The Open Handset Alliance (OHA) has announced 46 winners out of 1,788 submissions for the first round of the Google Android Developer Challenge. Each winner earns $25,000, with the chance to compete for awards of $275,000 and $100,000 in later rounds.

(Click for larger view of Android Challenge winner, HandWx)

Android, for anyone who's been living under a rock for the last six months, is a Java-based mobile phone application suite that runs on top of Linux, and possibly other mobile OSes in the future. Maintained by the OHA, an industry group founded by Google, the Android project includes a developer kit aimed at helping developers create web services-friendly rich client Java applications for mobile phones, which could ultimately become the most commonly used Internet access terminals.

Over 100 judges reviewed the 1,788 submissions, looking for “innovative, useful apps” that make use of the capabilities of the Google-sponsored, Linux-based Android mobile platform. Winners were chosen from those applications that could “deliver a better mobile experience,” according to the Android Developer Challenge page.

Round I submissions were accepted from January 2 through April 14th, while Round II will begin “after the first handsets built on the platform become available in the second half of 2008,” says the site. A total of $10 million will be handed out in the first two rounds. The winners will then compete for ten $275,000 awards and ten $100,000 awards.

There were actually 50 first-round winners, says the Android Developers Challenge page, but four winners prefer to remain in stealth mode for now. Many of the winners take advantage of the Android's GPS capability, exploiting the device for location-aware applications. Others range from games to social-networking apps to productivity programs. The application names seem to follow in the spirit of the unusually named development environment, with many more names such as Commandro, IMEasy, JOYity, and SocialMonster, and relatively few along the lines of the winning Phonebook 2.0.

Two winners — Weathertop Consulting of College Station, Texas, and Weather Decision Technologies, Inc. (WDT) of Norman, Oklahoma — released more information on their jointly sponsored winning HandWx mobile weather application (pictured at top). HandWx is said to offer “follow-me” pinpoint forecasts and location-based severe weather feeds. Based on WDT's real-time Doppler Radar data, which has been overlaid onto Google Maps, HandWx enables users to use search features and Google Maps functions to interact with weather data, “right down to the street and house level,” say the partners.

The list of Round I winners are available here. The OHA plans to reveal more details about the winning applications in the near future. Neanwhile, a Phandroid blog has posted descriptions of some winners, here.

 
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