The Olympics of Hacking, Courtesy of Google

Halloween is over, but there is still a contest to see who can be the best Android. Google is offering $10 million to developers building open source applications for the company's new mobile phone software platform.

It's like a science fair for grownups.

"We've built some interesting applications for Android but the best applications are not here yet and that's because they're going to be written by developers," said Sergey Brin, cofounder and president for technology of Google. "We'd like to reward these developers and recognize them as much as possible."

The Android Developer Challenge is designed "to support the developer community and spark innovation on the Android platform" by awarding cash prizes ranging from $25,000 to $275,000 to developers whose applications are picked by a panel of Google judge-bots.

"We're challenging developers to stretch their imaginations and skills to leverage the full capabilities of this new platform and to create something amazing," said Andy Rubin, Google's director of mobile platforms.

"A panel of technology and mobile experts selected from the Open Handset Alliance member organizations and the industry in general will judge all qualifying entries," Google said in a statement. "Awards will be given to the developers whose applications leverage all that the Android platform has to offer in order to provide consumers with the most compelling experiences."

News of the contest comes as Google's consortium, the Open Handset Alliance, released the Android Software Development Kit.

"The Android platform was built from the ground up to enable developers to create new and innovative mobile applications that take full advantage of all the capabilities of a handset connected to the internet," a Google spokesman said in a statement emailed to Portfolio.com.

He described it as: "a complete mobile platform built on the Linux 2.6 kernel that exposes a robust operating system, a comprehensive set of libraries, a rich multimedia user interface, and a complete set of phone applications."

Google will make Android fully available under the Apache v2 open-source license in 2008, the company said.

The official rules, per Mountain View:

The $10 million total in the Android Developer Challenge will be distributed equally between the Android Developer Challenge I and II. Submissions for Challenge I will be accepted from January 2 through March 3, 2008, and the 50 most promising entries will be recognized by end of March with each receiving $25,000 awards to fund further development.

These 50 entries will then be eligible for even greater recognition by applying by May 1, 2008 for ten awards worth $275,000 each and another ten worth $100,000 each. Recognition for the top apps among those entries will be announced by end of May 2008. Challenge II will launch after the first handsets built on the platform become available in the second half of 2008.

We welcome all types of applications but are looking to reward innovative, useful apps that make use of Android's capabilities to deliver a better mobile experience. Here are some suggested areas of focus to get you started:

Social networking

Media consumption, management, editing, or sharing, e.g., photos

Productivity and collaboration such as email, IM, calendar, etc.

Gaming

News and information

Rethinking of traditional user interfaces

Use of mash-up functionality

Use of location-based services

Humanitarian benefits

Applications in service of global economic development

Whatever you're excited about!

by Sam Gustin