Yesterday, the T-Mobile blog CellPhone Signal published a list of new features it claimed would be in the G2, the second HTC-built phone built for the T-Mobile network running Google’s Android platform. The most outrageous claim however, was the supposed date of the device’s release: January 26, 2009.

Would T-Mobile really risk enraging the million or so people who bought the G1 just a few months after its release by launching an updated version? No, says the blog Boy Genius Report, which has a separate tip containing some of the same G2 information, but a later launch date: April 2009.

Read more: venturebeat.com 

Labels: Android, Google Phone, phone

Google’s mobile phone OS “Android,” will soon be updated with several new features as a part of a major roadmap update. One of those features will include support for a video recording mode that will also let users share the content. The update, code-named “Cupcake,” has many speculating what that video sharing feature will actually look like. Some have suggested the possibility of being able to upload videos from the phone directly to YouTube. Now that’s something we would like to see!

One of the only drawbacks to Apple’s widly popular iPhone is its lack of support for video recording. Of course, you can jailbreak your iPhone, a process that removes the restrictions put in place by Apple, and then install your preferred video recording application on your newly free device. However, the regular “Joes” of the world who are purchasing the phone don’t necessarily know how to do this or care to learn. If the “other” big smartphone offered video recording support, that would be a great selling point. (Then they would just need some apps.)

Read more: readwriteweb.com 

Labels: Android, Google Phone, phone, video, youtube

Vocito is a desktop UI for GrandCentral for the Mac. It allows you to easily dial anybody from your desktop. Using GrandCentral it will dial the remote phone and your local phone simultaneously, and connect you together.

It integrates into Address Book, Quicksilver, Automater, system services, supports "tel" URLs, and is fully AppleScriptable.

All this integration makes it easy to have Vocito automatically dial your phone from just about any application that supports scripting, html, or Automator actions. For example, you can easily set up your iCal meeting appointment to automatically dial the conference call for you at the correct time.

Vocito also allows you to save little applets that will automatically dial the phone for you with a simple double click.

It works on Tiger and Leopard, is both PowerPC and Intel native, and is fully open sourced.

Download: Vocito 1.1.0 for Mac 

Labels: GrandCentral, Macintosh, phone, Vocito, VoIP

Google Mobile App helps you find the information you need quickly and easily with instant access to Google Search.

Search with your voice so you don't have to type.
Search with My Location makes finding business, weather, and movie info easy.
Suggestions appear as you type to save you time.
Launch Gmail, Google News, and more from one place.

Features

- Voice Search.New! Speak your queries without even pushing a single button.
- Search with My Location.New! Search for business, weather, and movie information without specifying where you are.
- Local search suggestions on a map. See nearby business suggestions on Google Maps -- just tap the "near me" suggestions.
- Instant access to search. Start a Google search with just one click.
- Google Suggest. Get relevant search suggestions as you type, saving you keystrokes.
- URL suggestions. Get to popular web sites quickly by tapping site web address suggestions.
- Contact search. Quickly find contacts in your address book.
- Search history. Get instant access to your previous searches.
- Easy access to other Google products. Launch other Google products like Maps, Gmail and News from the Apps tab.

Download: Google Mobile App for iPhone and iPod Touch or visit the iTunes store. 

Labels: apps, iPhone, iPod, mobile, phone

The T-Mobile G1 with Google powered by Android was unveiled this morning in New York with a list price of $179 -- undercutting Apple's iPhone -- and confirming many of the rumors that had been floating around about the device over the past few week.

But it was a surprise guest appearance by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who skated onto the stage wearing rollerblades, that drew the most enthusiastic response from the crowd and cameras.

“I’m a bit of a geek and I really like tinkering with things,” Brin said, pulling one of the black flip phones out of his pocket (also available in white and brown). The two, perhaps taking a cue from the legendary in-person marketing prowess of Apple's Steve jobs, hyped one of the most appealing assets of the G1: the completely open source Android platform, which allows third party developers to create applications.

Read more: wired.com 

Labels: Android, Dream, HTC, mobile, phone

Chicago (IL) – The wait for Google’s first Android smartphone, the HTC Dream, is almost over. The usually well-informed Wall Street Journal reports that T-Mobile will be announcing the device next week, while European developers are pretty certain that they have seen the device already – at a Google developer event held at London’s Wembley stadium earlier today.

