Heads up, Android fans, as it appears than an interesting little "experiment" was kicked off in the last few days that you may want to learn more about. In a post in a Google Group, Jean-Baptiste Queru has revealed that work has begun on bringing Nexus-like Android Open Source Project (AOSP) support to Sony's Xperia S. Queru, who is the technical lead for the AOSP, explains that the community is encouraged to get involved in the project so long as they're careful when it comes to handling proprietary files. He goes on to say that the experiment will probably only be useful for "low-level engineering" for a long period of time rather than something that could be used on a daily basis. The aim of the project is to investigate why the AOSP, which is designed in a way that it should be capable of plugging its files into non-Nexus devices, hasn't actually had that happen yet and to learn whether or not doing so is worth the effort.
As for why Sony's Xperia S was chosen as the subject of this experiment, Queru explains that it's a "powerful current GSM device" that features an unlocked bootloader and is from a manufacturer that's been AOSP-friendly in the past. While the project is something that only developers interested in the "bleeding edge" will be interested in for a while, it's still pretty neat to see Google kicking off an experiment to extend AOSP support to a non-Nexus device, and I'm sure that many folks will be watching the experiment closely to see what it yields. It'll also be interesting to see how Sony reacts to the project. If you're an Android fan interested in learning more about the project or perhaps even contributing to it, you can find the group at the Google link below.
Via The Verge, Google Group
