It’s been a while, but now Google can loudly proclaim “Me Too!” when it comes to the Android Phone Party. One of the main bodies behind the Android movement, it’s been strange that Google hasn’t created it’s own phone, instead leaving it to others such as HTC to do all the hard work, but now Google has unleashed the Nexus One.

The Nexus One (still marked as HTC, but more under Google direction than anything) has a 3.7″ screen running at 480x800, 5 megapixel camera, noise suppression, trackball and personalized laser engraving (I suggest “It’s not an iPhone, honest!”)
It’ll also run pretty much anything from the Android Market, do voice recognition, allow you to read your voicemail and many other random tasks most normal people won’t actually do. Power users will have a field day with this.

Google are selling the phone for $529 unlocked through their own store, which is an interesting move, considering most people will first hear of the cost of phones in conjunction with a contract, which the order page already suggests at $179 and locked in for 2 years.

I do have to wonder if people will flock to this, or if the iPhone has nothing to worry about…

Press Release and Gallery after the jump.

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It’s been 48 hours since Apple at WWDC announced the iPhone 3G S, and people are already complaining. Aside from some people saying that it was all a bit of a letdown in terms of announcements, the large majority of whining comes from iPhone users on O2 that want to upgrade but have a problem.

The issue stems from the fact that when the 3G got released, O2 UK allowed for free upgrades to the new handset. This time, O2 are refusing it. People are unhappy as they don’t want to either be locked into the remaining months on their contract nor pay a large charge to get out of said contract. Granted, it’s a hefty phone bill anyway, but this does seem quite strange behaviour from the consumers.

in the UK, it is extremely rare for the phone provider to allow for a free upgrade before a contract is up (You know, what we call “Normal”). Usually this would be towards the last two months of a contract, but last time O2 were benevolent enough to allow this to be extended. This time, the change in the handset involved is only minor, and in a climate where O2 needs all the money it can get (the economy is “bad”, apparently), I can’t really see O2 actually doing anything wrong here.

I know with my own phone contract that I’m stuck with it for 18 months. I don’t expect the phone company I am with to allow me special dispensation to cut the contract short because I want it to. I paid my money, I made my choice. If I were running the phone company, I would have to be asking serious questions of myself and my staff if this were allowed to happen to everyone.

Seriously, grow up…

The Apple Keynote at the WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) cued cheering from many mac enthusiasts. The main order of the day was to announce an upgrade to the iPhone 3G. Namely the iPhone 3G S.

The Basics:

• Camera has been upgraded to 3 megapixel
• Battery is longer. Apparently.
• Can now use 7.2 Mbps HSDPA
• 16Gb and 32Gb models
• Cut, Copy and Paste actually works (OMGWTFBBQ!!!1!)
• MMS messages now work, although you’re probably used to e-mailing them around now, right?
• Available June 19th in UK, US, Canada, France, Mars…

Apple have put a guided tour of the new phone online, but if you want the full press release with more details, you can find it… after the jump!

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The Short Version: The Palm Pre is being thrown out by Sprint on the 6th of June for $200. It’s data-plan heavy, and can be charged by a Touchstone charger for extra outlay.

The Longer Version:
You can get the Palm Pre for $199.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate. If you value your wallet, you will do this.  
It’s out on June 6th. This is before WWDC. Apple may be worried. No date has been mentioned for places like the UK, which makes me a bit happier about getting a new phone recently.
Your data plan choice will be limited, namely anything with massive amounts of data usage available. It does an awful lot of online stuff, and this will be necessary. Not may be necessary. WILL be necessary.
You can get it from places like Best Buy, Wal-mart, Radio Shack and Sprint-selling stores.
There is (available separately) a Touchstone charger, which allows for induction charging, i.e. no charging cable to connect to the device. This costs $69.99 extra, and is probably where your rebate will be heading.

If you have no idea what the Pre is capable of, go HERE!

[via Engadget and Electonista]

QR Codes are a fantastic idea. Mostly. And yes, I’m talking about a technology that has been around for quite some time and it really didn’t take off outside of Japan, but go with me on this.

I know that you lot would have seen them before and dismissed them as futuristic ideas that will never work on TV shows alongside beliefs that we will have flying cars and robot housemaids, but strangely, two-dimensional barcodes that can be read by modern mobile handsets and actually have uses.

The main use is, as everyone probably already knows about, for mobile websites. Cans of Pepsi here in the UK have these codes plastered onto the side, allowing you to waste lots of your phone contract’s data allowance seeing effectively an advert for a soft drink.
Some generator sites will even allow you to use QR Codes to show a plain-text message, for example “Put that phone away and get back to work”.
The Pet Shop Boys have even decked out a music video with tons of QR Codes. Odd, but that’s what we expect.

But my current favourite use for QR Codes has to be the supplemental content for adult magazines, as seen in Japan. The great Danny Choo has, whilst going for a medical check-up, taken some photos of this phenomenon which charges the user a high rate for each photo they see. Of course the photo consists of an altered form of the magazine, usually where the subject wears less clothing, and this does seem to be quite a good monetizing effort. It also means that the magazine itself, despite being adult in nature, has the most mundane photos inside, rendering it relatively safe to look at in public. Although weird…

It’s strange really. Sometimes the best adverts come from the internet. Such as this one from Nokia called The-Unloader.
The basic idea behind it is that you upload a document, then in a Dilbertesque way, the doc gets printed and sent along a production line to be destroyed, ruining the point of printing the document out in the first place. And it’s quite fun, actually.

Why does this advert exist? Because Nokia are trying to sell their office-centric Eseries phones to those that constantly have boring meetings, including the E63, E75 and the E71, which I now own (expect a long-term review of it in a few months).

Does the advert work? Well, yes, except that I only found it by accident whilst looking up information about my new phone, which is a shame as more people should see it. It’s quite a nice bit of Rube Goldberg mechanics, as you can see After The Jump…

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Hey kids, do you want a new cellphone that you don’t have to worry about charging any more?

Fed up of emergency chargers involving winding on a crank, or carrying around a spare battery? Do you just hate it when you accidentally leave your phone in your swimming costume whilst you cannonball into the pool? Want something to solve all of these problems? Well, AU(KDDI) and Sharp have made this!

Yeah, we’re underwhelmed by it too.  Although it does solve the wonderful problem of forgetting to charge your handset overnight, you do have to wait for 10 minutes to get 1 minute of usage, which is not helpful in any emergency situation when time is of the essence. The giant solar panel on the lid doesn’t make it look any prettier, neither.

[Translated page, via Akihabara News]