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Google's altruistic Ion giveaway instantly rewarded with blind greed

by Chris Ziegler posted May 28th 2009 @ 7:03AM

Call it a sign of the times, call it a Google I/O attendee who just didn't really like the Ion, call it an overabundance of Western-style capitalism, call it man's almost instinctive need to generate profit -- whatever the case, one of the 4,000 specially-branded Ions given away at the conference this week is now available to the highest bidder. Never mind the fact that it's an I/O special edition, though -- outside of this particular device, we're not sure where you can find a 1700MHz 3G HTC Magic at any price, so we're sure this is going to be worth plenty of cold, hard cash to plenty of people who aren't in San Francisco at the moment. Oh, and don't worry if you miss out on this one; we'd be shocked if there weren't others in the pipeline.

[Via TmoToday]

Google Ion hands-on and unboxing

by Ross Miller posted May 27th 2009 @ 4:41PM

Looks like Chris' hatred wasn't totally unfounded. We just got our hands on a Google Ion -- which as you can tell is a spitting image of the HTC Magic -- complete with 30 days' worth of T-Mobile service on an included SIM card. It's not a public release model, but seems fully capable. Yes, it's got Cupcake, and while the portrait keyboard seems more cramped than the iPhone's, we found it very comfortable to type in landscape mode. Form factor wise, this thing is as sexy as hardware gets -- light, sleek, and thin. The only thing that exceeds our love for it right now is its own love for fingerprints -- seriously, the entire body and screen attract them like flies to honey. Colorful similes aside, hit up the gallery below for all the pics you could ask for.

Gallery: Google Ion unboxing and hands-on

Google I/O attendees getting free unlocked HTC Magic with T-Mobile 3G

by Chris Ziegler posted May 27th 2009 @ 3:48PM

In case you needed yet another reason to nerd out with Android developers for a couple days in scenic San Francisco, here's a doozy: every attendee is getting hooked up with an unlocked HTC Magic in black plus 30 days of voice and 3G data service. While the carrier isn't specified, we certainly wouldn't be surprised if it ended up being T-Mobile, which would make this an AWS version of the phone -- and a probable precursor to the presumed myTouch 3G release (or whatever they end up calling it) later this year. In the meantime, I/O attendees -- and yes, that includes you, Ross Miller -- we hate you out of sheer, raging envy.

Update: Confirmed -- it's a T-Mobile SIM, hence AWS 3G!

Update 2: It seems Google is calling this phone the "Ion," but make no mistake, it's an HTC Magic.

Android 2.0 "Donut" features demoed at Google I/O

by Chris Ziegler posted May 27th 2009 @ 2:41PM

We're still trying to get used to the overwhelming joy of having Cupcake installed on our G1s, but it's full steam ahead over at Google where engineers are already slaving away on the Donut branch that'll eventually come to be known as Android 2.0. Demoed today at the first I/O keynote were Donut's universal search (known simply as "Android Search"), which will let you search both online and locally on the phone through contacts, calendars, music, and any app with the proper code, and a text-to-speech API, which should allow developers to integrate Google Voice Search-style awesomeness into the apps of their choice. We also got a brief glimpse of handwriting gestures used for searching through list -- the live example was drawing the letter 'e' and going to that specific point in a list of songs. Nothing wildly different interface-wise -- yet -- but we know from the initial 1.0 release that the UI's very much subject to change, not to mention the fact that HTC and others look poised to do some serious customization of their own. Check out the gallery for shots live from the I/O keynote!

Gallery: Android 2.0 "Donut" features demoed at Google I/O

"Surprises" in store for Android at Google I/O?

by Chris Ziegler posted May 1st 2009 @ 8:02PM

Android 1.5's already been detailed and its accompanying SDK fully released, but does Google still have a few aces up its sleeves for this release? As you might recall, Google's I/O conference last year was an unexpectedly blockbuster event where a mostly-finished Android 1.0 got detailed in depth for the first time, and a new blog post on the official Android Developers Blog alludes to "a few surprises we've lined up" that we're hoping will make the event worthwhile for non-dev types -- people just looking to see the platform advance. The event goes down on the 27th and 28th of May out at Moscone in San Francisco, so we'll know soon enough.

Video: Google demos the HTC Dream at I/O conference

by Joshua Topolsky posted May 28th 2008 @ 1:40PM

Word on the street is that Google just busted out a live demo of the oft-rumored HTC Dream doing its Android-flavored thing at the company's I/O conference in San Francisco. Reports tell us that the device is a roughly 3-inch by 5-inch touchscreen phone with a slider keyboard. Not a lot is known right now, though apparently the device packs an accelerometer which allows you to tilt the unit to scroll across Google Maps or Street View. A video is on the way, so stay tuned for more information (and images) as we get them.

Update: Video after the break!

Read - Android demoed at Google IO
Read - Screenshots: Google's Android comes to life

Continue reading Video: Google demos the HTC Dream at I/O conference