Daily News : Gadgets

TechCrunch is reporting that a Google-branded phone is expected to arrive in early 2010. While no hardware specifics are available, the device will be running the Android OS, and it will be designed entirely by Google. Recent reports also suggest that the phone may be data-only, utilizing VoIP for calls.

They were long planning to have the phone be available by the holidays, but it has now slipped to early 2010. The phone will be produced by a major phone manufacturer but will only have Google branding[...].

You may recall the fiasco over the Sidekick last month. The Microsoft subsidiary Danger, which maintains the data systems that stored Sidekick user data, such as pictures, reported a failure and loss of all customer information. T-Mobile subsequently stopped selling the device. Now the device is back on store shelves at $149.99, or $25 cheaper than its earlier price.

Initially, T-Mobile said that nearly all of the data was irrevocably lost and offered users gift cards and refunds. However, nearly a week later, Microsoft said it had restored nearly all the lost data.

Dell has announced its upcoming Android-based touchscreen phone dubbed the "Mini 3." The phone is set to release later in the month in China and will also be available in Brazil before the end of the year. While the Mini 3 will not be released in the United States, Dell confirmed it has future plans with carries such as AT&T and Verizon.

"Our entry into the smartphone category is a logical extension of Dell's consumer product evolution over the past two years," said Ron Garriques, president of Dell's global consumer group, in a statement. "We are developing smaller and smarter mobile products that enable our customers to take their Internet experience out of the home and do the things they want to do whenever and wherever they want."

Motorola introduced its first Android smartphone at the Mobilize 09 conference in San Francisco on Thursday. The device is jam-packed with features, as would be expected with an Android device, and it differentiates itself through its MotoBlur interface. MotoBlur will stream content directly from social network feeds so you can access all of your social news easily without having to open up multiple applications.

The phone will run Android 1.5 Cupcake and offer access to Google's various services, including Google Maps with Street View, Google Voice Search, Picasa, and GTalk. The smartphone supports a number e-mail clients, such as Yahoo, Windows Live, and other POP3 and IMAP services, and syncs with Microsoft Exchange, including calendar.

At Apple's rock event yesterday, Steve Jobs unveiled the new iPod Nano that now comes with a video camera. The folks over at iFixit have already taken apart this very compact iPod, and they offer some cool photos of the device's components.

Removing the internals... It's a tight squeeze, but we got them out. Getting this iPod open wasn't easy. We don't recommend trying this at home.

AppleInsider is reporting that the long-anticipated iPods with cameras may be delayed due to technical difficulties. Cases with camera holes have been popping up online for weeks, and the new iPods were expected to debut this coming Wednesday. It is not clear if the iPods won't make an appearance at all, or if they simply won't be available for purchase until a later time.

For months, photos of third-party cases for the iPod touch and iPod nano with camera holes have been surfacing online, leading most to believe that the new hardware was essentially a foregone conclusion at the Sept. 9 keynote.

Scientists in Florida are using GPS collars to track where bears migrate within the state. This lets them observe which habitats need to be protected. In recent times some bears haven't been crossing into other bear populations, which has resulted in inbreeding and less healthy genes being passed around.

Researchers want to know whether the bears' travels have them crossing a road, an orange grove, or somewhere else in order to get from place to place. Collecting data on the corridors the bears need to travel will help in pinpointing what land should be sought for conservation purposes.

PC World is hedging some bets on whether Apple will be dropping the iPod Classic this week. It seems as if Apple can up the storage capacity of the iPod Touch, no one will really care if the Classic is killed off. Right now that's the biggest advantage of the older iPods with hard disks.

In the era in which the iPod Touch is unquestionably the most exciting iPod and the Nano is the dominant "traditional" iPod, are there any reasons why Apple wouldn't kill the Classic?

A Stanford graduate student has helped develop a digital camera that takes advantage of an operating system that would let end-users add applications to their camera much like they would to other mobile devices. This would open up a whole new realm of possibilities for software that can enhance the power of your digital camera.

Nearly all of the features of the "Frankencamera," including focus, exposure, shutter speed, and flash, are able to be controlled by software. According to Marc Levoy, professor of Computer Science and of Electrical Engineering at Stanford, "The premise of the project is to build a camera that is open source."

Google is going to update its Android Market so it is easier to navigate... your way to paid apps. Currently the Android Market is estimated to bring in $5 million a month, roughly 1/40th of what Apple's App Store brings in monthly. While Apple's much larger install base accounts for a lot of the difference in revenue, Google is already prepping for version 1.6 of its store, most likely due out next year.

Google is looking to address these concerns with the revamped Android Market, and it will allow developers to include screenshots, promotional icons, and descriptions to show off their apps. The store will also have tabs to facilitate finding the top paid apps, top free apps, and the most-recent programs in the store. Google is also launching four new sub-categories: sports, health, themes, and comics.

I don't have an iPhone myself, but I do have iTunes and I know how many App Store applications are downright worthless. This application may come in handy for those of you who have an iPhone and hate being bombarded with pointless applications. Macworld has created "App Gems" that will highlight cool applications for your device. You can get the App Gem of the day, view the highest rated apps, and more. Finally, there's an easy way to sift through the garbage and find the applications that are actually worth their price (and yes, that includes the crappy free apps that should pay you to use them).

That’s why today Macworld is introducing App Gems, a $2 iPhone app that will help you find good apps. Developed by Macworld with the programming expertise of the good people of DS Media Labs, App Gems presents you with an exclusive App Gem of the day, a good app handpicked every weekday by Macworld’s team of editors and reviewers.

Breaking News: AT&T is finally able to bring seven year old tech to the state of the art iPhone. Yes, MMS is finally coming an iPhone near you, in three weeks, on September 25th. Sorry original iPhone owners, you will have to upgrade to a 3G device if you want to experience this amazing technology.

In its brief statement, AT&T offered few reasons why it's taken so long to get such a basic cell phone feature. It only said MMS "required us to work on our network MMS architecture to carry the expected record volumes of MMS traffic and ensure an excellent experience from Day One."