Google shows off Motorola tablet prototype with Android 3.0

Andy Rubin, Android's co-founder and now vice president of engineering at Google, showed off a Motorola tablet prototype at the "D: Dive Into Mobile" event this week. The device not only featured a "dual core 3D processor" from Nvidia, but it had some interesting software on top of it.

It's the first device we've seen running Android 3.0 (codenamed Honeycomb), the next version after Android 2.3 (codenamed Gingerbread). Rubin explained that it features video chat, a new release of Google Maps, an updated Gmail app, and a redesigned desktop that takes into account the extra screen space. The tablet itself featured no buttons, and the OS seemed to compensate for this with on-screen elements to launch search and apps.

We're not even 100 percent sure that Honeycomb will be Android 3.0. Gingerbread was originally supposed to be version 3.0 but it got pushed back and dubbed version 2.3. This could happen with Gingerbread, meaning it could end up being version 2.4, but somehow given the tablet improvements we think it will indeed be version 3.0. In either case, after Honeycomb, we already know we'll be getting codename Ice Cream.