Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google


Mississippi State Students Design Android Phone Games

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 03/01/10

Mississippi State students and game designers John van der Zwaag (front), Natasha Pittman, and Keni Steward, are working on programs to run on the HTC Hero smartphone.

A dozen students in Mississippi are working with a cellular carrier to develop smartphone games that will eventually end up in the Google Android Market. The students, enrolled in a game design class at Mississippi State University, are working with Cellular South to create computer games for the HTC Hero. The training is provided through the Bagley College of Engineering's department of computer science and engineering.

Ed Swan, an associate professor teaching the course, said cell phones have "become, by far, the most rapidly disseminated technology in the history of mankind; almost half the world population has one." Since one mobile phone is sold for every two people in the world, the college's incorporation of smartphone game design into its teaching curriculum "seemed like a no-brainer," he added.

According to comScore, as of December 2009, Google had 5.2 percent of the smartphone device market, which also includes the Apple iPhone and RIM BlackBerry, among others. According to AndoLib.com, a search engine for Google Android applications, the market has about 31,000 applications and games, of which games make up 15 percent. Free programs make up about 62 percent of the market. Programs for purchase typically cost just a few dollars.

"The partnership between Cellular South and the MSU class is good for a number of reasons," Swan said. First, the open-source Google Android operating system is available for no cost; second, the cellular carrier provided phones that allow the students to demonstrate their games on the devices.

Swan said class members will have opportunities to design two game applications for the Android phone.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • artificial intelligence on laptop

    OpenAI to Combine AI Products into Desktop 'Superapp'

    OpenAI is reportedly developing a desktop application that would combine several of its emerging AI products into a single platform, according to reports, marking the latest step in the company's effort to transform ChatGPT from a standalone chatbot into a broader productivity and automation environment.

  • woman surrounded by virtual hologram icons

    Beyond AI Adoption: Designing Learning for an Age of Abundant Intelligence

    Higher education was designed for a world in which access to knowledge, expertise, feedback, mentorship, and authentic learning experiences were inherently scarce. By making many forms of intelligence increasingly abundant, AI is inherently redefining the existing paradigm.

  • digital brain with network connections

    Microsoft Moving to Internally Developed AI Models in Office Apps

    Microsoft is reportedly using its own in-house artificial intelligence models to handle some workloads in Excel and Outlook, offering new evidence that the company is moving its AI strategy beyond model development and into large-scale cost reduction.

  • Profile silhouette of a person thoughtfully touching their chin, overlaid with transparent data visualizations and digital interface elements suggesting artificial intelligence and analytics.

    The Institutional Knowledge Shift Is Reshaping Higher Ed IT

    Higher education IT leaders are navigating a quiet but consequential transition: Experienced team members are retiring or leaving for private-sector roles, and the teams replacing them are smaller, newer, and often stretched thin. The result is a structural shift in how technology decisions are made, executed, and sustained.