Google is said to be preparing a new Android app that will look eerily similar to Apple’s Game Center for iOS devices.

Sources close to the plan tell Business Insider that Google is banking on this forthcoming native app to help level the social gaming field between the two mobile operating system giants.

“That’s a key piece of software plumbing necessary to make Google a contender in the fast-growing mobile games market,” the report reads.

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Research In Motion is aiming for a fresh start.

After a major executive shake up earlier this year, the struggling smartphone maker is bringing in new talent to help the company bounce back from the brink.

Bolstered by the groundswell of interest in the BlackBerry 10 platform, RIM today confirmed the installment of a new chief operating officer. The job is going to Kristian Tear, a former executive vice president at Sony Mobile Communications.

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This week, Color – the hugely video-broadcasting app for iOS and Android – confirmed an exciting new partnership with Verizon.

In short, the updated app will dramatically improve the quality and delivery of videos it captures.

“Today,” writes founder Bill Nguyen on the Color Blog, “we’re formally unveiling our relationship with Verizon and a small down payment on the future. With their help, we’ve added audio to our LIVE video exclusively on the Verizon network. We’ve doubled the frame rate on our videos so our friends and family can see more moments more clearly. We did all this in less than two months.”

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comScore on Monday heralded the launch of Mobile Metrix 2.0 – its next generation mobile behavioral measurement service.

And the findings, as always, are of great interest to the mobile, web, and social media communities.

Among smartphone users age 18 and older accessing from iOS, Android and RIM smartphones, Google Sites ranked as the top property with nearly 94 million unique visitors, representing 96.9 percent of the mobile audience.

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Android is growing by leaps and bounds… but its revenue is a different story.

According to coverage provided Friday from Reuters, Google’s Android mobile platform resulted in a net loss for the company in every quarter of 2010.

Google, which doesn’t publicly report financial information about Android, had some of the beans spilled yesterday in court as litigation lingered on between Oracle and Google regarding smartphone technology.

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According to a new report published Thursday by Ovum, smartphones will outperform the overall market for mobile phones, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 24.9% between 2011-17.

If that projection manifests, it will mean that smartphone shipments will reach 1.7 billion units by 2017.

Predictions show Android as the dominant operating system over the next five years as handset vendors rush to make it their primary smartphone platform.

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A new case study made a splash on Millennial Media’s website Wednesday, as the success of a recent campaign with developer ngmoco is coming to light.

The campaign in question was designed to promote ngmoco’s Blackjack app and drive Android App Downloads.

The effort took aim at 25 different Android devices and, as it turns out, succeeded at driving well over $35,000 downloads in less than a month.

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