Android 2.3 Gingerbread launch likely today

Android Gingerbread will be released on Dec. 6, according to rumors on the Web, particularly one generated by tech company Notion Ink. Andy Rubin, the founder of Android operating system is scheduled to appear on Dec. 6 at D:Dive Into Mobile, an event founded by two Wall Street Journal journalists in San Francisco, and is likely to reveal the new version of Android 2.3, also known as Gingerbread.

Notion Ink’s website says:
“6th December is another big day for Android and you will find out how fast Notion Ink can work. (Eden is extremely compatible with 2.3)”

Notion Ink is an Indian technology company that has created Adam Tablet, and Eden is its dual mode user interface.

It was previously believed that Android 2.3 would be launched around mid-November and Google Hong Kong has already released a video tutorial for voice search on Android Gingerbread. The visible new features of Gingerbread are the new icons and the notification area, which is black. The virtual menu key is now against a black background and has two shortcuts on either side. The user interface also has new buttons in the settings menu. The Android Market has three new tabs in its app information page too, and although one is said to have ‘related’ written on it, uncertainities remain because the writing was in Chinese.

This is the fourth time that the launch of Gingerbread has looked imminent since the blogosphere was more or less convinced it would be out on November 11. Gingerbread also appeared on November 15 at the Web 2.0 Summit when Google’s chief executive Eric Schmidt demonstrated it on the Google Nexus S smartphone from Samsung.

Tech blog Absolute Android around that time speculated that it will be possible to custom arrange the icons on Gingerbread. He also predicted that the icons would be redesigned and that it would be possible to use custom wallpapers as app backgrounds.

Google was expected to launch a music service along with Lala, iLike, and MySpace, and its default media player was expected to support many more codecs than it now does. It seems likely that the new music service will be released on Gingerbread.

Another important feature that people want to see in Android 2.3 is video chat; while the most interesting and anticipated new feature is the BlindType Android Touch Keyboard. If that feature indeed exists, the keyboard will be able to adjust its own size based on its perception of the user’s preferences.

Stay tuned while we await the official announcement of Android 2.3 Gingerbread’s arrival.