMax 4G network, which is significantly slower than 4G LTE offerings from AT&T and Verizon.

So, what does it all mean?

In this reporter’s opinion, a hill of beans, and/or an old person’s worst nightmare.

While we’re glad the carrier is definitely aboard the no-contract train, we doubt the business sense and practicality (and heck, even the truth) of the unlimited data claims. After all, AT&T’s head honcho recently said offering unlimited data to his customers was his one big regret as CEO.

And will the average bear be able to really feel the difference between a 3G and 4G connection? As not-so-average bears, we have a hard time telling the difference, ourselves, especially on a smartphone.

Sometimes, it feels like these wireless carriers are pushing upgrades to trendy, spendy phones with 4G capabilities based on the premise that 3G is better than 4G because it’s one number more!

Maybe we’re taking crazy pills. But we’re only marginally enthusiastic about this new offer from VirMo. What do you think — is this offer one you can’t refuse? Or is it just a big, steaming pile of marketing?

Android accounts for 61 percent of all smartphone sales, according to data published today by NPD Group.

That number is trailed by the 29-percent stake claimed by iOS devices, and RIM and Windows Phone are nowhere close.

These figures for the first quarter of 2012 represent healthy growth for Android, which had previously slumped to a 49 percent share of smartphone sales.

Smartphone sales still only make up 66 percent of all mobile phone sales, but that’s just sales of new devices. Separate research from Nielsen shows that as of March 2012, more than 50 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers owned smartphones, up from 47.8 percent at the end of 2011.

Also from Nielsen, we learn that for currently activated smartphones, Android grabs 48.5 percent of the market, a healthy lead on Apple iOS’s 32 percent.

Other highlights from Nielsen’s numbers include:

• The ladies: 50.9 percent of female mobile subscribers used smartphones compared to 50.1 percent for men.
• The (relatively) youngsters: More than two out of three people ages 25 to 34 have a smartphone.
• Asian Americans: This group leads smartphone adoption with 67.3 percent using a smartphone as their primary mobile handset.

However, other Android-related news today (Google getting a partial guilty verdict in a landmark court battle with Oracle) has us wondering how much market domination is worth if your product ends up getting nickel-and-dimed into unprofitability.

via Cnet

Top image courtesy of laihui, Flickr.

The jury has just now returned its partial verdict for the first (and perhaps most important) phase of the Oracle v. Google trial: The 12 jurors found Google had infringed on Oracle’s copyrights by its use of structure, sequence, and organization (SSO) of the 37 Java APIs used in Java.

For weeks now, the courtroom has echoed with arguments and testimony to determine one key principle: Are programming languages copyrightable, or aren’t they? And with this decision, twelve of our peers have declared that at least to some extent, they are.

The partial verdict was accepted by Judge William Alsup, who said last week in court, “I’m going to receive a partial verdict. I’m not going to let this work go to waste.”

Google uses the Java programming language in its Android mobile operating system. Oracle controls and owns Java, and it’s claiming that Google’s particular use of the language violates Oracle’s copyrights and patents.

Google has been arguing that no programming language, especially an open-source one (as Java is), can be copyrighted.

The first phase of this landmark trial was to settle this debate once and for all. However, based on what this reporter knows, both as a student of Java and as a firsthand observer in the courtroom, no one is more ill-equipped to make this decision than Judge William Alsup and the jury of San Franciscans selected for this trial.

As the American justice system dictates, the jury was selected by carefully avoiding anyone with expertise in the field. Engineers from multiple large Silicon Valley companies were turned away. The final jury members selected included a plumber, a nurse, a retired photographer, a store designer for Gap, a city bus driver, and a postal worker — in other words, folks with as little hope of understanding the deeply technical language and concepts they were about to encounter as I would have of understanding the intricacies of plumbing or the city’s public transit system.

First, Android founder Andy Rubin told the court that he had been under the impression that some of the Java APIs were copyrighted and that Google would need a license from then-Java-owner Sun to use them. Next, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt told the court that he thought Google didn’t need anyone’s permission to use those APIs and other parts of the Java language… mostly.

And on the Oracle side of the arguments, we learned that even though then-Sun CEO Jon Schwartz was publicly congratulatory about Android’s use of Java, in private email chains, he was angling for Sun to get licensing fees from Google.

Throughout the testimony, technical concepts came up frequently. In sitting on the courtroom’s hard, wooden benches, I saw the basics of Java explained in terms at times clear and at times quite obtuse. I felt like I understood the arguments both sides were presenting, but only because I had taken a computer science course or two and had used Java in writing simple programs in the past, myself.

The judge, on the other hand, had never dipped his toes into the waters of object-oriented programming. One of the most entertaining and excruciating parts of Schmidt’s testimony involved the tech exec explaining to Alsup how methods and classes work. Schmidt also had to explain to the jury what APIs are and how Java’s class libraries work.

At one point, Schmidt even had to stop the Oracle attorney during cross-examination because the lawyer wasn’t using precise enough language. The attorney was asking about APIs in very general terms, and Schmidt rightly refused to answer until the attorney worded the question correctly; an answer with a single word out of place could have had a radically different meaning from what was intended. At that point, Schmidt’s testimony involved a detailed discussion of the print method and an explanation of the layers of abstraction between hardware and human-readable interfaces.

