On the same day that Amazon will be releasing its quarterly earnings, some research from comScore underscores just how far the company has come since launching its Kindle Fire tablet in November 2011.

The researchers say that as of February 2012, Amazon’s Kindle Fire now accounts for 54.4 percent of all Android tablets in the U.S. Given how many different models of Android tablets there are out in the market at the moment, that gives it a strong lead over the rest of the field: the whole range of Samsung Galaxy Tab tablets, added together, only accounted for 15.4 percent of the market, with the Xoom following at seven percent, comScore said.

That’s an embarrassing state of affairs for a company like Samsung, which has not only flooded the market with different-sized devices but was an early mover in the Android tablet space. And these figures also emphasize just how much work Sony has ahead of it in its battle to try to get more traction in tablets and mobile in general.

On the other hand, the small shares for so many manufacturers also, inadvertently, gives a good opening for Microsoft to entice OEMs to build on its platform to try to wrest share from Amazon and Apple and its iPad, which is still the most popular tablet of all — although its share of sales has decreased over time. Apart from Amazon, which is using a forked version of Android, no one has really made headway among consumers using Android to date.

It also points to the possibility that if Amazon can create a successful forked Android product, will we see others trying their luck using this route soon?

Of course, there’s more to making a successful product in the tablet market, and what Amazon has managed to do is create a price-busting ($199), content-rich product that not only has the benefit of Amazon’s own content relationships, but by getting a critical mass of tablet users it is also attracting third-party developers to make apps specifically for its platform.

The full breakdown:

Beyond that, Asus with its Transformer has made an almost equal impact as Motorola, with a 6.3 percent share of the market and Toshiba’s AT100 has a 5.7 percent share.

With some expecting Amazon to release a second model of the Fire with a bigger screen — and others speculating that Apple will do the same by releasing a smaller-screened iPad — the industry hasn’t really settled on which size tablet might be optimal. Some figures out from comScore give some insight at least into how different sizes get used.

Basically, when it comes to browsing, the bigger the better: a tablet with a 10-inch screen generates 39 percent more browsing than a tablet with a seven-inch screen, and a 58 percent higher consumption rate than five-inch tablets.  (That’s not too much of a surprise, really, since it’s much easier to browse the Internet on a bigger screen, but it does also point to the fact that over time we may see more content created to capitalize on this trend.)

ComScore’s numbers come from a new research division called Device Essentials, which tracks Internet traffic on a device-specific basis. Other types of data it collects are around smartphone and feature phone usage on an OS-level; how much smartphone traffic is carried by different operators; and traffic for specific content categories based on operating systems and devices; and whether people are using cellular network or Wi-Fi to browse.

Facebook has been in the process of ramping up its effort to leverage its ever-growing platform to aid mobile developers to market their native and HTML5-based apps. In this attempt to extend its platform on mobile, Facebook brought its social channels and social app discovery to mobile web apps on Android and native apps on iOS. With a new update to Facebook for Android, the social network today announced that it is bringing social discovery to native Android apps.

In a blog post today, Facebook said that apps and games like Pinterest, BranchOut, Diamond Dash, and Words With Friends have seen a spike in traffic to their native iOS apps and Android web apps through Facebook. Thus, with this release social app discovery for native apps is available on both Android and iOS.

The update, Facebook says, will make it easier for people on Facebook to discover and re-engage with their favorite apps on mobile devices, presumably driving additional growth for Android apps. This means that channels like Bookmarks, Requests, and News Feed, which have previously been available on other platforms, are now accessible on native Android apps. To date, 7 of the top 10 iOS apps and 5 of the top 10 grossing Android apps (like Live Holdem Poker Pro, Zynga Poker, Slot City, Slotomania, and Draw Something) are integrated with Facebook.

In case it’s not clear from the above, Facebook now enables developers to build apps for the mobile platform of their choice, and to take advantage of the social discovery and increased traffic brought through viral channels. For developers, once a mobile optimized version of an app is ready to go (with Facebook Single Sign On), head over to app settings, and enable “Android Native Deep Linking,” and fill in the form. You can find the documentation here.

