• EcoATM, a new startup out of San Diego, just introduced their new e-cycling kiosks.
• First, the machine electronically inspects the phone for damage and automatically give it a real-time secondary market value.  If it’s actually worth something, you can opt for an in-store payment or simply donate the money to your favorite charity.  If the phone’s not worth anything, it goes into the recycling bin.
• EcoATM’s first location at the Nebraska Furniture Mart saw such success that they’ll be installing machines at wireless and big box stores in and around San Diego as well as Washington state and Vermont.
• The company is promising nationwide machines by the 2nd quarter of next year where they’ll be able to accept other gadgets like cameras, laptops, and MP3 players.  What a great startup.

• Dell is supposedly launching (or at least announcing) a mobile phone in China in the next day or two. More information on the launch details are trying to be verified, but it’s a legitimate possibility. Over the past few months, news of Dell working on a deal with China Mobile as well as developing an Android based phone for overseas markets has been all over the place. What is close to being verified is the handset is iPhone-like, touchscreen and no physical keyboard.Keep an eye on the Dell China site.
• Dell is also said to be preparing for Google on an Android-powered tablet computer as well as creating a proprietary operating system with China-based software maker Red Office. Is this the second coming for Dell or is this going to be a failed attempt to stay up to date in today’s new market?

• Android demo on the new HTC Hero. Seriously smooth.

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• Google’s Android operating system is expected to grow by 900 percent in 2009.  Vendors, developers and operators will be the main drivers says research firm Strategy Analytics. Android by 2010 will be running on over 100 devices. (eWeek)

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• After months of anticipation, Samsung’s first Android phone is finally a reality. According to the official press release, the Samsung I7500 will be released “in major European countries from June”. HTC, the company who first popped the Android cherry, will have to move over for the next wave of manufacturers getting ready to release phones using the Android OS. Motorola will be next up. (Remember, Android is projected to be powering 100 different devices by 2010, launching it past the iPhone OS as the third largest operating system next to Symbian and Windows Mobile. Although not offered by US carriers, the new Samsing phone’s 1700 MHZ HSPA will work on t-Mobile. Here are the full stats:

Frequency:

HSDPA 7.2Mbps / HSUPA 5.76Mbps (900 / 1700/ 2100MHz)
EDGE / GPRS (850/ 900/1800/1900)

OS:

Android

Display:

3.2″HVGA(320×480) AMOLED

Camera:

5 MP Camera (Auto Focus), Power LED

Video:

MPEG4, H.263, H.264, WMV

Audio:

MP3, AAC, AAC+, e-AAC+, WMA, RA

Value Added Features:

Full Web Browser, Google Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, Android Market

Connectivity:

Bluetooth® 2.0, USB 2.0, WiFi, MicroUSB, 3.5mm ear jack

Internal memory:

8GB

External memory:

Micro SD (Up to 32GB)

Battery:

1500 mAh

Size:

115 x 56 x 11.9mm

Thank Gmodo.

HTC Magic Powered By Android

• The iPhone’s lead over Google’s open source mobile operating system, Android, may end as early as 2012. The first phone to be powered by Android, the HTC G1, already accounts for 20 percent of T-Mobiles contract sales. The second HTC phone with Android, the Magic (pictured), is supposed to be an even bigger hit and is set to release this month (in the UK first) with Vodafone. Although the G1 and Magic together won’t outsell the iPhone, the Android platform could be on as many as 90 devices by 2010, giving it a big push ahead of the iPhone as the top running contender to take over current king, Symbian. Android was once thought to be an inferior product due to being open-source, but since its recent success, even Symbian is switching to an open-source model to fend off the upcoming competitor.
• The mobile game is getting increasingly larger, fast. Nearly 162 million smartphones were sold last year, surpassing laptop sales for the first time, according to Informa. Smartphone penetration will reach 13.5 percent of new handsets sold this year and that figure will reach 38 percent by 2013. Smartphone sales are not exepcted to slow down whatsoever in the conomic downturn. Estimated figures show a 35.3% growth rate year over year, with no end in sight.

Specs:

* HSDPA
* Built in GPS Navigation
* 3.0 -4.0 megapixel – (meaning 3.2)
* GPRS
* Games
* Calendar
* WiFi
* Full Touch Screen
* MP3 Player
* Handsfree headset
* Triband
* Vodafone Mobile Internet
* Camera/Video
* White
* 3G
* Bluetooth
* Email
* Alarm clock

• AdMob is the company which stores and analyzes data from every ad request, impression, and click on the mobile web. Each month, they release an AdMob Mobile Metrics Report covering manufacturer, device and country-specific data on AdMob’s top six markets by impressions served: US, UK, India, Indonesia, South Africa, and the Philippines.
• Mobile Connecting via WiFi: Measured in the United States  by examining the geographic distribution of WiFi usage throughout the country. The West and Northeast experienced heavier WiFi usage by population than the South and Midwest in January 2009. California led the way with 18% of usage, followed by New York with 14% and Texas with 8%.
• Mobile Internet In Western Europe: Traffic from Western Europe increased 132% in the last 12 months to 550 million requests in January 2009. Growth was strong across the top countries with Spain and Italy increasing at the fastest clip.
• Worldwide requests from Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) devices grew 28% month over month to 1.2 billion in January. Building on its strong December, iPod Touch growth outpaced iPhone growth in top markets. The iPod Touch now represents 40% of Apple requests, up from 20% in September.
• The G1 (HTC Dream) was the number 18 device in the US with 0.9% share in December. Android has 3% Operating System Share in the US.
• Read The Whole Report Here, thanks to IntoMobile

• Coming straight from the World Mobile Conference, HTC just officially confirmed yesterday’s leaked advertisement of their latest Android offering, Magic. A big upgrade from the first Google phone,it has a full touch screen keyboard, 3.2 megapixel camera, sleek design and even let’s you type whenever you want in landscape mode. No word on whether or not this phone will come to the US. It is being released exclusively with Vodafone in Europe first. We’ll keep you posted.

