Google's adding some advanced new features to its Android operating system in the latest version -- 2.2, deliciously codenamed Froyo. USB tethering and the ability to act as a Wi-Fi hot-spot will be included in the next update, TechCrunch reports, meaning you can use your phone's 3G connection to pump the Internets to your laptop.
Frozen yoghurt is clearly Google's equivalent of Red Bull -- Android Police tested 2.2 on a Nexus One and found it a jaw-dropping 450 per cent faster at running a test app called Linpack. It went from a 2.1 score of 7MFLOPS, a measure of computing performance based on operations per second, to 37MFLOPS with 2.2. If correct, that's a massive increase in efficiency.
Froyo also promises full Flash support for a more seamless Web browsing experience. According to Adobe, there'll be a special mobile-optimised video codec. If that's not detected, the Flash player will warn you that the video you want isn't optimised, but play it anyway. A double-click on the video will make it full-screen.
Android 2.2 will be officially launched at Google's I/O developer conference next week. It could potentially be rolled out to all existing Android handsets, such as the HTC Hero, but it will have to be adapted to all the various interfaces that manufacturers and phone networks put on top of the OS. When you'll actually see it is anyone's guess -- our Hero still hasn't been upgraded from Android 1.5.
Image credit: TechCrunch
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