For more, check out the blog post here.

Independent mobile ad network InMobi released its Q1 2012 Ad Data report for North America this morning, covering the mobile ad landscape for the first part of the year. Not surprisingly, the report found the top two mobile operating systems were, again, iOS and Android, each with a sizeable chunk of market share and growing. RIM, meanwhile, was still clinging to spot #3, but has dropped 4.6% since Q1 2011, the report found, going from a 11.9% share to 7.3%. this past quarter.

InMobi’s report is not a full picture of the mobile landscape, of course – it’s only a slice of it, pulled from data sourced by ad impressions on its network. Today, the company reaches 578 million consumers in over 165 countries, serving more than 93.4 billion ad impressions each month.

In the new report for North America, InMobi found that Apple’s iOS platform has maintained its lead over Android for the third consecutive month, with total iOS impression share at 37% versus Android’s 34%. However, even though InMobi refers to iOS as “iPhone OS” in its findings (but not its graphics…), it appears they’re also counting iPads and iPod Touches when determining the platform’s totals.

When this so-called “iPhone OS” is broken down, InMobi says the iPhone itself has 19.7% market share, the iPod 12.2% and the iPad 4.9%. Given Android’s fairly small tablet footprint, an apples to apples comparison (groan, sorry) of mobile phone platforms alone would put Android phones ahead if you were only looking at mobile handsets. InMobi did not, so you can claim this data is skewed in Apple’s favor, if you choose.

Anne Frisbie, InMobi’s VP and Managing Director for North America, says that Apple’s position in this market has a lot to do with the new iPad. “Apple maintained its lead over Android and further increased its share of impressions and handset dominance; the new iPad certainly helped its overall position,” she says. “However, we know that fierce competition is created across the operating systems when new devices enter the market, and this time last year Android surpassed iOS globally.”

In other words, things can still change.

But in terms of ad impressions (if not device type), iOS leads globally, too. InMobi found Apple devices claiming the top three positions at a combined 18% global market share.

Globally, however, Nokia devices combined have the highest number of impressions at 35%. This grouping didn’t just include Symbian phones, though – it also included Windows Phone as well as Nokia feature phones that have Internet access.

Meanwhile, as iOS reigned in North America, in the U.K. specifically, Apple’s share was even larger, with 45% of all ad impressions, compared with Google’s Android at 26% and RIM at 16%.

But in all of Europe combined, Google’s Android was most popular, with 36% of all impressions versus Apple’s 28% and RIM’s 13%.

Facebook has released an update to its Android app today that should give users of the social network on Android devices a more integrated and instant experience — and takes Facebook another step closer to making its mobile app experience more like the one people have when using the social network on the web.

Specifically, the new version lets users share photos and messages direct from the home screen of their devices, and it includes several features that had been in the standalone Messenger app.

Facebook for Android 1.9, according to a blog post from Facebook software engineer Frank Qixing Du, also integrates several features that had been in Facebook’s separate Messenger app. These include the ability to see when your friends are online or on their mobile devices; the ability to add people to a group conversation; and a more intelligent contact list, sorting it by the people you interact with most.

After updating the app, camera shortcuts and messaging shortcuts will also appear in your Android app tray, as shortcuts separate from the Facebook app itself:

As before, you will also be able to upload photos, track what your friends are uploading and writing, and look up the phone numbers of your contacts.

So far, the reviews in the Google Play app store have been mixed. On the minus side, several are pointing out that there is now some confusion between Facebook’s Camera and Messenger apps, and those that users would have already had — the native Android apps. Also these new additions take up extra space for now. On the plus side, there’s strong praise for the new design and better Messenger integration.

Check out the reviews and the app itself in Google Play.

As bad as Nokia’s financials look right now – a $4 billion drop in sales won’t make anyone’s day – don’t consider the Windows Phone move a failure just yet. They’ve done what many phone companies have thus far failed to do – namely change swiftly with the times – and, more important, they’ve done it quite admirably.

If you’ll recall, the first real Android phone was HTC’s G1. Considered a clunker by all but the most die-hard of users, the device sold fairly well (1 million in 2008). But it did something more important than make T-Mobile the first Android carrier – it grabbed a certain contingent of user who understood Android, understood the framework, and would follow Android to the grave. The popularity of the G1 was a direct reaction to the burgeoning iOS platform. The same thing happened in the WebOS space, but WebOS was exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time and is a disaster distinct from the Android launch.

Over time, the maker of the G1, HTC, got better and better at making Android phones. The experience gained from the G1 allowed manufacturers to rejigger their sales strategy, leading to the famous Droid marketing campaign and the hysteria for Google’s Nexus line.

Nokia is in a similar space. An outside software product is trying to take market share and will probably flounder for the first few months. Nokia has pivoted completely. Their popular Symbian smartphones are essentially dead and their Windows Phone line is curtailed until popular adoption grows. Most important, they’re taking a bath on the Lumia line by pricing it at or below the comfort level of most casual smartphone buyers

They’re essentially selling loss leaders in order to gain market share. Microsoft knows it and Nokia knows it and I assure you HTC, Samsung, and LG know it. They only folks who shouldn’t be worried – yet – are Apple yet I suspect Microsoft is definitely on their radar.

I can say one thing without equivocation: Windows Phone is than Android. WinPho is monolithic, there are no issues of branching or hardware compatibility, and UI familiarity will soon be bolstered by millions of Windows 8 installs around the world. Android is great if you’re a small manufacturer and you just want to dump a stack onto what would have once been called a feature phone. Windows Phone is great if you want the largesse, the popularity, and the trustworthiness of Microsoft behind your product.

So ignore Nokia at your peril. Their strategy is just right at just the right time. Remember: nobody ever got fired for installing Microsoft. Not even Stephen Elop.

Chrome for Android is becoming somewhat of a flagship mobile app for Google, but given that it’s only available on phones and tablets running Ice Cream Sandwich, its reach is pretty limited. It’s still one of the best mobile browsers on the market, though, and Google is adding a number of cool features to it today. Chrome for Android is now also available in 31 additional languages and in all countries where Google Play is available.

Among the new features is the ability to request the desktop version of a website instead of the mobile version that site may have defaulted to. Quite a few mobile sites offer their mobile users to switch back to a desktop version already, but this option is notably absent from far too many sites. Many sites also default to the mobile view whenever they see an Android device, no matter the screen size, which can get a bit annoying on a tablet.

With this new version, Chrome for Android users can now also choose to add bookmarks to their Android home screens and choose which apps should handle links opened in Chrome.

The updated app also now allows users to download files to their device and includes support for complex text layout and right to left text. In addition, this new version now suggests country-specific search engines and users can now use Chrome with the system proxy configured in their Android settings.

While Google’s top brass were busy dissecting the company’s Q1 earnings on their scheduled conference call, it was business as usual for the rest of the company. Over on the official Android Developers blog, for example, Google announced that developers in the Czech Republic, Mexico, Israel, and Poland can now sell Android apps and in-app additions in the Google Play store (and in their native currencies to boot).

“But wait,” you may say. “Developers from Israel and Mexico have been able to sell their apps for years now!” You’d be absolutely right — the Czech Republic and Poland are the only really new additions, but there was a bit of a catch for the other two.

At the time, developers in Mexico and Israel could only sell their apps through an AdSense merchant account and set prices in US dollars. With this new change in place, Google now supports both countries’ respective currencies. The process for Israeli or Mexican developers to make the transition seems a bit hairy though — Google outlines the whole thing here, and it involves creating a new Google account and re-registering with Google Play.