I’m sure Schmidt was doing his best, but the explanations were still roundabout and ultimately unclear. What this courtroom needed was a couple weeks with a Java instructor, not the back-and-forth yammering and obfuscation they got from executives and attorneys (the more senior of whom seemed as oblivious to the inner workings of Java as did the judge and jury).

While I’m glad that, corporate marketing aside, most of the jurors were able to come into the courtroom free of prejudice, justice would have been much better served had the jury been possessed of even the most meager technical background. At this point, I am still not certain that we have any satisfactory answer to the deeply technical question first posed by this trial; all we have is the muddled opinions of twelve laypeople who’ve been subjected to a few weeks of contradictory legalese.

Two more phases remain in this trial; the second phase will cover patents, and the third and final phase will determine damages. VentureBeat will be covering this case, both in and out of the courtroom, to its conclusion.

Follow all VentureBeat’s courtroom reporting in Oracle V. Google

The jury has just now returned its partial verdict for the first (and perhaps most important) phase of the Oracle v. Google trial: The 12 jurors found Google had infringed on Oracle’s copyrights by its use of structure, sequence, and organization (SSO) of the 37 Java APIs used in Java. (The full verdict is embedded below.)

For weeks now, the courtroom has echoed with arguments and testimony to determine one key principle: Are programming languages copyrightable, or aren’t they? And with this decision, twelve of our peers have declared that at least to some extent, they are.

The partial verdict was accepted by Judge William Alsup, who said last week in court, “I’m going to receive a partial verdict. I’m not going to let this work go to waste.”

For the jury’s deliberation, four questions were posed, and each question was broken into multiple parts. The verdict returned today speaks to the first part of the first question only.

After the verdict was delivered, lawyers for Google argued that a mixed-bag verdict (on whether the search giant infringed the overall structure, sequence and organization of copyrighted works) was unacceptable and asked for a mistrial.

For his part, the judge said in court today there was “zero finding of copyright liability” other than in nine lines of code to which Oracle’s damages report attributes no value, anyhow. Alsup also rejected Oracle’s claim for “infringer’s profits” from the nine lines as “bordering on the ridiculous.”

Google uses the Java programming language in its Android mobile operating system. Oracle controls and owns Java, and it’s claiming that Google’s particular use of the language violates Oracle’s copyrights and patents.

Google has been arguing that no programming language, especially an open-source one (as Java is), can be copyrighted.

The first phase of this landmark trial was to settle this debate once and for all. However, based on what this reporter knows, both as a student of Java and as a firsthand observer in the courtroom, no one is more ill-equipped to make this decision than Judge William Alsup and the jury of San Franciscans selected for this trial.

As the American justice system dictates, the jury was selected by carefully avoiding anyone with expertise in the field. Engineers from multiple large Silicon Valley companies were turned away. The final jury members selected included a plumber, a nurse, a retired photographer, a store designer for Gap, a city bus driver, and a postal worker — in other words, folks with as little hope of understanding the deeply technical language and concepts they were about to encounter as I would have of understanding the intricacies of plumbing or the city’s public transit system.

First, Android founder Andy Rubin told the court that he had been under the impression that some of the Java APIs were copyrighted and that Google would need a license from then-Java-owner Sun to use them. Next, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt told the court that he thought Google didn’t need anyone’s permission to use those APIs and other parts of the Java language… mostly.

And on the Oracle side of the arguments, we learned that even though then-Sun CEO Jon Schwartz was publicly congratulatory about Android’s use of Java, in private email chains, he was angling for Sun to get licensing fees from Google.

Throughout the testimony, technical concepts came up frequently. In sitting on the courtroom’s hard, wooden benches, I saw the basics of Java explained in terms at times clear and at times quite obtuse. I felt like I understood the arguments both sides were presenting, but only because I had taken a computer science course or two and had used Java in writing simple programs in the past, myself.

The judge, on the other hand, had never dipped his toes into the waters of object-oriented programming. One of the most entertaining and excruciating parts of Schmidt’s testimony involved the tech exec explaining to Alsup how methods and classes work. Schmidt also had to explain to the jury what APIs are and how Java’s class libraries work.

At one point, Schmidt even had to stop the Oracle attorney during cross-examination because the lawyer wasn’t using precise enough language. The attorney was asking about APIs in very general terms, and Schmidt rightly refused to answer until the attorney worded the question correctly; an answer with a single word out of place could have had a radically different meaning from what was intended. At that point, Schmidt’s testimony involved a detailed discussion of the print method and an explanation of the layers of abstraction between hardware and human-readable interfaces.

I’m sure Schmidt was doing his best, but the explanations were still roundabout and ultimately unclear. What this courtroom needed was a couple weeks with a Java instructor, not the back-and-forth yammering and obfuscation they got from executives and attorneys (the more senior of whom seemed as oblivious to the inner workings of Java as did the judge and jury).

