The Google Phone was initially released to employees who tweeted and otherwise sent out rumors and pictures of the new product. The Wall Street Journal was one of the first major news agencies to report that Google Employees were using a prototype Nexus One.

HTC hardware?

Although much of the information now is still largely unconfirmed, there are reports that the Nexus One will use HTC hardware similar to that found in the HTC Passion. The Google Phone is basically an iPhone like device but even thinner in dimension.

Click past the jump for more…

The Nexus One display is a high-resolution OLED touchscreen. The phone uses a Snapdragon processor, and it is a GSM device compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile services. Google’s Android based phones have sold well and are marketed by wireless carriers. Interestingly the Nexus One will now compete directly with Android based phones.

Nexus One features

According to the reports, the Nexus One is very similar to the iPhone with a slightly larger screen, and of course, equipped with the Android open source mobile operating system. The Google Phone will use Android 2.1 according to news spreading out over the net.

Google Phone Price

Reuters reports that the Nexus One will sell for $199 unlocked in stores and with a $100 online rebate if you have a current or old account with Google. The phone will be sold on Google’s online phone store and is carrier free. You can use it with the Android Marketplace, or with AT&T or T-Mobile prepaid SIM cards for $29 a month.

The super high resolution AMOLED touchscreen is said to measure 3.5 inches or 3.7 inches and the display is powered by an Adreno 200 Graphics Core with OpenGLES 2.0. There is no actual keyboard, so the phone will likely be controlled mostly with the touchscreen only, although there is also a voice to text feature. The Nexus One has two microphones to help eliminate background clutter, and an Audience A1026 Noise Canceling Chip. Audio is routed to the Speakerphone with back mic. According to the reports, you will be able to dictate text including emails by speaking into the phone.

Nexus One Camera

The phone’s camera is very large and is said to be equipped with white balance, flash, auto focus and anti-banding technologies. The Nexus One phone camera is reportedly 5-megapixels with LED.

Powerful processor

The 1Ghz Snapdragon processor is about twice as fast as the Motorola Droid CPU. The fast processing speed will help power games on the Google Phone, which comes with OpenGl ES 2.0 support.

Nexus One’s Android 2.1 OS displays a grid icon on the bottom of the screen that displays a card-style preview of all the homescreen pages when pressed. There is also a scroll wheel similar to that found on new Blackberry PDAs to help you navigate more easily through user interfaces.

In appearance, the Google Phone closely resembles the HTC Passion or HTC Dragon, which are also scheduled to hit the market in early 2010.

Google phones will have a stereo FM Tuner and Wifi Radio through Bluetooth with support for 801.11n and both FM Tx and Rx.

Android platform

We can reasonably expect that Google will be able to do some things with the Android OS that have not be seen yet with other Android based handsets.

Google scooped up Android in 2005, and the mobile operating system based on the Linux kernel has become very popular since it was launched in 2007 together with the Open Handset Alliance. As the software is open source, developers can create applications for use on the Android platform in a manner similar to the open development of iPhone apps.

Reports are that Google is emphasizing VOIP telephony over voice or SMS texting services. Not surprising given that Google is an internet based company, but another source of friction with competitors. Google Voice on the pre-paid DATA SIM cards will handle voice calls with unlimited free service. Instead of texting, Nexus One will offer unlimited free Gtalk, Google’s video and voice chat service that works over the internet and allows sending and receiving of files.

The Nexus One phone will come with roaming data services internationally so that if you travel abroad you can conveniently access other networks. For example, if you travel to Europe you can hook on HSDPA data services for 20 euros a month, or you can pay just for your usage for more limited stays.

Google’s objectives

Many tech observers have commented that Google’s move into the hardware market is an attempt to gain more control in the high tech industry. Of course, this can also bring some suspicion and charges of monopolization. Google has already faced such resistance in relation to the Google Books service from libraries, publishers and writers.

Apple, of course, made a similar move with the launch of the iPhone handset, which projected Apple’s computer-making strength into the area of mobile handsets.

With the increasing popularity of mobile devices, especially among the younger generation, Google’s move comes as no surprise to most analysts. Given that Google already has a vast customer base, many of whom are very satisfied with Google products, the success of the Nexus One seems almost assured. Of course, we will have to wait and see how the system actually performs. Not everything Google touches has turned to gold. For example, some can cite Google’s forays into social networking, which never reached the levels of Facebook or Twitter.

