The “early-look” release of the Android SDK, for building mobile applications for the Google-backed Android platform, has been updated this week. Release m5-rc14 is available now, featuring a new user interface that replaces the previous placeholder interface, according to a blog by Jason Chen, Android developer advocate. Also, developers now can build layout animations for their applications using capabilities introduced in the android.view.animation package. A new version of the ADT (Android Development Tools) plug-in is available, featuring improvements to the Android developer experience. ADT enables developers to use the Eclipse IDE when building applications. A “geo-coding” capability enables developers to forward and reverse geo-code, meaning they can translate an address into a coordinate and vice-versa as well as search for businesses. Media codecs have been added for following formats: OGG Vorbis, MIDI, XMF, iMelody, RTTL/RTX and OTA. A general release of the SDK is planned as an open source offering once the first Android-based consumer devices ship in the second half of this year, a Google representative said. Software Development