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Google Announces Photostreaming App For Android

The final list of applications that will appear on the first wave of Android handsets hasn't been revealed, but this new, open source project from the Android Developers Blog might be one of them. Photostream can stream Flickr photos to an Android handset.

As social networking applications continue to take off, it is necessary to make sharing content between networks, platforms, and devices easy. Not all photo-sharing sites and networks work with all phones or mobile platforms. Google's developers are making sure that Android works with at least one photo sharing site: Flickr.

In a post found on the Android Developers Blog, Google takes the opportunity to introduce Photostream. Photostream is "a simple photos browser and viewer for Flickr. All you need to use it is a Flickr screen name or user name (the application offers a default user name if you just want to try it.)"

Because the application is open source, developers can use its base code to create their own apps, and it can be tied to several of Android's features and APIs.

Some of them include: adding custom shortcuts to Home; adding a new wallpaper chooser to the system; proper interaction between background threads and the UI thread; efficient display rotation; and cropping an image, among many others.

My guess is that when Android ships, it will be closely tied to Google's own Picasa photo sharing service, which recently saw a major upgrade.

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