COMMENTARY | Because Google's Android operating system is open-source -- meaning all the programming code is put up on the Internet for people to use for free -- it's used by many hobbyists, and even researchers, for their own purposes.
An example of the former? CyanogenMod, the custom version of Android that people are using to try to bring Ice Cream Sandwich to the Nook Color and Kindle Fire. And an example of the latter involves some neat experiments a few Google engineers tried ... along with a project at NASA.
Yes, that is the curvature of Earth
In the video posted on the Google Mobile Blog, that is. A handful of enterprising friends on the Google campus got together and created a series of high-altitude balloons, which would take sensor payloads (and Android action figures) up to 100,000 feet above the Earth's surface. At this altitude, the horizon began to curve downwards, and the sky appeared black and star-filled.
The then-new Nexus S and its "great set of embedded sensors" were used for the experiments, along with a set of proprietary Google apps like Google Maps and Google Sky Map (to identify constellations). The phones were secured in foam coolers, and the Android miniatures and plush toys were attached in various ways. Each balloon popped once it got to a certain altitude, but fortunately there was no littering: Each payload's descent was tracked by GPS, and they were all recovered afterward.
Real NASA Androids
No, they aren't the robot seen in the 80's movie Space Camp. They're SPHERES, or Synchronized Position, Hold, Engage and Reorient Experimental Satellites. These are tiny, spherical robots developed by MIT, about the size and shape of a blocky bowling ball, which let NASA researchers experiment with programming them to fly in zero-gravity and avoid obstacles.
On the Google Nexus YouTube channel, Google interviews the NASA engineers who use the Nexus S smartphone to control modern SPHERES. According to engineer DW Wheeler, "Android is easy to program ... and we needed to make a lot of customizations that are easier to make with Android." The app used by NASA to analyze the phones' sensor data is open-source too, and is have had their hardware modified to use a AA battery instead of the standard lithium-ion pack, plus they had their GSM antenna removed to reduce interference with the space vehicles' systems. The phones still use Wi-Fi, however.
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