Google finally plans to light up some of that dark fiber they’ve been sitting on for years. In doing so, they’ll be turning on pipes with the potential to operate in excess of 100x the speed of what we’re used to. This will allow for the creation of web-based applications and services that have previously been impossible to implement. With the Chrome OS running on cheap hardware, connected to this much bandwidth, will traditional desktop software finally be on it’s way out? Let’s just hope that Google can stick to it’s “Do no Evil” promise… I don’t want to wake up in the future with a “G”erminator hunting me down for my “cookies”.

Google finally plans to light up some of that dark fiber they’ve been sitting on for years. In doing so, they’ll be turning on pipes with the potential to operate in excess of 100x the speed of what we’re used to. This will allow for the creation of web-based applications and services that have previously been impossible to implement. With the Chrome OS running on cheap hardware, connected to this much bandwidth, will traditional desktop software finally be on it’s way out? Let’s just hope that Google can stick to it’s “Do no Evil” promise… I don’t want to wake up in the future with a “G”erminator hunting me down for my “cookies”.

Engadget: The Google Nexus One trickle continues. Today’s two menu items include a 5-minute demonstration of the Android 2.1 interface — shaky, sure, but it’s a pretty thorough rundown of all the menus. We’re also serving up some low-resolution picture comparisons of the Nexus One laying side-by-side with the iPhone and HTC Hero. It still eludes us how all these leaking parties don’t seem to have in their possession a decent DSLR or camcorder (feel free to give us a buzz, we’ll gladly help out).

Technology Review: The problem with mobile phones, says Allan Knies,
associate director of Intel Research at Berkeley, is that everyone
wants them to perform like a regular computer, despite their relatively
paltry hardware. Byung-Gon Chun,
a research scientist at Intel Research Berkeley, thinks that he might
have the solution to that problem: create a supercharged clone of your
smart phone that lives in “the cloud” and let it do all the
computational heavy lifting that your phone is too wimpy to handle.

CloneCloud, invented by Chun and his colleague Petros Maniatis,
uses a smart phone’s high-speed connection to the Internet to
communicate with a copy of itself that lives in a cloud-computing
environment on remote servers. The prototype runs on Google’s Android
mobile operating system and seamlessly offloads processor-intensive
tasks to its cloud-based double. Details of the project will be
revealed at the HotOS XII conference in Switzerland later this month. Read more…

Uberphones: Here’s something you certainly don’t see every day. The Astonishing Tribe (TAT) has come up with a cell phone user interface that gives a convincing sense of depth and layers by tracking you eyes using their self-developed 3G engine. It basically relies on your eyes’ location in relation to the device’s orientation to render the display in such a way to look 3D. Check out the video and see for yourself. Hopefully such technology will become common place, as it certainly looks very cool.

Enter… the Nuviphone in two delicious flavors… WinMo and Linux. Follow the link to Garmin in this story from Location, Location, Location: Is it a phone? Is it a GPS way finder? No Its a Phinder!

What the hell is a Phinder you may ask… I dunno I just made it up, but the damn thing looks pretty cool from the pictures and description released today at the Mobile World Congress… which by the way is a hell of a better name for a trade show than CTIA Wireless 2009… those europeans always know how to sound so damn sophsticated!

What does it seem to have going for it? If you’re a phone nerd, well you can go read the hard core specs in all their tri band, VGA, HSDPA, 3 megapixel glory. But if you’re just a regular person then here goes.

First the phone part… it seems to have the basics expected smartphone stuff:
- it a sleek and colorful device both on the outside and in which should give it wide appeal
- good quality camera and wi-fi
- full, soft keyboard (aka the on screen kind, rather than little plastic buttons)
- email (Outlook ActiveSync) and web browsing on a superfast connection
- oh yeah, and I am pretty sure it makes voice calls too!

Then of course the finder stuff, location and finding seems to be baked in across the board as you’d expect (hoped):
- location and navigation tied into basic desktop functions such email, calendar, and contacts as well the ability to easily navigate to addresses from web pages
- the navigation experience seem to mirror what you’d get with a stand alone nuvi GPS sat nav, simple and easy to use
- location aware local business and white pages search
- location aware real time “connected services” including traffic, weather, flight status, events, movie times, etc
- a friend finding service called Ciao! which can tie into both location centric social networks (GyPSii) and more mainstream social networks like Facebook
- automatic geotagging of pictures

The biggest question I have is whether or not they have provided some sort of back up location determining technology to GPS, like Skyhook. I sure hope so. But it wasn’t clear from what I read… I think this could be a critical feature, as there will be a ton of people who want to use this while sitting at the desk, and if location fails at that point the phone fails IMO.

