During a keynote presentation at the Google I/O conference, Sundar Pichai, SVP of Android Chrome & Apps, revealed that there have been 900 million Android activations in total.

Hugo Barra, VP of product management at Android, revealed that Google Play has just crossed 48 billion app installs, including 2.5 billion installs in the last month. He also said that so far this year, Google has already paid out more money to developer in Google Play than in all of last year and he said that than that revenue per user is 2.5x what it was a year ago globally.

Google also revealed three new location APIs at the show. This includes a fused location provider which makes location faster to acquire, more accurate, and it takes less battery. Another new API is called geofencing, which lets developers set up a virtual fenced area around a location which are triggered when a user enters or exits these areas. The third new API is a new activity recognition feature that will let developers track physical data and automatically figure out walking, cycling and driving behavior without turning on the GPS.

Do you use your Android tablet as a writing tool? One writer posed a common problem in a Reddit post:

I carry around a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 wherever I go. It wasn’t long before I grabbed a bluetooth keyboard and started doing some of my writing on the go. I’ve been using Polaris Office and dabbling in Google Drive, but I still feel like I haven’t found a program that really gets formatting down or provides the experience I’m looking for.

We’ve collected the best responses below. If you have more suggestions, include them in the comments section.

Read more

Watch out Evernote, Google has introduced a new Android app for taking notes called Keep. The app lets you take jot down thoughts, create lists and even add photos to help you organize your notes.

Don’t feel like writing? You can dictate notes with your voice and the app will automatically transcribe them. The app also has a feature to help you organize various topics. Essentially you can color code your notes to help organize. This could be a great way to use the app to take notes for multiple feature stories that you are working on, or perhaps different chapters in a novel. There is also an archive tool, so that you can save older projects out of the way.

The  app first appeared in Google Play earlier this week, but within a couple of hours it had disappeared. Let’s hope this time it is ready to stay for good.

Russia’s Yotaphone made an impressive appearance at CES this year with its dual screen technology – an e-ink display on the back of an Android LCD phone.

The company just signed a production contract with Singapore’s OEM Hi-P international so it’s on track for a launch later this year. The manufacturer has produced hardware for Apple, Blackberry, and Amazon eReaders so the phone could see vast improvements with additional research and development.

Yotaphone’s target user would be an avid eReader, with multiple devices or one that can’t commit to having multiple devices with different technologies.

YotaPhone is an Android with a high-resolution liquid crystal display on one side and an electronic paper display on the other. It allows you to effortlessly stream information to the electronic paper display, without draining battery power or having to wake up the phone. The electronic paper display (EPD), which is your personal space for information, images and interaction you always use and always need.

Do you have a teenager who you’d like to keep better track of? PureAppStudio has created a tool that can let you keep track of them using a pair of Android phones. Teenage Tracker is an app that you install on your phone and on your teen’s phone that lets you track their whereabouts based on the GPS in their device.

The app tracks the location of the teen and pinpoints their location on an app. The app also taps into the phone’s camera to create audio and video recordings of where they are and what they are doing. Is this legal? According to the company’s website, “In all known jurisdictions to us, if you have legal custody and/or explicit permission, the answer is no. However, you are encouraged to consult your local laws on that matter.” Will your teenager hate you? The company doesn’t answer this question. That’s up to you to figure out.

Check out the video above to see how it works. The project is currently looking for funding through IndieGogo.com.

Paul is a clever Android app that can help you save on data consumption by pre-loading your favorite videos when you have wi-fi connections. The app uses its own predictive algorithms to cache videos that it thinks you might like based on your viewing history. The app also has a witty and inspirational name. Paul was the octopus that predicted the 2012 FIFA World Cup.

Paul scans for videos from major sources like Facebook, YouTube, ESPN, CNN, and Twitter. You can also sync Paul with Last.fm to retrieve videos from favorite artists. The app allows you to play the videos within native apps like YouTube, within your Paul app, or with any of Paul’s viewing widgets.

Cisco analysis predicts that two-thirds of world mobile data will be video by the year 1017. This app could help in managing cellular networks by decreasing heavy traffic streams and decreasing waiting time for viewing videos. Further the app will be collecting vast amounts of data on user viewing habits – similar to what Tuberank has developed to predict video virality.  Read more

Draw Something, Fruit Ninja and Hill Climb Racing are popular apps that are often making bestselling apps lists. The apps are also included on a new list published by Verizon, naming “High Risk Android Apps.”

Verizon is defining these apps as those apps that cause a loss of functionality, an unexpected high data usage, or those apps that will drain your battery or risk security or privacy exposure. Verizon explains how the list works on its site: “This page lists apps that may be especially risky for you to use at this time. We work regularly with app developers to help them fix problems with their apps, and apps are removed from this list as soon as the issues are fixed.”

Verizon shut down its own app store last month, explaining that most of the apps are still available through other stores. (Via Bloomberg.)

Jonathan Dharmaraj broke up with his girlfriend in 2012 when they moved away for school, and he’s hoping his Android app can win his lady back. The app is a tool for Android users who wants access to certain apps without having to unlock their phone. Jonathan’s girlfriend loves her smartphone and he created this simple lockscreen widget to help her use her apps more efficiently.

Jonathan named the app after his girlfriend’s petname – Shipoopi, a song from the musical Music Man that was featured on Family Guy. The song’s chorus is a bout a girl who is hard to get.

Jonathan’s not a developer and does not work for a start-up, but he might want to consider marketing and PR. In the season of Valentine day inspired apps, this one struck a soft note of sympathy so if Shipoopi is reading this, we hope she and Jonathan resolves their distance and find true love.

Bluestacks is now in beta for Mac, meaning OS X users can run over 750,000 Android applications using the free Bluestack Player. The player was formerly a PC-only invention, intended to create an Android mobile experience for Windows with over 1 million download in its first three months in 2011.

This beta release for Mac offers a lot more stability and is worth trying if you have been eyeing Android versions of Bad Piggies, Jetpack Joyride and Angry Birds Star Wars. The navigation features mimic mobile devices, so users can navigate by swiping on their touchpad. Bluestacks for Windows was extremely successful at bringing beautiful, graphic-heavy Android app to PCs, and the company aims to cover over 400K Android apps for OS X users. Click below to watch the Video. Read more

After releasing a new iPad app last week, the DIY crafty social shopping network Etsy has released an new app for Android devices. The Android app, which works on any Android device, lets users shop 17 million items from 800,000 sellers around the world. Users can shop by category, season or Etsy seller. The app includes photos and videos of the many products. It’s available in English, French, Dutch, and German.

The company first got into the app business last November with an iPhone app, which was followed by an iPad app last week. According toTechCrunch, the app passed a million downloads in four months. As of October 2012, Etsy reports that the iPhone app has been downloaded more than 3.5 million times.

On any given day, the site sees 25 percent of its traffic come in from mobile devices. From Black Friday to Cyber Monday, almost 1 in 3 visits to Etsy came from mobile devices.