However, given the popularity of the Android operating system, and the fact that Google is using proven HTC hardware technology, it is hard to see how this can go wrong. No doubt that Apple’s strategy teams are working hard to figure out how to counter the presence of this new player on the block. Consumers should benefit from the ensuing competition from the two high tech giants as they battle for supremacy!

For a while I have been saying (blogging, speaking, tweeting) that we are in a smartphone boom. Yes its global recession but smart phones are hot properties today. If you asked 5 years back; where is the future growth? The answer would have been Internet, Notebooks etc. However today mobile market is growing faster than PC / notebooks or broadband itself. Mobile internet, smart phones and portables are hence booming.

Recently Google has really magnified its focus on mobile technologies and it certainly looks to tap a big share of the mobile market in near future. Apart from customizing its online services extensively for mobile handhelds, Google also has its own Open Source, mobile OS platform Android. Backed by multiple manufacturers and Google itself, Android has a bright future.

Recently an analyst predicted that in 2012 Android would outpace the Apple iPhone. While Apple is itself the fastest growing co. in the mobile market; Android outpacing iPhone signifies how fast things will move over the past few years for Android. Below are some features that makes Android so special:

Features:

• The open source platform
• All app revenues goes to developers (without any commission charged)
• Free for manufacturers; instead of developing their own OS or licensing something like Windows Mobile
• Future support for netbooks, PMP and other handhelds
• Quality Google services integrated
• Feature rich competitor to the iPhone

While manufacturers enjoy a free and reliable OS that’s up to date with competition, Google gets the users to use its services. The Android game has just begun, with almost a dozen Android devices to be out by year end; we are yet to smell the real potential of Android!

Following is a Guest post by Annkur P Agarwal, Editor – OnlyGizmos

The basic concept of providing assurance through availability guarantee of 99.9% by Google took about US $50 per year, only for Gmail. Until recently, the entire concept has been changed by the company with the addition of the factor that Google would be now stretching its guarantee for every Google Apps related to business.

This could be considered to be the first major step to appease the people and at the same time, assure them of Google applications reliability after the major Gmail failure for over 24 hours during October. It certainly caused people to raise questions over the reliability of services provided by Google applications.

The incident had caused quite unrest to which the product management director of Google Enterprise, Matthew Glotzbach, said that with a massive operation like Google applications even a minor problem could affect in huge proportions. He assured that all the commitments, which have been made in such cases, are going to be dealt with carefully.

He felt that the announcement was already expected considering other companies making themselves clear regarding any matter, which could have had their customers dissatisfied. For this purpose alone, Google seems to have expanded its arena of reliability guarantee for all its Apps, including Google Docs, Sites, Talk and Calendar.

All this is being provided to you with the same amount that you had to bear earlier. On top of that, no extra charges for the already existing guarantee for the Gmail. Furthermore, Matthew has promised to keep up their reliability and at the same time, he has assured that Google would try to make things pretty simple and transparent through their user groups. This has been considered a welcome move from Google for several individuals, who are sure going to make the best out of it.

After a difficult year, Yahoo! now seems to be moving on its own. Today, Google formally announced that they have ended their advertising agreement with Yahoo! The agreement was announced in June at a time when Yahoo! was facing takeover attempts from Microsoft. At the same time, they also had a proxy battle with Carl Icahn, which was for the control of the company.

Yahoo! & Google had both voluntary agreed for delaying their partnership and it was undergoing a review by U.S. Department of Justice. Government reviewed the deal, as they had anti-trust fears over this partnership.

Amongst the many concerns made by the U.S. Department of Justice, one was that the partnership between Yahoo! & Google would have eventually led to the 2 companies enjoying a combined share in the internet market of around 90%, with Google contributing 70.4% and Yahoo! 19.4% (these figures are based on a statistics submitted by a web-based company in September 2008). Competitors, other then these two, which includes the likes of Ask, AOL and MSN Live don’t even have a double digit contribution in the market. This being said, it was highly unlikely for U.S. Department of Justice approving such a deal of higher proportions over anti-trust concern and without major restriction within their partnership.

In their statement, Google cleared that this move of end partnership with Yahoo! was primarily due to the fact that such agreements have very little chances of taking place without going through lengthy legal battles. It was also reported by current Search Engine Giant that there were some advertisers, who had concerned over their agreement with Yahoo! They felt that with the company moving forward for getting this deal executed properly, it would have only distracted them from carrying out their core mission.

