Location awareness seems be the common thread of the hottest new Android apps, according to an eWeek article. Clint Boulton's story there briefly profiles ten winners of the recent Android Challenge, most of which tap the Android design's GPS device.

(Click for larger view of BioWallet)

“10 Apps That Met Google's Android Dev Challenge” takes a sneak peak at ten winners from the developers' contest. Last week, the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) announced 46 winners out of 1,788 submissions for the first round of the Android Developer Challenge. The contest awards the best and most innovative of applications built for the Google-backed Java- and Linux-based mobile phone application suite due to launch this Fall. Each winner earns $25,000, with the chance to compete for awards of $275,000 and $100,000 in later rounds.

AndroidScan

The following offers a glimpse of five of Boulton's ten profiled apps:

• AndroidScan — Developed by Jeffrey Sharkey, the app (pictured at right) uses an Android phone's camera to recognize bar codes, and then hunts down prices and reviews, displaying the covers of CDs, DVDs, and books.
• BioWallet — This Jose Luis Huertas Fernandez app (pictured at top) is touted as a biometric iris authentication system for Android. It also provides single sign-on for other Android apps.
• Eco2go — Created by Taneem Talukdar, Gary Pong, Jeff Kao and Robert Lam, Eco2go lets users “track and reduce their carbon footprint, as well as share ideas with others from around the world,” writes Boulton. Features include the ability to calculate the carbon output of various trips, and suggestions for environmentally friendly public transit alternatives.
• Mobeedo — Developed by a startup called Sengaro, Mobeedo was “one of the few mobile search applications designed for this Android competition,” writes Boulton. In addition to providing location-aware search, Mobeedo community members can annotate any Universal Resource Identifier (URI) referenced multimedia content with spatial-temporal, categorical, and personal parameters.

• PedNav

  PedNav — RouteMe2 Technologies developed this location-aware personal assistant (pictured at right). According to Boulton, PedNav “gauges the user's plans for the day — restaurants, offices, shops and attractions — and, using the schedules of venues and transportation companies, creates a personalized itinerary.”

Availability

Clint Boulton's eWeek story, “10 Apps That Met Google`s Android Dev Challenge,” is available here. The OHA's list of Round I winners is available here, and newly posted slide-show descriptions of the 46 winning projects, with screenshots, should be here.

 
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