I may not be the most technology-savvy person around but I do know what an android is supposed to be -- a machine that resembles a human being, like the one in Alien.

So exactly how did the term become attached to a telephone?

Unless it stands on two legs and talks, it's not an android.

Android is the name of an operating system for mobile devices that Google developed. If you look carefully at the ads on TV, you'll notice a disclaimer on the bottom of the screen, that droid is a trademark and is licensed from LucasFilm, Ltd. EditDroid was an early, non-linear, editing system that George Lucas developed that used Unix workstations and laser disks. A friend of mine moved out West in the '80s to test those systems.

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Unless it stands on two legs and talks, it's not an android.

Really? What about these guys?

Only one of those even comes close to resembling a human.

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Originally posted by Proofreader:
Only one of those even comes close to resembling a human.

He's a jawa, so he doesn't count. But the other ones are all droids.

Sorry. You can call them anything you want but in my opinion they do not qualify using the definition I quoted. Just becasue a copywriter or adman or fantasy writer want to call an article something, that doesn't make it so.

I think we were talking at cross purposes. An android resembles a human being. But it seems that a droid is a more general term and can refer to non-humanoid robots. According to the OED, a droid is "A robot, freq. a humanoid one; an android." So the Star Wars robots are droids, not androids.

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Skutters, the small service droids with three-fingered clawed hands, joined to their motorized bases by triple-jointed necks, whizzed between the various computer terminals. - Red Dwarf