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CyanogenMod closer to fully running Android on HP TouchPad

In its quest to fully support Android on the HP TouchPad, the CyanogenMod team has succeeded in getting Wi-Fi, sound, and the accelerometer to work on an Android-enabled demo device.

Lance Whitney Contributing Writer
Lance Whitney is a freelance technology writer and trainer and a former IT professional. He's written for Time, CNET, PCMag, and several other publications. He's the author of two tech books--one on Windows and another on LinkedIn.
Lance Whitney
2 min read

The HP TouchPad has gotten a bit closer to fully running Android.
The HP TouchPad has gotten a bit closer to fully running Android. Josh P. Miller/CNET

The crew at CyanogenMod has gotten a few steps closer to fully running Android on an HP TouchPad.

Known for designing customized builds of Android for different mobile devices, CyanogenMod has managed to enable Wi-Fi, sound, and a working accelerometer on one of its TouchPad demo devices running Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

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Noting the team's latest developments on its TouchPad thread at the RootzWiki Web site, one of the developers known as "greentheonly" showed off what it had accomplished via a video clip (shown below).

Greentheonly demoed the ability to connect to a Wi-Fi network, through which he was able to access Android Market and download a copy of Angry Birds. Playing the downloaded Angry Birds, he then showed off the new audio capability as well as the working touch screen. He also provided a peek into video and sound playback by firing up a YouTube video through the browser. Though the video quality wasn't great, Greentheonly said "this is one of the work-in-progress areas."

The accelerometer seemed to work smoothly as the video displayed the screen moving from portrait to landscape as the tablet rotated. A further demo of Greentheonly playing a labyrinth game showed off this feature in greater detail as a ball navigated nicely around a maze, thanks to the sensitivity of the accelerometer.

The new features show healthy progress from late August when the CyanogenMod team was still struggling to get the touch screen to work.

Another team called TouchDroid had embarked on the same quest of porting Android to the TouchPad and had made some headway before splitting up earlier this month.

Many of the users who scooped up $99 TouchPads courtesy of HP's recent fire sale may be itching to try Android on them. But CyanogenMod acknowledges that it's likely to be some time before it can provide any type of public code that people can download and install to enable Android on their tablets.