So what does this mean for you developers? Well, unless you live in one of the aforementioned countries, not a whole lot. While most of the work will have to be done by developers operating out of those locales, Google stills suggests that you consider whether or not you want to set a specific price for each of those new markets instead of just letting your default price ride.

Those minor issues aside, Google now officially supports paid application sales from developers in 31 countries. It sounds pretty good until you realize that it’s taken over a year and a half for Google to add these new names to the list of supported countries. I’m sure that developers in those countries will appreciate that Google has finally gotten around to them, but there are still quite a few that haven’t.

A link to the post was shared by the Android Developers Google+ account, inspiring a litany of requests from people asking Google to support their countries as well, prompting Android Developer Relations Lead Reto Meier to apologize for the delay. Then again, Google’s always been very upfront about this sort of thing — they note in their list of seller countries that they are “unable to provide any guidance on timelines.”

As if producing commercial airliners, helicopters, and satellites didn’t keep Boeing busy enough, the company revealed earlier this week that they would soon be branching out into a slightly different market. National Defense Magazine reports that Boeing is currently working on an highly-secure Android-based smartphone of all things, and that it should see a release later this year.

Boeing President Roger Krone declined to go into specifics when it came to the device’s hardware or release date, though he did note the Boeing Phone (the company hasn’t officially decided on a name yet) is nearing the end of its development cycle. It seems as though the device has been in the works for a while so it’s a safe bet that the spec sheet won’t be the most competitive, and I wouldn’t expect to see anything newer than Froyo or Gingerbread running on it.

If you hadn’t already guessed, this isn’t the sort of device you’ll be able to pick up at your local mom-and-pop cell phone store. In developing their Android phone, Boeing kept an eye on big competitors in the secure communications market, who often price their proprietary devices in the five-figure range. Thanks in part to the inclusion of a free (not to mention robust) mobile operating system, Boeing plans to introduce their smartphone at a much lower price, which should please the procurement folks within the Defense Department and other security-conscious operations.

Cost apparent’y the only reason that Boeing opted to create an Android device — with Google’s OS accounting for over around 50% of the U.S. smartphone market, users are coming to expect more out of their work-issued devices. As Krone told National Defense Magazine’s Stew Magnuson, the Boeing Phone will give customers “what they are used to seeing [on consumer market smartphones] and give them the functionality from the security perspective.”

Boeing isnt the first company to surprise us with news of a security-conscious mobile device — Dell surprised us late last year when they announced that the their discontinued (and oft-maligned) Dell Streak 5 was the first Android device to be given the official seal of approval by the U.S. Department of Defense. Folks within the organization were apparently fond of the mini-slate’s design, though I have to wonder how well those things actually hold up in the field.

Last December, Google launched Currents, its attempt at challenging popular mobile apps like Flipboard and Zite. Since then, the company has added about 400 new publishers and over 14,000 self-published editions to its lineup . Until now, though, Currents, which runs on Android and iOS, was only available in the United States. That’s changing today, as Google is taking Currents global. Local publishers can now start adding their content to the app and U.S. publishers can now turn on a translation feature to make their texts available in any of the 44 languages that are supported by Google Translate.

Among the international publishers who are already using Google Currents are The Guardian in the UK, LaStampa in Italy, Financial Times Deutschland in Germany, ABC News in Australia, Neue Zürcher Zeitung in Switzerland and Hindustan Times in India.

The translation feature, though, is what Google really wants to highlight in this release. Given that it’s based on Google Translate, those translations can be a bit rough at time, though they are generally good enough to get the general gist of an article.

This new version of Currents also sports a new “dynamic sync feature,” which ensures that articles are downloaded immediately when you open the app without having to press the sync button. Currents’ users can now also download select editions for offline reading.

If you’re an Android and a PC, you should check out BlueStacks — before hackers catch on or Chrome sneaks in this functionality, take advantage. The startup’s software has been going like hotcakes over the last few months, as it’s offering a much-needed service for Android and PC users, having developed software that allows Android users to run their apps on all Windows PCs, tablets, and laptops — without any modifications.

