Motorola: au Box Set-top Box Not Based on Android

By Geoff Duncan Published April 20, 2009

Motorola: au Box Set-top Box Not Based on Android

Device makers might be looking at Google’s Android platform as something suitable for devices other tha mobile phones…but it looks like reports Motorola would be first to market a non-phone Android device were premature. Last week reports began circulating that the next version of Motorola’s set-top au Box would be based on Android. The au Box is available in the Japanese market, and is intended as a digital media center for folks who have mobile phones but not a PC: it plays CDs and DVDs, transfers media to phones, and can tap into digital video services using broadband Internet and wireless mobile data services.

Motorola has responded to the reports, saying in a statement via email that the au Boxes Motorola is getting ready to deliver to Japanese telecom operator KDDI are based on Motorola’s own KreaTV platform, which is in turn based on Linux. Motorola says it has no plans to produce an Android version of the au Box.

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Reports of an Android version of the au Box stemmed from comments from Masataka Miura, chairman of the Open Embedded Software Foundation, who said Android set-top boxes “conceptualized” by the OESF would be on display at this fall’s CEATEC trade show in Japan.

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Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…

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