Overall it seems like there is a lot of cool stuff baked into this phone. It’s not that these capabilities don’t exists elsewhere, in fact you can get a lot of this functionality currently on the iPhone. But what could be the deal breaker here is how well location is unified and pulled together in the device. If location just seemlessly works in the background to make your life easier and more convenient, and the applications on the phone work better, then I think they may truly be on to something. Read more…

Into Mobile:Anyone that has used TeleNav GPS Navigator in the past will know how well it works. Get directions, traffic updates and more. Run into traffic trouble? No worries, TeleNav can reroute you with one simple click. You can even use it to pull up the weather conditions and forecast for your current location. It’s feature-rich to say the least.

Long story short, the folks at TeleNav have announced that TeleNav GPS Navigator is coming to Android, and the software should be available on February 24th. The software will come with a 30-day free trial and after that, be prepared to pay $9.99 per month. At first, the software will become available from the TeleNav website. Later this year it should hit the Android Market.

I have a sneaking suspicion that TeleNav could drain the battery like nobody’s business on the G1… a device notorious for poor battery life as-is. Who knows, could be wrong! Regardless, I like the sounds of TeleNav on Android. I’m sure it’ll run solid on the G1, and all of the next generation Android devices to hit the market soon!

Read more over at TeleNav >

IntoMobile:The next major overhaul of the iPhone platform might just see the iPhone coming into its own as a graphics-savvy gaming platform. Apple has been confirmed to have licensed PowerVR graphics technologies from Imagination Technologies in a bid to turn the iPhone into a data-crunching and gaming phenom the likes of which dedicated gaming consoles would cower beneath.

Imagination Technologies already provides the PowerVR graphics core lying within the Samsung-made ARM silicon that powers the current iPhone and iPhone 3G - you can thank Imagination Technologies for your iPhone’s 3D graphics performance. The new PowerVR SGX technology secured by Apple promises to take things up a notch with OpenGL ES 2.0 support and true HD video handling.

It’s only a matter of time before we see Apple introducing these new PowerVR SGX graphics cores in an upcoming iPhone chipset. Read more…

IntoMobile: In a great little report over at DVICE I read this morning, blogger Kevin Hall pointed out that Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has grand plans for the Android OS… and it isn’t limited to the mobile scene.

Mark Hamblin, CEO of Touch Revolution and one of the key players in re-jigging Apple (NSDQ: AAPL)’s software to work with a touchscreen device is now working his butt off to bring Android to all kinds of gadgets and devices. Why be limited to mobile devices?

According to Hamblin, we may see Android on netbooks, digital frames, remote controls, you name it, the possibilities are endless. “It would make sense for any [software vendor] to play there. I see tremendous growth in these ubiquitous computing devices.”

I can’t wait for the day I turn on my Android-powered netbook, turn on the Android-powered coffee maker, answer incoming calls on my Android-powered G14, and turn down the Android-powered furnace in my house. Wait… Maybe that won’t be a good thing…

<gadgetman>In a seperate post on IntoMobile, Simon Sage points out that Google has taken the lead on creating a database of white space frequencies that new white-space-using wireless devices will need to ping for clearance to operate within a frequency range that doesn’t conflict with other traffic. This, combined with all of their dark fiber assets, as well as their tight grip on the world’s advertising dollars, positions Google to reign control over our communications, despite their claim to “do no evil”.</gadgetman>

IntoMobile: Last week we got a closer look at the HTC Iolite, highlighting a
particularly mysterious footprint key at the bottom. Well, today the
Touch Cruise has been announced, and we learn that the key is reserved
for a little service called Footprints. Footprints allows users to
quickly geotag their location with pictures, audio clips, and notes, as
well as retrace their path. I’m a huge fan of geotagging, namely
because it’s using GPS for something other than driving directions for
a change, but the Touch Cruise handles that as well with a bundled car
cradle. When locked in, the Touch Cruise changes its UI to something a
little more driver-friendly. On the whole, this phone’s got some
flavour to it - keep an eye out this Spring.

Specifications after the jump!