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Google Nexus One Android phone: updates

What is known about Google's new phone, the Nexus One?

Speculation is pretty strong that it will be released on Jan. 5. Engadget and others say will be invitation-only at that time.

Engadget has a bunch of specs, but doesn't give the source. Some samples:

    5-megapixel camera, GPS receiver will include location of photo if you want. 2X digital zoom not yet confirmed.

    3G only good on T-Mobile, not AT&T. Includes wi-fi access. Google bought VoIP provider Gizmo5 in November, and jkontherun notes that Google Voice can already forward calls to Skype and Gizmo5, so perhaps you can use the new phone over the Internet instead of relying on cell carriers. That's cool.

    3.7 inch display

    removable 1400 mAH battery

Gizmodo says an unlocked version will cost $530, while a version with a two-year T-Mobile contract will cost $180. Also says there's only one rate plan for voice - $40 monthly - or voice, text and Web for $80 a month. If you want family plan or other special plans you have to get the unlocked version.

TechCrunch has some pix.

Google the monopolist. Ooh, scary.

Is it fair to label a company a monopoly simply because it's big? It happens to Google all the time.

There is a rule of thumb that somebody made up once that says if you have 75 percent market share you qualify as a monopoly. But a monopoly is not illegal. Abuse of monopoly power is illegal.

Unless I'm less observant than a fruit bat with a bag on its head, Google has never abused its monopoly. It hasn't raised advertising rates, for example, because the rates are set by AUCTION!

Get it? You bid on it? Kinda hard to price-fix that way.

But Consumer Watchdog and the Center for Digital Democracy want to block Google's proposed acquisition of AdMob because it will:

    -- become a "juggernaut." Ooh, sounds bad. Isn't he Archie's sidekick? Is he illegal?

    -- leverage its lead in search to get a "leg up" in other markets, according to the SF Chron. Is paying $750 million for a company a new description of "leveraging a lead in search"? Microsoft has lots of money, so I guess it can also "leverage its lead in search" to buy AdMob too.

    -- instead of using "legitimate competition and innovation" to grow its market share in mobile advertising, Google is "buying its way to a pre-eminent position." Buying your way into a market is now illegal? Did anybody tell NationsBank -- sorry, Bank of America -- that? I guess that means it is illegal to buy ANY company with a dominant market share in anything. You can't buy your way to prominence!

    -- the deal would ALLOW Google to hike up ad rates. See above.

    -- and then there's the issue of amassing even bigger "super data profiles" of users, raising "tremendous privacy issues." Please, SOMEBODY let me know what privacy issues these are. When has Google ever used its data for anything but providing us with better service? Anybody? Give me an example of abuse? Something? 

Get over it folks, there is no privacy any more. Google is just the whipping boy on this issue. Everything you do online is being watched by somebody, most of them with less honorable motives than Google.

Yeah, I know, I'm a Google apologist. Believe me, if I can come up with a legitimate complaint of Google's business practices, I would love to write a lengthy editorial explaining what it's doing wrong.

So show me. Give me a real example of Google's evil. Anything that harms someone in any way. PLEASE! I want to stop being such a wimp. I want to be a hard-ass, curmudgeonly, immoral, asshole journalist again. Come up with some mean, nasty, evil, immoral thing that I can't refute to the satisfaction of 95 percent of the population and I'll, I'll ... I don't know ... run naked past Google's Street View camera. Or give me another suggestion of appropriate punishment.

Send arguments to [email protected] with the phrase "You're an asshole" in the subject line.

An unlocked Google Android phone for January? God, I hope so.

The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times are reporting that a new Google phone being tested by employees may be one whose software is designed from the ground up by Google, and that it may be unlocked.

TechCrunch has been following Google twitterers and their friends who are saying things like:

“Supposedly, Google employees were given tons of these phones today. unlocked,”

and

“A friend from Google showed me the new Android 2.1 phone from HTC coming out in Jan."

That's going to piss off a lot of cell carriers. They've begun adopting the Google phone, and they want to sell it themselves. By giving a discount for the phone, the telcos can keep people locked in for another two years.

The telcos have never grown out of their monopolistic roots. They're anchored to the tactic of maintaining as much of a monopoly as possible by making it as difficult as possible for customers to leave. Imagine buying an unlocked Google phone and having the freedom to switch cell services any time you think another company has something that better suits your needs.

Horrors! The wireless carriers would actually have to try to compete on the basis of quality of service, customer service, pricing, all those free trade capitalist techniques they abhor. 

If the rumor is true, there's going to be a war. Google has kept saying it doesn't want to brand and sell its own phone. But that's a promise that Google management is constitutionally unable to keep.

Whenever Larry Page sees a completely screwed up industry that charges too much, provides poor service and -- most importantly -- affects people's ability to get online with speed, he tries to figure out a way to change it. He considers one of Google's major roles to be acting as a catalyst for change.

After all, if people have lousy internet service, it's harder for them to use Google products. And if Larry and Sergey want to really bring all the world's information to everyone, we have to have a strong internet with fast access.

The cell carriers are taking too long to do this, so Google is going to give them a kick in the ass. Assuming the rumors are true.

I really hope they are. I hate Verizon, and it has the best service available in my area.

Follow the conversation on Twitter at #googlephone

Should we be more feaarful of "Don't be evil" Google than I am?

A reviewer on Huffington Post thinks my book on Larry Page and Sergey Brin did not have "greater skepticism toward the self-proclaimed ethical motivations of Google's founders." http://bit.ly/6HAJrs

I rather expected this. I'm generally a skeptical reporter, and was dismayed myself that I couldn't be more critical. But being critical for it's own sake is bad journalism, and I couldn't find another reason to justify it.

I've researched all criticism of Google I could find, and cannot find any persuasive arguments. They're all based on the fact that Google is now Big Business and cannot be trusted. Google is now suspect because it has been too successful. 

Google collects an enormous amount of information on us, and that scares people. But nobody can point to a single instance where Google has abused that information. Google is a monopoly, and people are afraid it will abuse that monopoly. Again, point me to an example. Google Books is bad because it adds to the monopoly, even though Google is spending up to $125 million to get rights to books that we would never see otherwise, and making them available. 

The most evil thing Google did was enter China, counter to its own stance against censorship. But I can't see that that has made censorship worse in China.

Google is acting as a catalyst to try to change industries that are inefficient and greedy. Wireless carriers, software companies, email producers, Internet portals. In every case it has helped open up these industries.

Larry and Sergey are the most ethical corporate executives I have met in 25 years of business reporting. They are a breath of clean air in a business climate polluted by too much greed. 

I'm happy to reconsider my opinion. Just point me in the right direction.

For more of my views on Google, please visit my web site at http://richardlbrandt.com/