LiveAndroid Turns Your PC Into a Non-Functional Smartphone

By James Kendrick | Thursday, July 9, 2009 | 9:45 AM CT | 2 comments | Tweet This (3)

LIveAndroid 0.2

Google may have dimmed the excitement of a PC running Android with the announcement of the Chrome OS, but there are still those who want to do it. For them, there is the LiveAndroid project, whose developers are constantly working on getting Android 1.5 running on a PC. Version 0.2 of LiveAndroid was released this week and it runs as a LiveCD operating system. This means you burn it to CD and boot your PC into Android without worrying about your existing OS installation.

Android is not fully functional in LiveAndroid yet, but it shows the potential of a Google OS designed for communications. The previous version of LiveAndroid was available in a USB compatible format and one is expected for this new version 0.2 soon. That would let you install it on a USB stick that could then be booted just like a CD. This is the format most compatible with netbooks that lack an optical drive.

GigaOM Pro

Infrastructure: Supercomputers and the Search for the Exascale Grail
NewNet: Esquire Gives Augmented Reality a Bad Name
Infrastructure: Forget the Rest, Rackspace is Amazon’s Only Cloud Threat
Mobile: What SMS Marketers Can Learn From the Ringtone Space

See more premium content »

Comments (2)

To me, the biggest thing about the Chrome OS is the fast boot.

If it’s really a fast boot, then there’s a market for it.

Patrick — 10:11 AM on July 9, 2009 Reply
I still like the idea of running Android on a netbook, if it enables all of its smartphone functionality (e.g. cell phone calls, SMS/MMS, LBS, etc.). It would be cool making/receiving phone calls with a bluetooth headset, while my netbook is in my backpack.

Hopefully, Android’s smartphone functionality will be available, with the Chrome OS.

HereAndNow — 10:33 AM on July 9, 2009 Reply