Google Android has recently announced the public release of its cupcake branch. It is a development branch, not a release and it is still very much a work in progress. This new branch offers a number of application enhancements, including bug fixes, a video recorder, the ability to save MMS attachments and more.

System enhancements include better bluetooth support, better HTTP handling and, most importantly, a new JavaScript engine built on SquirrelFish.

The most practical update may be to the camera functions, which have finally expanded to include video recording. The browser gets a hefty refresh as well, with an inline find function and creatively implemented selective copy and paste, as well as quite a few speed enhancements.

Unlike the main Android trunk release, which is built on Linux 2.6.25, cupcake has been built on the updated Linux 2.6.27. Notably, the new system software offers basic x86 support and will allow third party manufacturers to develop and deploy their own handset-specific APIs.

The cupcake branch updates will eventually be merged back into the main Android trunk. This will probably not happen until early to mid January due to the American holiday season. Given the number of bug fixes covered by the cupcake release, this will likely be a for most Android users.

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