Thanks to this appealing concept, BlueStacks lured $7.6 million in venture funding pre-launch, before adding another $6.4 million a few months later — all from investors like AMD, Citrix Systems, Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Ventures, and more.

The startup finally released its public beta on March 27th, and so far users have been eating it up. In the first 10 days after its release, BlueStacks’ App Player racked up more than 1 million downloads, with over 12 million apps collectively being run by its users. It’s on the heels of this early traction that the company is today announcing it has found yet another investor — this time from global telecom giant, Qualcomm.

Acting through its venture arm, Qualcomm Ventures, the chipmaker invested an undisclosed amount in BlueStacks, but from what we’ve been hearing from those familiar with the matter, the round was in the seven-figure range.

The startup now has over $15 million in outside investment, which is notable both in size (relative to the age of its product) and for the fact that BlueStacks has been able to bring together (at least symbolically) two of the biggest semiconductor/chipmakers on the market — Qualcomm and AMD. Not two names one typically finds side-by-side on a startup’s roster of investors.

“Consumers are increasingly looking for computing experiences that enable them to access their apps across different platforms,” said VP of Qualcomm Ventures Nagraj Kashyap. “We believe BlueStacks is well-positioned to capitalize on the marriage of mobile and PC.”

Again, for a recap for those unfamiliar, BlueStacks’ App Player is a free software download that gives Android users the ability to get one-click access to their apps on any Windows PC, including full-screen viewing. In turn, the startup’s Cloud Connect lets users push apps from their phone onto their PC easily and remotely, turning PCs into extensions of any Android-based mobile device, using their own personal cloud-based app channel.

Obviously, the big goal for BlueStacks is to bring the some 450,000 Android apps to those billion-odd PC users out there. If done right, it’s a fairly sizable market, to say the least. The other key to the startup’s beta release was the new ability to run graphics-intensive Android apps on desktop PCs, using its patent-pending technology called “Layercake.” Essentially, as we wrote at the time, Layercake allows Android apps to run on x86-based PCs, including apps written for the ARM processor, like Angry Birds Space or Fruit Ninja, for example.

The beta release leverages the PC’s graphics card to enable apps running graphics-intensive engines like Unity to process without hiccups, and also offers accelerometer tilting and pinch-to-zoom smartphone UI features to the desktop via mouse and keyboard prompts. Users can also now download apps from within BlueStacks even if they don’t have an Android phone, and can send and receive SMS messages on their PCs.

The company partnered with the developers behind apps like Fruit Ninja, SliceIt!, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Townsmen, Evernote, Defender and StumbleUpon for its beta release. Shainiel Deo, the CEO of Halfbrick (the makers of Fruit Ninja), said that the appeal of BlueStacks’ software is that developers don’t have to port or modify apps to run them on PCs, meaning there’s no heavy lifting for those who’ve already developed apps for Android.

Of course, Android fragmentation could be a problem, as some users of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus in particular have complained of trouble in syncing app data between devices and PCs — beyond simply syncing APKs — something which will be crucial for its long-term viability. It will also be interesting to see how BlueStacks deals with security, as some users pointed out that the software could become a victim of having to make repeated security upgrades as hackers catch onto loopholes.

But, in the meantime, BlueStacks could offer Android users a great way to avoid using data-time on their smartphones, reducing bills across the board. It also offers Android developers of all stripes access to the billion-user PC market, something which has previously only been offered for a select few, like Rovio and Cut the Rope.

In that sense, BlueStacks wants to become a developer platform, by which developers can build for Android and get a PC app version for free. It’s without a doubt a smart play, and with big money from Andreessen, AMD, Qualcomm and more there’s reason to believe its product will continue to improve, though it will certainly be interesting to see how sustainable the company’s concept can be in the long term. If Windows 8 tablets take off, long-term viability could be within reach.

For more on BlueStacks, check ‘em out at home here. Below you’ll find a demo video of Fruit Ninja fullscreen on a PC using BlueStacks software: