If you’re a fan of programs like All Things Considered, Fresh Air, and Car Talk, you’ll be happy to learn of today’s news.Â NPR has announced that their new Android app â€œNPR Newsâ€ has completed the development phase and should be available for download later this month.

The NPR News app came about as a result of Google’s famous 20% time projects.Â Google employee, developer and NPR aficionado Michael Frederick approached NPRâ€™s Mobile team.Â He actually offered to build them the app himself.

â€œWeâ€™ve seen a nearly ten-fold increase in our mobile traffic since the launch of our iPhone app earlier this year, said Kinsey Wilson, senior vice president and general manager, NPR Digital Media. â€œWith the redesign of our mobile web site and the launch of the Android app weâ€™re now able to bring that superior experience to a much wider audience.â€

Highlights include:

Backgrounding – The NPR News app for Android allows backgrounding, so that users can click to listen to audio and then toggle between applications as the audio is playing. It also uses open source code, allowing developers to iterate and improve the app in the future.

– The NPR News app for Android allows backgrounding, so that users can click to listen to audio and then toggle between applications as the audio is playing. It also uses open source code, allowing developers to iterate and improve the app in the future. Listen and Read – Allows users to listen to programs and read news at the same time.

– Allows users to listen to programs and read news at the same time. Extensive Topics section -Â News section showcases NPRâ€™s top 10-20 topics of the day ranging from Science to Books to World News.

-Â News section showcases NPRâ€™s top 10-20 topics of the day ranging from Science to Books to World News. NPR station listening choices – Easy to find and bookmark more than 600 favorite NPR stations and hundreds of station on-demand streams. Â Live station streaming to launch in Spring 2010.

Easy to find and bookmark more than 600 favorite NPR stations and hundreds of station on-demand streams. Â Live station streaming to launch in Spring 2010. Playlist – Bookmark favorite programs to play later.