“This is a consistent issue in patent cases,” said Peter Yared to VentureBeat today. Yared is currently CTO for CBS Interactive and was formerly Sun’s CTO of the Application Server Division — and one of the most vocal advocates for open-sourcing Java in the first place.

“What is super odd about this case is that there is a claim about copyrighting APIs,” he said. “That would have a huge impact on the industry if you can’t replicate existing APIs and do a cleanroom implementation. I think that even laypeople should understand that one.”

“We appreciate the jury’s efforts, and know that fair use and infringement are two sides of the same coin” said a Google rep in an email to VentureBeat. “The core issue is whether the APIs here are copyrightable, and that’s for the court to decide. We expect to prevail on this issue and Oracle’s other claims.”

While I’m glad that, corporate marketing aside, most of the jurors were able to come into the courtroom free of prejudice, justice would have been much better served had the jury been possessed of even the most meager technical background. At this point, I am still not certain that we have any satisfactory answer to the deeply technical question first posed by this trial; all we have is the muddled opinions of twelve laypeople who’ve been subjected to a few weeks of contradictory legalese.

And my suspicions are unfortunately bolstered by the partial verdict and mistrial request.

For today’s partial verdict, the jury was given four questions: Did Google’s use of 37 Java APIs in Android infringe on Oracle’s Java copyrights; and if so, was the infringement covered by fair use, which permits copying under limited circumstances? The second and third question ask about possible infringement of the Java API documentation and some instances of line-by-line duplication of a small amount of code from Java into Android. The fourth question asks whether Sun and Schwartz’s public statements made Google believe it was right to use Java without a license.

Two more phases remain in this trial; the second phase will cover patents, and the third and final phase will determine damages. VentureBeat will be covering this case, both in and out of the courtroom, to its conclusion.

Follow all VentureBeat’s courtroom reporting in Oracle V. Google

It’s often said the third time’s the charm. With Verizon’s just-announced HTC Droid Incredible 4G, the third incarnation of this Android smartphone, both Verizon and HTC hope they have a winner.

The device debuts just ahead of the CTIA Wireless convention in New Orleans, at a time when HTC is desperately struggling in the global smartphone market. Over the past few years, HTC’s usually slick Android phones have lost their luster compared to Samsung’s even slicker offerings. In the last quarter alone, HTC’s revenue dropped by 35 percent year-over-year, so the company needs to up its game to bring consumers back to its brand.

But even if it’s financials are terrible, at least HTC appears to be focusing on creating quality devices again. The HTC One S on T-Mobile and One X on AT&T are among the best Android devices on the market now.

HTC’s Droid Incredible 4G features all the things you’d expect from a next-gen Android smartphone and maybe a little extra. It will run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and feature a 4-inch “Super LCD” screen with 960 x 540 resolution and an 8-megapixel camera. The device will get an extra power boost from its 1.2-GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, which is far fast than previous dual-core chips.

A full list of specs for the new phone can be found below:

• Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
• 4-inch super LCD qHD display
• 8 megapixel rear-facing camera with autofocus, LED flash, BSI, f/2.2, and 28 mm lens
• Front-facing camera for video chatting with friends and family
• 1.2 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor
• Mobile Hotspot capable to share 4G LTE connection with up to 10 Wi-Fi-enabled devices
• 8GB of internal storage
• Support for up to 32 GB microSD card
• 1,700 mAh lithium-ion removable battery

As for pricing and availability, HTC and Verizon are mum. Verizon said the phone will be available in “the coming weeks.” Based on similar phones, we’d expect the device to retail between $200 and $300 with a two-year contract.

After announcing that it’s jumping into the Google TV fray at CES in January, an LG executive said today that it will begin building and shipping the sets later this month. But, with Google TV’s lukewarm welcome by consumers, and a non-existent Apple television set grabbing headlines, will LG fare better than Google’s first round of partners?

Ro Seogho, an executive vice president in LG’s TV business, told Reuters that the company will start building the Google TV sets on May 17, and that consumers will be able to buy the sets starting the week of May 21.

Google TV launched in late 2010 as Google’s attempt to bring web video to TVs. The Android powered-platform brings Google search, web browsing, and most recently apps, to your television screen. But despite plenty of promise, it failed to take off initially due to sluggish speeds and lack of support from TV networks. Logitech famously gave up on Google TV last year after blaming it for a $100 million loss.

LG isn’t offering up any other details, like screen size or pricing. But from the report, I gather that Seogho isn’t referring to the “Nexus” Google TV set LG was rumored to be working on (which would run a much newer version of Google TV than existing devices). Without that Nexus designation, though, there doesn’t seem to be much to differentiate LG’s sets from Google TV products already available from Sony and Logitech.

I’m also not sure why LG is in such a rush to bring GTV sets to market. Google TV hasn’t been updated since last Fall (though that update offered some significant improvements), and it doesn’t give LG much time to promote the new sets. Wouldn’t the No. 2 television maker in the world have something to say about a significant new product line?

It could be that Google has a big Google TV update that it’s going to debut with LG’s sets, or LG is just bringing the sets to market without much effort to fulfill a contractual obligation.

At CES,  we also learned that new Google TV sets would be coming from Samsung, Vizio, and Sony.