Google has put up $10 millions in cash prizes for the best application on its Android mobile platform.
Releasing the Android toolkit yesterday, Google is offering prizes ranging from $25,000 to $275,000 to developers whose applications are picked by a panel of judges.
"We've built some interesting applications for Android but the best applications are not here yet and that's because they're going to be written by developers,' said Google co-founder and president, Sergey Brin.
The apps will be judged by member of the Open Handset Alliance, a 34-member group of vendors, operators and developers who will support Android, an open-source Linux platform for mobile phones.
The Android challenge will run from January 2 to March 3, Google said. Another round of competition will begin in the second half of 2008 after the first commercial handsets are released.