Google’s Android Jumps to the Living Room – Bits Blog – NYTimes.com

MIPS Technologies, a microprocessor design firm, is trying to push Google’s Android software beyond mobile phones into the living room.

Though Android was developed originally as an operating system for smartphones, computer makers quickly started toying with the idea of putting it onto the small laptops known as netbooks. Several manufacturers demonstrated such devices at the Computex conference in Taiwan in June.

Now, MIPS wants to put Android in home electronics devices.

“Android has gone viral,” said Art Swift, vice president of marketing at MIPS, in a phone interview.

Two months after announcing that it would the adopt Android for its chip architecture, MIPS said this week that it is making its computer code publicly available to customers.

“In my 25 years in the electronics industry, I have never seen a new technology take off as quickly as this one. It is moving very rapidly out the of mobile handset space,” Mr. Swift said.

via Google’s Android Jumps to the Living Room – Bits Blog – NYTimes.com.