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Google tests Android update on employees' Nexus S

Web giant has delivered an over-the-air update of Ice Cream Sandwich to some employees' phones, according to an Android Police report.

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Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
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Google has begun testing an update for its Android mobile operating system on some Google employees' phones before releasing it to the public.

An over-the-air update for Android 4.0, aka Ice Cream Sandwich, recently arrived on some employees' Nexus S phones, according to an Android Police report.

"Just got Ice-cream Sandwich update on my Nexus S & it's looking great :)," Google engineer Adel Saoud said in a Google+ post.

Screenshot by Steven Musil/CNET

Testing of Android 4.0 is expected to take at least a few weeks, with the over-the-air release to follow--good news for Nexus S owners.

Ice Cream Sandwich began shipping last month on Samsung's Galaxy Nexus in Europe, although it is still unavailable in most parts of the world, including the U.S. Even though Android is developed behind closed doors, the recent release of the Ice Cream Sandwich source code lets enthusiasts tinker with it.

For those adventurous souls who can't wait for the update's official release, the CyanogenMod project to build unofficial versions of Android is working on CM9, the version based on the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich source code. Early CM9 builds are available in alpha for the Samsung Nexus S and beta for the Samsung Galaxy S.