It’s Good Friday and it most certainly is a nice day to sit back, relax and catch up on some Android news from around. Today has seen some interesting news items that are quite exciting. So, let’s get stuck into the juicy stuff.

Today is the day! OUYA is about to launch the OUYA Android gaming device around the world. It’s that little grey/silver box that is powered by Android and runs Android games. The best part – it’ll only set you back $99 – pretty amazing. Read further and check out all the games on the official OUYA Forum.

Google has today been a good little boy / big company. Google has made a Open Patent Non-Assertion pledge, …

Indoor Maps for Android has come to Australia today! We’ve now got indoor maps for selected airports and malls, as well as other locations. All you need to zoom in far enough to an indoor mapped location and the floor plan with come out! Read more at Google Australia’s blog.

The LG Optimus G launched today on Telstra starting from $0 per month on the $60 plan for 24 months. Read more on Android Australia.

The Melbourne Samsung Experience Store launches tomorrow and we’ll be on the scene to find out all the goss and have a hands-on with the Note 8.0!

The Sony Xperia Z is now up for pre-order from Telstra! Read more on their website…

We have seen statues come and go from the grassy hills of  Google’s Mountain View campus.

We have seen Androids toting Ice Cream Sandwiches, Jelly Beans and even hiding in Honeycomb; but never before a Chrome Android statue.

What does this mean?

Paul Wilcox, Android’s Community Manager posted this bizarre image today on his Google + page.

Reading further into the picture, the Chrome Android statue seems to be leaning out of Building 45 at the Android Institute and right opposite the lawn where the statues are normally unveiled.

Further more, Google normally only release Android statues to personify the release of a new version of Android. Could this mean some marriage between the Chrome browser or Chrome Operating System; …

Sometimes, you just have to bend the rules a bit. Sometimes, by skirting the word of the law, by going against the grain, by just being….. different, can you achieve true beauty. I feel that this is the case of today’s “Show Us Your Homescreen”, and clearly many of my fellow Android Australia writers agree with me.

“Bob, don’t bother with a vote this time, this is clearly the best” said Josh Berg. “My effort from last fortnight has been completely humbled by this” said Nathan Elcoate. Nonetheless, I put it to the required vote.

I needn’t have bothered, as it won resoundingly, the most one-sided vote we’ve had.

As our winner this time and regular reader Tyler Saddington pointed …

Firstly I must apologise guys. Show Us Your Homescreen has been down for some time. Partially that’s due to me being busy with my real job, partially that’s been due to me going to Australia and breaking the Show Us Your Homescreen cycle, partially that’s been due to wanting to move this into a new part of the Android Australia website, and partially that’s been due to me being just lazy.

Regardless, Show Us Your Homescreen is back. This is the first time that one of our own writers made the cut (except for my first entry, but since I didn’t have any competition I doubt that counts) so congratulations to our very own Nathan Elcoate for being out latest …

UPDATE: We have a winner! The winner of a brand new Samsung Galaxy S III 4G goes by the name ‘Bush.’ We’re very happy to be giving away such a great prize and hope to be giving away more great prizes in the future. From the response we got from this one we assume we will so stay tuned for more! ‘

The winner was chosen by the entire AA team through a voting system. Here’s the winning comment in all of it’s wonderful glory:

Virgin Virgin
Yes Im a virgin.
But with A GS3
Ill be major sexy
But promise
Ill still be with you Virgin :p

But, that’s not all. We also have the four winners of the …

Another fortnight has past, and it’s time to announce our new winner of “Show Us Your Homescreen”!

But first I want to announce that due to requests from you guys (yes, we do listen) the “Show Us Your Homescreen” feature is going to be completely reworked. Rather than me only showing you one homescreen a fortnight, a new section of Android Australia is being prepared where all the submitted homescreens can be displayed. You can then peruse any and all the homescreens at your leisure. We will continue to feature one homescreen every two weeks, using the same format as we already are, so this new section will exist on top of the current.

In the meantime, homescreens will be …

So here we are, our first featured homescreen as part of our new “Show Us Your Homescreen” segment. Thankyou for everyone that entered and please keep those entries coming, I really enjoyed checking out everything that you have done.

It was a very tight vote, with surprising variation in the voting by the different members of the Android Australia team. The winner in the end (by the narrowest of margins) is gurgle.

I’m personally a big fan of this setup, as it really is quite different to the default Android setup. For isntance, it only has one homescreen and forgoes a button to access the app drawer, using a swipe gesture instead. I’m also a fan of the lockscreen …

Hello Android fans across Australia and the world! Following on from last weeks article that looked at different launchers available for Android we are announcing a new ongoing feature article: Show Us Your Homescreen. One of the best things about Android is the ability to theme your phone to your personality, much more so than you can with iOS or Windows Phones. This feature article is all about celebrating that.

The idea is simple, you send us screenshots of your phone’s home screen setup, and then every fortnight (to begin with) the Android Australia team will choose one to be featured on our site. Be creative and show us what you can do.

THE RULES

To be considered, you must …

Update: We have a winner! Congratulations to Daniel W. for winning the pair of Sony headphones! Daniel received the award for visiting the Devices page. If you’re looking for a device in Australia then be sure to visit our full list of all Australian devices! :)

As promised, we’re back with another give-away! We just received a nice little package from Sony Australia and thought – hey, let’s spread the love with the AA community! So, we thought we’d give away a pair of headphones to say thanks for reading!

If you want to check out the headphones then head over to Sony’s official page.

How to play:

It’s quite simple actually. There are three ways to …

Chinese electronics giant Hisense have announced a partnership with Google to bring a sub-$100 Google TV box to the masses.

The so far elusive Android powered Google TV box has been marketed so far by Sony, with the $399 box available only by redemption on certain high-end TV models. But so far, and I checked this in a Sony store last week, they have not landed.

Hisense are supposed to be demonstrating the box live at the IFA event in Berlin from August 29th to September 5th this year, so the final iteration of the product shouldn’t be too far away.

“Hisense adds even more innovation to the growing list of Google TV-powered devices available around the world. We’re working …

Just a quick reminder here! Don’t forget that we’re going live on the air tomorrow afternoon on Google+!

Come and join the hangout and we’ll be taking Android, talking Android Australia and getting to know all of you! As this is our first hangout we’re wanting to do something quite relaxing and laid back as we just want to get to know our readers and have a good time.

We’ll be starting at 5PM AEST and will be online until 6PM that afternoon (August 19th). Feel free to head over to the Google+ event and join in on the fun. :)

See you all then!