PaulSpoerry.com

OK, before I get into the specs, leaks, etc let me explain the title. Right out the gate the major things to know are:

• They’ll be sold unlocked – no contract required
• Developed by HTC and sold directly from Google
• GSM with possibility of UMTS (3G) on AT&T and T-Mobile (what I read here is “SIM CARDS”)
• CDMA is likely in the future (why would they NOT want Verizon and to a lesser extent Sprint)
• Android 2.1
• They just purchased Gizmo5 – next in line to Skype as a VOIP service

The phone itself will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1 GHz ARM CPU, it will use an OLED display, and have a capacitive touch screen with on-screen keyboard (*sigh*… I hate touch screen kb’s… I need a physical keyboard).

Daring Firball says they’ve found the strings of a Google phone visitor in their weblogs:

Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.1; en-us; Nexus One Build/ERD56C) AppleWebKit/530.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/530.17

So back to how they’ll gut the cellular industry… If you add up all the different pieces what you’re looking at is a phone that:

• Requires no contract
• Is VOIP enabled
• Has Google Voice built in

If you REALLY wanted too… you could skip the carriers all together and simply use the phone on open Wifi or even Mifi. At that point the carriers are meaningless. Voice communications via cellular doesn’t fit into Google’s business plan at all. ANYTHING over the Internet, be it voice call via VOIP, text messsages via Google Voice, location based look-up with Google search on your phone, etc go directly to Google’s bottom line… search and advertisements. As far as Google is concerned if the carriers become nothing but data providers… so be it.

Look for this to be released in January (sad they missed the  holiday season). Google KNOWS that mobile is the next major wave of computing. They’ve been angling in this direction for quite some time and the release of an unlocked Google designed phone makes it crystal clear that they intend to dominate mobile in the way they’ve dominated search. It’s not a lock… they have to battle the entrenched iPhone and of course Microsoft is coming out with Windows Mobile 7 (though admittedly they’re moving so slowly that they may miss the bus). The point here is that unlike Apple and Microsoft and RIM, Google is making a move here that in the long run could completely sidestep the major carriers… or at least cause them to be nothing but data providers. We are of course a few years out from anything like this happening en mass… but if you look at what Google is doing that’s definitely a very real possibility.

TechCrunch is hearing some interesting talk about a true Google Phone. By true Google Phone I don’t just mean another Android device, but a phone designed end-to-end by Google to fulfill their dream of exactly what Android can be.

Of course there have been rumors like this before, but this time there are a few distinct elements that seem credible. This all comes from Michael Arrington’s sources—his article is a bit vague, but points to an outsider-made but Google-dictated device, sort of like how Microsoft’s first Zune was actually made by Toshiba. In the case of the Google Phone there are a couple options for the possible manufacturer. The obvious choice is HTC (PLEASE let it be HTC and PLEASE let it be a slider!) who’s been the major hardware manufacturer of Android devices. However, TechCrunch hears that the source of the hardware will be Korean, not Taiwanese. So we’re probably looking at either Samsung or LG.

Samsung has a long-standing relationship with Apple, supplying tons of parts for the iPhone. Apple may not smile on Samsung for helping create the “iPhone Killer” and may in fact be ramping up to make the next iteration of the iPhone so it’s more likely that LG would step up to the plate and develop this device. LG’s no stranger to Android but has been a minor player up to this point—maybe they’ve been working on this mysterious Google Phone in the meantime, which is supposedly aiming for an early 2010 release.

Via TechCrunch

Verizon is touting its Droid phone as an Apple killer. For weeks waves of buzz surrounding the Android 2.0 Droid – the iDon’t commercials, the photo leaks, the Droid Eris, the official list of specs, a massive Droid launch event in New York City, and that cool Droid advertisement with all the stealth bombers have been pouring out. The Boy Genius Report, who had Droid specs before anyone else, and the site has been exceptionally snappy with picking up gossip on all manner of smartphone is saying that Apple will launch a $99 8GB iPhone 3G S sometime in the next month.

A sub-$100 iPhone right in time for Christmas shoppers would clearly be an attempt by Apple at bombing the Droid launch parade (yes yes, I know… it’s $99 WITH a 2 year contract).

Apple needs to do something, I wouldn’t count them out just yet, but the volume of Android phones coming out this next year is astounding. Unless Apple responds with a really beefed up iPhone I would predict Android to start chomping into their market share very quickly.

As he had already predicted, cracker Charlie Miller has won the PWN2OWN contest by cracking Safari and Mac OS X within seconds of the start of the competition. “It took a couple of seconds. They clicked on the link and I took control of the machine,” Miller said after his accomplishment. He took home the USD 10000 prize, as well as the MacBook he performed the exploit on. Internet Explorer 8 fell a while later by cracker Nils, who also cracked Safari and Firefox after being done with IE8.

Miller cracked Safari running on a fully patched installation of Mac OS X on a MacBook. The details of the exploit will not be given out until Apple has published a patch to ensure that others don’t run with the exploit and abuse it. This is the second year in a row that Safari on the Mac is the first to fall in the PWN2OWN contest, again by Miller’s hands.

A while after, Internet Explorer 8, running on Windows 7, also fell. Windows 7 was running on a Sony Vaio P, and was cracked by a cracker named Nils, who wishes to remain anonymous. He also won a cash prize and got to keep the Vaio P. Several Microsoft security folk were on sight to witness the exploit. This exploit is also kept under wraps until Microsoft releases a patch. Later on, Nils also broke into Safari (Mac) and Firefox.

All the cracks happened on day one of the contest, which means the operating systems and browsers were fully patched, with no additional plugins loaded. So far, only Chrome hasn’t been cracked yet, but that probably won’t take long, seeing how quick the first browsers were exploited.

Still on the table… this year’s contest will also offer a $10,000 prize for every vulnerability successfully exploited in Windows Mobile, Android, Symbian, and the iPhone and BlackBerry OSes. The competition runs through Friday… so it ain’t over yet.

CanSecWest PWN2OWN

If you have an iPhone or a Windows Mobile, you can now synchronize Google Calendar events and Gmail events using Google Sync. “Once you set up Sync on your phone, it will automatically begin synchronizing your address book and calendar in the background, over-the-air, so you can attend to other tasks. Sync uses push technology so any changes or additions to your calendar or contacts are reflected on your device in minutes,” explains Google Mobile Blog.

Before synchronizing data, read the known limitations of the initial release and follow the instructions from Google’s site.

Google mentions that the service available for iPhone and Windows Mobile uses the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol. “When setting up a new Exchange ActiveSync account on your phone, all existing Contacts and Calendar events may be removed. Please make sure to back up any important data before you set up Google Sync.”

Before giving it a shot you might want to Merge Duplicate Contacts using the built-in contact merge feature in Google Contacts. Just find the duplicate contacts, tick their checkboxes, and click “Merge these contacts”.