Relieving news for all those who hardly can sit still in anticipation of Google’s first phone: The HTC Dream, the pilot model for what is expected to become a big family of Google Android devices, is apparently ready and will be announced by T-Mobile on September 23. It appears that the device will go on sale sometime in October. There is no information on a possible price of the HTC Dream.

Read more: tgdaily.com 

Labels: Android, London, phone

More mobile, more visual, more social

Google has been revealing ways in which search can evolve to better meet users' needs.

Over the next three weeks, 10 of Google's search experts will be sharing their views on how search should evolve.

Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google, said in the first of the blog postings that search should always be available no matter the user's location, and should respond to more than just keywords.

One "far-fetched idea" is for a wearable device that can listen to conversations, carry out searches in the background and then flash the relevant facts to the user.

Read more: vnunet.com 

Labels: mobile, phone, search, social

SAN FRANCISCO--Yahoo on Wednesday released a preview version of a free new iPhone application called OneConnect that can centralize communications and social-networking activity.

"OneConnect allows everybody to keep connected to the persons they care about. It's a socially connected address book," said said Marco Boerries, executive vice president, Yahoo Connected Life, in a speech here at the CTIA Wireless show. "The address book now comes to life."

Read more: cnet.com 

Labels: apps, iPhone, mobile, Network, phone, social, Yahoo

AT&T Inc., the largest provider of telephone services in the United States, has become the nation’s first carrier that features Yahoo Inc.'s OneSearch Web search engine on its cellular phones, both companies announced on Monday.

Until the deal with Yahoo, AT& T’s cell phones were providing users with a search function from Infospace Inc. on the carrier's MEdia Net cell phone portal. Yahoo’s OneSearch joins the gaps of the search engine into one application.

Yahoo Inc. will also provide the advertising that comes with the search results. The two giant companies struck the deal in January. Under that deal, Yahoo became AT&T’s search provider for TV, mobile, and Internet services.

Read more: efluxmedia.com 

Labels: ATT, mobile, OneSearch, phone, Yahoo

The only thing holding back the launch of the first Android-powered phone, the HTC Dream, was approval from the Federal Communications Commission. That approval has now come through, and T-Mobile can launch the phone. The filing asks for a November 10 release date, but (as Matt Marshall at VentureBeat points out) T-Mobile could launch it earlier.

This means that Android will be on track to debut before the holiday shopping season. The device is expected to have a touch screen, WiFi, a “jogball” (like on a Blackberry), a full Web browser based on the same WebKit as Safari on the iPhone, and Google apps like Gmail, Maps, and YouTube. It should be fab.

Read more: techcrunch.com 

Labels: Android, FCC, HTC, phone

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is among the many developers introducing iPhone applications through Apple's iTunes App Store. On Thursday, the search company introduced Google Mobile App, a free dedicated search application for the iPhone.

Given that iPhone users can already conduct Google searches through the search window in the iPhone's Safari mobile Web browser and through the Google Maps iPhone application that comes with the iPhone, the idea of a dedicated search app might seem like an overdose of Googley goodness.

But as Google mobile engineer Robert Hamilton explains in the YouTube video below, the Google Mobile App makes a nice addition to the iPhone.

http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2008/07/searching-on-iphone-can-be-fun.html

It's faster to initiate a search using the Google Mobile App than it is to open Safari and search on the iPhone.

What's more, the Google Mobile App provides search suggestions as soon as you start typing. Trivial though this may seem, it can be a real time saver to have searches auto-completed after only a few characters have been typed.

Read more: informationweek.com 

Labels: Apple, iPhone, mobile, phone, search

According to the Wall Street Journal (which charges $90 per year to access full articles), Google’s Android plans aren’t moving quite as fast as the company had hoped.

Android chief Andy Rubin told the Wall Street Journal, “This is where the pain happens. We are very, very close.”

The slowdown appears to be a result of copious reams of red tape from carriers coupled with constant changes to the Android platform frustrating developers.

