Judging from the latest global smartphone sales numbers, players like Mozilla who are focused on markets outside the U.S., including emerging markets, may have the wind at their backs. As just one example of why that's true, Samsung and Apple, dropped to their lowest shares of the worldwide smartphone market in years during the second quarter as Chinese smartphone vendors delivered strong growth, market research firm IDC reported.

Everything there is to know about Android Wear smartwatches including LG G Watch, Motorola Moto 360, Samsung Gear Live, HTC One Wear and Google Gem.

Android is a Google product—it's designed and built from the ground up to integrate with Google services and be a cloud-powered OS. A lot of Android is open source, though, and there's nothing that says you have to use it the way that Google would prefer. With some work, it’s possible to turn a modern Android smartphone into a Google-less, completely open device—so we wanted to try just that. After dusting off the Nexus 4 and grabbing a copy of the open source parts of Android, we jumped off the grid and dumped all the proprietary Google and cloud-based services you'd normally use on Android. Instead, this experiment runs entirely on open source alternatives. FOSS or bust!

Most Android users are by now well aware of Cyanogen and their custom operating system CyanogenMod (CM). Earlier this month CM11 M8 was finally released which brought CM users up to Android 4.4.4. However if you own a Nexus 5 you can now install CM11S.

The new Android L developer preview improved its user interface

According to Android Headlines, the Android team of Google presented its new design language at the company's I/O Developers' Conference last month. The said design language is called Material Design, which boasts a flat interface.

It's the Android-rival mobile operating system that never was. At least for now, anyway.

We now can reveal VERY early reports are suggesting the Nexus line is not dead and in fact Motorola are already working on the new Nexus device. This at the moment is still only at the rumor stage with Android Police this morning reporting they have received unconfirmed reports the device is being manufactured by Motorola and is set for release sometime in the fall. Possibly November. The device at the moment is codenamed Shamu although again this has not been in any way confirmed. In fact at present the only evidence provided to support the rumor is a screenshot taken from Google’s issue tracker referencing ‘Shamu’.

With the Android L set to roll out in a couple of months times, only two companies are definitely supporting the latest Google OS update.

Google confirmed during I/O 2014 that the the will release the next Android update later this year, and that is is currently code named “Android L.”

An administrator responded on the OnePlus blog by giving a clear indication the One will eventually be available to buy in India. At launch (even though there was no official launch) the OnePlus One was only available in North America and Europe. However it now seems that India is one of the country’s most eager to purchase the device. According to the OnePlus blog India ranks eight in the world via traffic trying to obtain the device through the OnePlus site. If this is correct than this ranks India higher than a number of the countries the device was actually launched in.

OnePlus have developed quite a buzz over the last few months with the release of their first device the OnePlus One. Part of the allure is the incredibly low asking price of $300 – which is typically half the cost of its on-spec rivals. However another feature which has greatly attracted attention is the OnePlus One comes with CyanogenMod (CM) custom ROM as stock out of the box.

About 10 years ago, when I got my first mobile phone, I hardly knew anything about its operating system or its processor. Even its screen size didn’t matter. I was just happy to have a 'mobile' phone.

Today, the mobile phone paradigm has shifted from feature phones to smart phones. When people consider purchasing a new mobile phone, they examine its operating system, its configuration, and its screen size. Increased attention to these details can be attributed to technological advancements—and, more importantly, to the slew of new mobile operating systems available today. In this highly competitive market, Android has obtained about 80 percent of the global market share, making it the clear leader among mobile operating systems.

What makes Android so popular? Why has the mobile market swung toward Android lately? Let's take a quick look at how Android has achieved this, as well as the role of open source in the Android story.

Taking photos with an Android phone can be a very satisfying endeavor. Or it can be a study in frustration and ruined photo opportunities. Why? Because while all Android devices are powered by Google's GOOGL +0.33% OS, phone makers are free to develop their own camera apps, adopting or omitting photo features as they see fit. Simply put, some companies do this better than others. One of the best ways to improve your photography experience then, is to use a third party camera app instead of the one that came installed on your phone.

Sailfish OS is a new venture by ex-nokia employees which aims to bring a new independent partner friendly mobile operating system to wireless devices. However, as the mobile ecosystem today is quite fragmented, a new OS brings in a lot of work for developers to port the new OS in their existing devices. The Sailfish OS team knew this problem and have come out with a Hardware Adaptation Dev kit which will help developers to port and run Sailfish OS on any device capable of running Cyanogen Mod 10.1.x.

I have no doubt that the next generation of premium smartphones and tablets will be based on 64-bit processors. To provide the power and features needed for new features such as UltraHD video, LTE-Advanced, and 3D products (such as Google's Tango), mobile devices will need a big boost in processing power.

New 64-bit SOCs such as Qualcomm's Snapdragon 805 processor are expected to begin shipping this year, and the first products are expected to be commercially available in the first quarter of 2005, just in time for the Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona.

Electric Objects has achieved Kickstarter funding for its Android-based EO1, a wall-mounted, 23-inch HD signage computer for displaying digital art.

New York City based Electric Objects is one of several companies reinvigorating the wall-mounted digital picture frame form-factor with more affordable prices, smartphone access, and other modern amenities. Like Framed, which is based on Windows Embedded, Electric Objects’s EO1 picture frame has easily surpassed its Kickstarter funding goals. There are still 17 days left, however, to get in on discounted pricing, including $299 for a May 2015 release, or $499 (the eventual retail price) for a wooden-framed version, or a beta test model due in Jan. 2015.

As businesses look beyond BlackBerry for smartphone security, Samsung and Google step up to the plate. Knox integration is coming in Android L.

Smartwatches are still a fairly new category. Google revealed its big Android Wear initiative at its I/O developer conference in June. The company is hoping to do for smartwatches what Android proper did for smartphones. Rumors suggest Apple is also working on a smartwatch of its own, but the company hasn’t announced anything yet.

With games dominating the app market on both iOS and Android, it isn’t a surprise that a developer is already coming to the scene with a game for smartwatches. Now we can find out if anyone cares about gaming on a watch or whether most will just stick to playing Candy Crush Saga on their smartphone.

NVIDIA announced this morning their new Shield Tablet and Shield Controller. The new Shield Tablet is a $299 Android tablet that's great for gaming and is mighty powerful with using the Tegra K1 SoC.

With being powered by the Tegra K1, the CPU and graphics performance is mighty powerful for the tablet with its Kepler-based GPU and four Cortex-A15 processor cores. The Shield Tablet has an 8-inch, 1920 x 1200 display and the WiFi version with 16GB of storage is going to sell for $299 USD.

They say all good things come to those who wait and it seems like the G3 was quite worth the wait after all. With a launch price of Rs 47,990 for the 16GB version, the G3 is here for to satiate your flagship hunger. Here’s our review of LG’s flagship after a week’s usage.

Google says it'll allow developers to customize the faces of Android-based smart watches, officially - developers have already worked around the Android Wear platform's build to craft custom watch faces, but Google has asked for a stay in the flood of third-party designs until official support has been rolled out.