HTC, manufacturer of Android smartphones, have announced some good news for Android users wanting to root their phones and load custom operating systems on them.

The company confirmed in an announcement on the official HTC Facebook page that they are saying goodbye to their locked bootloader policy, and from now on will no longer lock the bootloaders on it’s phones.

‎”There has been overwhelmingly customer feedback that people want access to open bootloaders on HTC phones. I want you to know that we’ve listened. Today, I’m confirming we will no longer be locking the bootloaders on our devices. Thanks for your passion, support and patience,” Peter Chou, CEO of HTC

The move by HTC could see the smartphone brand rise to the top of the Android platform, with die hard techies already saying that they will be moving over to HTC because of this announcement.

Opensource communities will also welcome this announcement and I think we should see more of them supporting HTC and developing custom ROMS for the devices.

Leaf, the South African distributor of HTC phones has recalled 3000 Google Android phones from Service Provider MTN.

Quinton Leigh, the MD of Leaf, says that the handsets has been recalled to undergo updates to the latest Android Operating System and to provide them with easier access to Google’s Android Market, similliar to the Apple iStore to download applications.

The software update wil also includes support for Microsoft Exchange, making things a little bit easier if you are in the Corporate World.

The recall came after MTN decided that it would be allot easier to just recall all the phones than explaining to customers how to update themself. The HTC Dream, sold exclusively by MTN, should be back in stores by September the 16th, customers who have already purchased the phone can take it to any of Leaf’s branched to get it updated. Alternatively users can get hold of the firmware on Leaf’s website and flash the handsets themselfs.

First Google took on the browser arena with their Chrome Browser and now they are ready to take on the Operating System arena with their new OS called Google Chrome OS.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year Google will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because Google is already talking to partners about the project, and they’ll soon be working with the open source community, Google wanted to share their vision now so everyone understands what they are trying to achieve.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. Google is designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. As Google did for the Google Chrome browser, they are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year.

Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems.

Google still have a lot of work to do, and they’re definitely going to need a lot of help from the open source community to accomplish this vision.

Google Chrome OS seems to me like another entrant specificly for the netbook arena and I for one would like to see a better lightweight operating system than the current popular Limpus Lite. Not only do I think it will perform well but with a name like Chrome it should probably have the nice look of the Chrome browser.