Read more: crunchgear.com 

Labels: Android, developers, mobile, phone, platform, Software

For about 10 minutes

Google I/O The second loudest cheer was for the opening of Google App Engine. The loudest was for a compass built into an unnamed mobile handset running Android.

This morning, during an extended keynote speech at Google's I/O developer conference in San Francisco, Android engineering director Steve Horowitz demonstrated the fledging mobile OS on a mystery handset with a Synaptics touch screen, showing off several applications for the first time. Among these was a version of Street View that moves through Google's virtual world in response to the physical movements of the phone itself.

"With a flick of the finger, you can navigate around," Horowitz said, as he used the device's touch screen to wander through Street View. But then he switched to "compass-mode," tapping into the device's built-in compass and accelerometer. He could spin through those virtual streets simply by spinning his phone. "This is one of my favorite new features on Street View," he said, as applause erupted from several hundred developers. "The device can actually track my movements."

Full story: theregister.co.uk 

Labels: Android, apps, mobile, phone

Opera Mini already available for most other mobile devices

Opera sure is making a name for its browsing tech away from the PC – it has now announced a version of Opera Mini for the Google-backed Android mobile OS.

We clocked the first Android prototype devices in use at this year’s Mobile World Congress two months ago.

The move is yet another phase in broadening the appeal of Opera away from its traditional desktop-territory, where it loses out to big shots Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Full article: techradar.com 

Labels: Android, mobile, opera, phone

 

Labels: Bell, Birthday, phone

Boston (dbTechno) - Google announced on Monday that they are doing a major upgrade to their Web services offered to Apple iPhone users, just one day before the big Macworld keynote speech by Apple’s Steve Jobs.

Google stated on Monday that they are releasing improvements to the entire interface of the iPhone, which should upgrade it quite a bit and give it features it never had before. Google stated that the enhancements to the user interface are to allow for better response to touch-screen input.

Read more: dbtechno.com 

Labels: iGoogle, iPhone, Macworld, mobile, phone

Spotted by Google Operating System is a new iPhone specific interface for Google’s personalized webpage product iGoogle. The page can accessed directly from http://google.com/ig/i, although iPhone users should be immediately redirected to this page when trying to access iGoogle.

The new iPhone interface is a step up from Google’s previous offering of a mobile specific page at google.com/m which only offered limited customization options.

Read more: techcrunch.com 

Labels: iGoogle, iPhone, mobile, phone

Google's Android developer kit for mobile phones has been successfully installed on several hardware devices, a step toward turning it into a genuine mobile-phone platform.

The Android Software Developer Kit (SDK), first released in November, has been developed by Google and others as part of the Open Handset Alliance with the goal of spurring innovation in the mobile space. The platform, based on the Linux 2.6 kernel, will comprise an operating system, middleware stack, customisable user interface and applications.

Google released the preview version of Android without support for actual hardware - instead, developers were given a software emulator based on Qemu. However, running the software on actual hardware can give developers a more accurate idea of how their applications will run.

Read more: techworld.com 

Labels: Android, Google Phone, Gphone, hardware, mobile, phone

Google, apparently has taken substantial amount of floor space at the upcoming Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Spain, leading some to speculate that the company might actually be ready to launch its Android based phones.

While there is certainly an outside chance of the Google Phone launch, the more realistic and plausible scenario will be Google showing off a few prototype handsets. HTC, is the only handset maker that has publicly said that a device will be available in late 2008.

Read more: gigaom.com 

Labels: Google Phone, Gphone, mobile, phone

Google (NSDQ:GOOG) and Japanese mobile phone carrier NTT DoCoMo are considering a partnership to provide DoCoMo's subscribers with Google search functionality on their phones, Reuters reports. The deal would give Google access to DoCoMo's "i-Mode" mobile network, which boasts 48 million users.

The partnership could also boost DoCoMo market share. Although its 53 million subscribers make it Japan's largest mobile carrier, the company has struggled to grow amongst newer, smaller competitors like Softbank. It could also give Google a regional boost, where the company trails Yahoo subsidiary Yahoo Japan Corp. as the leading search engine.

Read more: crn.com 

Labels: DoCoMo, Japan, mobile, partnership, phone