Google

Google announces that they are currently field testing a Google Wallet mobile app for Android. The Google Wallet application is being done in partner with Citi, MasterCard, First Data and Sprint.

eMoney is not a new concept, Nokia first started experimenting with the concept on their Symbian mobile phones. Today Google is taking a shot at the bring electronic money to the next level in partnership with big credit card organizations which may be a key ingredient. They are also using NFC (near field communication) as an underlying technology.

NFC has been slowing finding it’s way into the next generation phones like Google’s Nexus S (by Samsung). NFC is actually already a major way of payment being used in Japan. By the time the Google Wallet comes out, there will be more Android phones equipped with the NFC chip. The question remains is whether people will find it easy to use it as alternative to hard cash and physical credit cards.

Sprint now offers the Google Nexus S 4G to US mobile phone users who wants a Google backed Android mobile phone. The Google Nexus S 4G comes loaded with Android version 2.3 aka Gingerbread. It is equipped with a 1GHz Samsung Hummingbird processor and a 4-inch 480×800 super Amoled display. The Google Nexus S 4G also comes with the standard array of Google mobile phone apps like Google Maps, Gmail, Gtalk, Google Earth, YouTube.

It also comes with Google Voice integrated with the Sprint network mobile number. This allows you to centrally manage your other phone numbers right from your Sprint connected phone.

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Google may have stopped selling the Nexus One but today Google has announced that the once super phone is now for available to Android developers as an unlocked developer phone.

The Nexus One is available at a price of $529. To see the details or order a phone, you need to sign in to your Android developer account and click on the “Development Phones” link.

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A few days after the launch of the Google Nexus One mobile phone, the Android team has released version 2.1 of the Android SDK which is named “Flan”. The updated SDK is currently found only one the Google N1 superphone. But it should soon find its way into the other Android phones on the market via online updates. This includes Motorola’s popular Milestone Android mobile phone currently available in the US as the Motorola Droid under Verizon.

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Google has just set one more step in motion to execute its broad plan of opening up the GLOBAL mobile industry. I guess some people just don’t understand what is happening but make no doubt about it, they have a solid plan.

Things started during the last frequency auction in the US where they laid some conditions for the auction. Google has laid the foundation of opening up the mobile industry. Why? It is key to their business model — make the airwaves open and free.

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Today the speculation stops. Google has finally unveiled its own Android based mobile phone called Nexus One. The mobile phone looks pretty sleek and the specs are awesome. Display is OLED at 800×480, 1Ghz CPU, HSPA, bluetooth+EDR … These specs are fast becoming the standard these days.

With the Nexus One launch, Google is bringing Google Earth on the mobile phone — this just shows how much 3D power the 1Ghz Snapdragon has. The Android 2.1 Eclair update available on the Nexus One will also bring Google’s turn-by-turn Navigation plus other voice features like being able to say your tweets. One sorely missed feature though is multi-touch capabilities like pinch and zoom — which has been available on the Motorola Milestone’s launch in Europe.

Some see a Google phone as putting the other Android players at a disadvantage. I believe otherwise. I think that Google is simply accelerating the Android mobile field to raise the bar seeing that the Apple iPhone is on nitro and seems unstoppable. Think of the Android players as a flock of long distance flying birds in triangular formation — birds taking turns to take the front so that others can take a breather. This is going the distance and what is definitely needed if Android wants to overtake the iPhone in the near future.

I’ve just read an article from Techcrunch about Apple’s renewed interest on mobile advertising. Previously it was Admob, this time Apple is looking to buy Quattro Wireless. The rumored price is about 275 million dollars. It’s obvious that Apple want’s to be able to get a share of the burgeoning mobile ads market. With its billions of dollars in cash (about 25 billion last time I looked) waiting to get invested, it’s probably the best investment.

The first obvious reason is money / profit. Mobile advertising has the potential of becoming bigger than traditional web ads. The amount can be in the billions of dollars annually.

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The emerging smartphone technology has really been ramping up. This 2010, the race to the top for world domination will be fiercier than ever. The competition is much like racing cars. I can also remember the time when Microsoft stepped up the competition on Palm with it’s PocketPC platform for the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) market back then.

First of all, I want to make it clear why I consider the iPhone on top. I have always believe that when people start comparing smartphones (or connected phones as I call it here), most of them compare apples with oranges. They forget that the iPhone has only been around for about 3 years while competition has been at it for a while. Also, the iPhone for all purposes is a single model/brand mobile phone while it’s competitors offer several models that are sometimes inappropriately consolidated into one for comparison purposes which I consider lame.

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Apple, the iPhone and AT&T has been in the news a lot lately and most of the news aren’t good at all. The recent pull out of Google Voice (a great service that I hope I’d see getting available in the Philippines) from the Apple App Store has finally put a nail in the coffin for Michael Arrington to dump his iPhone/AT&T service. He’s not the first of the web’s popular figures to do so. For instance, GigaOM’s Om Malik has also decided to stop using his iPhone . Continue reading …

Choice is good!? Not that we don’t have a lot of operating system choices these days. Even so, Google has just announced it’s new operating system project — the Google Chrome OS.

According to Google, the new operating system, which is scheduled to be released next year, will focus on netbooks and desktop PC’s. The operating system will be an open source software based on Linux. Google Chrome OS will focus on lightweight, speed, simplicity and security as the driving force in the creation of the operating system. It looks like Google has already been talking to several manufacturers to come up with netbooks using the OS.

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