Google is going to roll out the next beta version of Chrome (Google’s web browser) by this week only. Users of Google can know that the new version is available to them by clicking on the wrench icon and then looking at it’s ‘about’ page. The newer release will have 0.3.154.9 as its number.

This latest version of Google Chrome will be coming with top issue fixes, security updates and several other changes that should affect the function of this browser. Here’s a rundown of all the updates that will be available at your helm with Google Chrome 0.3.154.9:

• It’ll be difficult for manipulating the address of the browser, which was previously used to show different addresses for spoofing attack.
• Scrolling the page of the browser will be possible by using the touchpad of your laptop.
• The problems with plug-ins, which had an impact on its popularity, have been sorted out to a large extent. Now, plug-ins, which include QuickTime, WMP, Silverlight and Flash should work better than before.
• Your browser would no longer crash, if you close a tab containing PDF files (another drawback of the previous version).
• All secure-access sites will no longer be stored in the data history of the user.
• If you’re using web proxies, then you are sure to get better performance.

You’ll even be able to identify the modifications in the new Chrome browser, from the view point of user interface. These modifications include changes in the position where new tabs, new windows and new incognito window options will sit. Again, there is news that you’ll find improvement in its spellchecker and the handling of downloaded executable files.

So, wait till the end of the week and see what Google has in store for us with Chrome 0.3.154.9!

When I clicked on it, I came to know that they have added 15 Labs features to it. some of them are-

• Google Calendar and Docs gadgets
• A forgotten attachment detector
• Advanced IMAP controls
• Canned responses to save and send common replies automatically

If you are not aware of it i think there people who don’t know about this you can activate by clicking on settings which, you will find here

There you will find labs tab, from where you can enable the features to have a better experience of Gmail.

Another good thing is there is a option for invisible browsing which is New incognito Window. The pages you view in this window won’t appear in your browser history or search history, and they won’t leave other traces, like cookies, on your computer after you close the incognito window. Any files you download or bookmarks you create will be preserved.

Google Chrome Features:

• Safe browsing
• Application shortcuts
• Simpler downloads
• Crash control
• Incognito mode
• Importing settings
• One box for everything
• Instant bookmarks
• New Tab page
• Dynamic tabs

Watch the 10 Features of Google Chrome below:

BooDescription: A mix of swiss and serene, but with some nice twists. DOWNLOAD HERE

Description: Microsoft’s infamous BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) brought to Google Talk. DOWNLOAD HERE

Bubblegum

Description: Although named bubblegum, this theme has smooth speech bubbles for incomming / outgoing messages, instead of the normal ones. DOWNLOAD HERE

More web 2.0 themes below:

CandyBars

Description: A port of the Candybars theme used in Adium. DOWNLOAD HERE

Daring Fireball Pack

Description: Two themes, fashioned after http://www.daringfireball.net. DOWNLOAD HERE

Digg

Description: For those who love the style and appearance of Digg. DOWNLOAD HERE

Digital Ecstacy

Description: A colorful glossy theme for your Google Talk! DOWNLOAD HERE

All this special themes where made by the gtalk dedicated fan boys @ www.customizetalk.com and are released by them, the total credit goes to them only!

If you have a slow internet connection or a Pay-Per-MB internet plan you should definitely use the lo-fi version of Orkut. To this this:

• Navigate to General Settings
• Choose “show the low bandwidth version of orkut” option button.
• Hit Save Changes.
• Enjoy a faster and low data usage Orkut!

Selecting this option switches your account to a low bandwidth version where images in scrapbook, profile pages and the user’s orkut homepage are disabled.

Orkut also has a mobile version of its site for people who have GPRS enabled on their handsets. The mobile version can be found at m.orkut.com – this mobile version lets you read scraps, receive recent updates from friends and you can also approve or decline new friend requests.

Happy Orkutting!

Archit is a Tech Blogger. His personal blog can be reached at blog.archit.in. If you like his post you could subscribe to his blog feed.

According to Google Mobile team’s research, there is as much as a 40 percent reduction in the average time to complete an initial search.You can download the app by heading to mobile.google.com on your Nokia device.You can also see an example of how the search box looks like and how much time is saved by using this application here.

My Personal Comments: This app works pretty well with my Nokia N95. It would be better if they disable the frequent “Press ctl to search” reminder and if they let the users decide the shortcut button to open the search dialogue. Anyways, it pretty much saves my time!

Archit is a Tech Blogger. His personal blog can be reached at blog.archit.in. If you like his post you could subscribe to his blog feed.