It was unsettling enough that Google named its Nexus One after bio-mechanical humanoids from the dystopian future. Now it's rumored to be issuing the smartphone to secretive genetic scientists inside its office. Chalk up another cozy, kooky 23AndMe deal.
Joel Johnson of Boing Boing Gadgets is shocked, shocked that the team working on Google Earth, Google's 3D interactive world map, launched a mobile app for the iPhone before writing one for Google's Android operating system, which now runs on all of one clunky phone sold by T-Mobile, the also-ran of the U.S. wireless…
At last, the Googlephone is in the wild. But what else lurks as Google lurches into the wireless world? A photo of this giant robot, based on the logo for Google's Android operating system, was fittingly captured by a T-Mobile G1 phone running Android. Can you think of a better caption? Leave your suggestions in the…
Google's Android phone has something in common with Apple's iPhone: Both gadgets have a "kill switch" to uninstall unwanted applications. Buried in Google's Android legalese is a clause that says Google might "discover a product that violates the developer distribution agreement... in such an instance, Google retains…
Apple's 3G iPhone commercials, shown here, are a big lie. But at least they're a pleasant falsehood. And they don't display a disregard for proper wordsmithing the way T-Mobile's new G1 "with Google" commercial, below, does in some misguided attempt to be irreverent, hip and Internet-trendy. Dissing the dictionary…
The technoblogomemesphere erupted in derision when T-Mobile's plans for a one-gigabyte monthly cap on bandwidth for the new HTC phone running Google's Android OS emerged. Customers who exceeded the limit would have seen their speeds reduced by a factor of 20. Anyone who wanted to listen to Internet radio or browse…
My heart goes out to MySpace employee Ulf Waschbusch, who used to be a product marketing manager for Google Mobile and therefore saw the company's Android phone in its early stages. "The reason many people see the G1 as ugly and old-fashioned is simply … because it IS!" he blogged yesterday. "It’s a design unchanged…
T-Mobile today launched the G1, the first phone loaded with Google's mobile operating system, Android. (Just don't call it a "Googlephone"!) Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page showed up late to the press conference and Brin began his speech with an excuse: "We had to rush here a little bit today from the…
T-Mobile and Google executives will gather in New York on September 23 to to launch the HTC Dream, the first phone loaded with Google's mobile operating system Android to hit the market. Skeptics, such as ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn, say the Dream won't be a "real" Android phone. Why the quibble?"It is still just a…
That traffic jam around the Moscone Center in dowtown San Francisco is the CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment trade show. T-Mobile used the event to announce a sort-of-Apple-like app store that will split revenues at least 50/50 with application makers. But T-Mob's new developer community won't support app makers…
The Financial Times's has published an article on T-Mobile's soon-to-be-released Googlephone. It paints an accurate picture, if not a pretty one: "When the first of Google’s long-anticipated Android mobile phones hit the stores in a matter of weeks, they will land with a fizzle rather than a bang." We can just…
The AndroidGuys blog says a "trusted source" handed them this blueprint of HTC's G1, which will be the first Googlephone to hit the market this fall. Like the iPhone, it's got a touchscreen. Unlike the iPhone it also has a mini-trackball mouse and a five-row QWERTY keyboard, similar to the kind Helio built into its…
Forget HTC's Android-running Dream, expected out this October. General Electric has brought the Googlephone to life. GE's Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications, or DECT, version 6.0, has a handy built-in Goog-411 button, to spare users the burden of dialing 1-800-GOOG-411. It's already on store shelves for…
The HTC Dream, the first fruit of Google's foray into mobile phones, will be available for preorder from T-Mobile during a one-week window starting September 17. The artificial time scarcity seems designed to create iPhone-like hype. And perhaps the Dream will succeed at that. At $150 along with a two-year contract…
For an understanding of why Google's Android operating system for cell phones — the basis of the still-nonexistent Googlephone — is set to flop, look no further than one of its biggest advocates, T-Mobile. At a wireless conference in Redwood City, T-Mobile executive Joe Sims promised an "avalanche" of Android phones…
There's no real market for applications written for Google's Android cell-phone operating system — the sad, software-only remnant of the abortive quest for a Googlephone — but Google's trying hard to create an artificial one. Participants in Google's Android Developer Challenge submitted 1,788 Android programs. In…
Lobbying pays: AT&T has donated $200,000 to Congressmen Cliff Stearns and Fred Upton (pictured), as well as John Shimkus. All three are members of a House telecommunications subcommittee, and have criticized Google's participation in an FCC auction of wireless spectrum. They claim the government would have made more…
A live report from Barcelona: There is still no Googlephone. A pile of circuit boards hooked up to a display, yes, but no Googlephone. [Gizmodo]
Google has pushed back the deadline for its $10 million Android programming contest to April. The jackpot will go to the developer who comes up with the best application for Google's cell-phone operating system. Google says the reason is that it's made updates to Android, and it wants to let programmers take…
Want to know what the Googlephone fuss is about? WhatsOpen.com, the first app to be built for Googlephones, has just launched in beta. The site looks much like the screenshots leaked to Valleywag last month: It's a local search engine which mashes up Google Maps with a directory of store's operating hours. Want a…
