At Google’s developers conference Google IO 2011 they announced their roadmap for Android.
Currently Google ships 2 versions of Android
- 2.3 Gingerbread an open source version suited to smartphones
- 3.0 Honeycomb suited to tablets and only available to OEMs
They will combine these into one homogenous release called Ice Cream Sandwich  which will be available in Q4 2011. Whats more they said they will release all the source code. So Android will again become ‘free’ for anyone to use (providing they adhere to the licensing conditions..)
Ice Cream Sandwich will also introduce a number of new features -including enhanced NFC capabilities.
The complete Day 1 Google IO keynote is available on YouTube
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxzucwjFEEs]