Android

**Android** is an open-source framework for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications (e-mail, browser, media player and the like). It is currently developed by Google.

The operating system kernel is based on a heavily modified version of Linux. Google no longer maintains the code they previously contributed to the Linux kernel: as a consequence, the Android kernel can be considered a //fork // of Linux.

On top of the kernel, Google has developed a rich set of libraries to handle all the basic needs of modern mobile systems: fonts, 2D and 3D graphics, data storage, communication over the web and over cellular networks, and more.  The programming language for applications is Java, although the Java bytecode is translated upon compilation into a proprietary binary format that is run into a custom virtual machine called Dalvik.