Yesterday we brought you exclusive benchmarks showing the amazing speedups achieved by the Android team in Froyo 2.2, and today we're back with some more juicy info.

Today, TechCrunch finally broke the news of the USB Tether and WiFi Access point/mobile hotspot capabilities, built right into the core of Android 2.2 Froyo.

TechCrunch posted 2 pictures, which some claimed could be fake, and provided no further information.

I am here to tell you they are not fake, and to provide more exclusive pictures obtained by AndroidPolice.com.

I can also confirm that testing the WiFi AP/mobile hotspot feature was successful, with a couple of WiFi enabled devices hooked up to the said access point running on Froyo and all able to access the Internet just fine.

Of course, with the final release, things may change, and the carriers could try to disable the feature unless you pay a monthly fee (we have a feeling Sprint will be doing just that), so we are not making any promises.

And now, as promised, here is the eye candy:

Edit: the SIM card was not inserted at the time of taking the above screenshots, which is why you are seeing the "missing SIM" icon. It was inserted later for testing of the AP capabilities.

And here is a screenshot of a regular phone running 2.1 connected to the WiFi network broadcast by the Froyo device:

More info to come as it becomes available. In the meantime, you can follow us on twitter at @AndroidPolice or subscribe to our RSS feed at https://www.androidpolice.com/feed.

P.S. It's purely coincidental that the AndroidAP WiFi network name in the screenshot and AndroidPolice share the same "AP" initials - AP here stands for Access Point.