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• Typically when product leaks happen in the form of a leaked advertisement, it tends to be fake. However, in spirit of the MWC this week, and considering this phone is consistent with previous screenshots, I’m going to call this real. The HTC G2 with Android, is set to be called the “Magic”. It’s rocking a flashless 3.2 megapixel camera (same as the G1), and all the expected connectivity (3G, wi-fi). The rumor alongside the advertisement is that it is going to be powered by Cupcake, the supposed next version of the Android OS. More to come this week.

Update: Official hands on video confirming the phone here

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• The above video is from Luke Hutchinson, a mobile developer, who helped debunk the rumor today (via comments) on VentureBeat that Google took out the multi-touch capabilities on the G1 Android phone because Apple put pressure on them. Why is this important? Because whether or not this is true plays a huge part in whether or not the rumors of Apple suing Palm over their new multi-touch Pre is legitimate or not. Last week I broke down why the lawsuit would not happen between the two companies. This analysis by Luke gives us a little more insight into what actually happened with Apple and Google over multi-touch.

I’m the guy that implemented the multitouch solution shown in the video above. Forget the conspiracy theory. There isn’t a trace of implemented-then-removed multitouch code in the Android codebase, I have been through pretty much all of it that has anything to do with event processing, from the low-level kernel driver to the singleton class that receives events across the JNI bridge to the event processing pipeline. The kernel driver always supported multitouch because it is based off of generic synaptics code that already supported multitouch.

My conclusions after going through the code and scouring the web for reasons why it wasn’t implemented in 1.0, as well as conversations with Google employees and all sorts of interactions with the community since the multitouch release are the following:

(1) The G1 was simply never intended to be a multi-touch device. HTC didn’t spec it that way (their top leadership came out and said “it was designed to be a single-touch device”), Google didn’t ask for them to design an MT-capable device, it wasn’t on Google’s list of things to do for 1.0.

(2) Apple’s multitouch patent may not even cover the pinch gesture. So far they have not even approached me with a C&D, and I don’t expect they will. (And anyway, I never made a cent off of this, and I am doing no more development on multitouch now that the capability is out there in firmware images that you can flash on your own phone.)

(3) Google *is* interested in multitouch capabilities, it’s just nowhere near the top of their priority list. Anyone in the community could step forward today with a well-designed extension to the MotionEvent class that properly supports MT, and the Google guys and gals would vet it just like any other community submission, and it would stand as good a chance of making it into the codebase as anything else. (HOWEVER the Google Android engineers have been rushed off their feet for about the last two years straight, including lots of late nights and weekends, and the pace sped up if anything after 1.0, so they are so busy with their own internal priorities that the Android *platform* is only a community project in name at the moment, because the ones that can actually commit to the repository at the moment are mostly/all(?) Google engineers, and they’re just plain flat-out busy… time will tell if that changes, or if their community module ownership handout system works.)

(4) Google will deal with legal issues if and when they come up, but that hardly stops them doing something they think should be done. Take a look at Book Search and YouTube (I know, I used to work at Google on Book Search…)

(5) Apparently the driver for a resistive MT-capable/iPhone-like touchscreen was checked into the git kernel tree after the 1.0 release, so we now have (at least?) two MT-capable drivers in the tree. This is barely surprising given the huge number of Android devices of every form factor currently in the pipeline. You can bet somebody wants to market the devices even if it means licensing from / fighting with Apple.

(6) I could go on, but basically put away your tinfoil hats, people.

(7) One more thing: if you really want to know what happened with Android 1.0, read through the Android platform source. All of it. Or as much as you possibly can in the next year or so. You will quickly come to realize that the pulling-together of Android in the short period of time over which it was accomplished constitutes one of the greatest software engineering accomplishments of our time. The code is, for the most part, polished, clean, well-written, low on bugs and seamlessly integrated. I don’t know how on earth they managed to (a) write (/acquire ) that amount of code in such a short time, (b) so seamlessly integrate the efforts of what must have been a very large number of programmers, and (c) somehow also build a complete working lightweight linux distribution, an Eclipse IDE and debugger, an entirely new VM, and (working with HTC) an actual physical device that stands to be one of the best physical 1.0 releases of a complex device of all time.

Once you catch the vision of that, you will understand why MT conspiracies are ridiculous — why would MT or other bling even be an issue when you’re trying to accomplish so many far more difficult engineering tasks and meet a shipping deadline?

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• Finally a phone to be jealous of since the iPhone. In Apple’s latest keynote, they finally made the switch to allowing document storage in the cloud, but left out two important elements: Editing and Collaboration! The latest video of the G2 has come out, and take a wild guess what it gives on deck access to…Google Reader, Notebook, and Docs. Can’t wait for this to debut.

• Above is the first example of Google’s mobile operating system, Android, performing on a netbook.
• Android, being an open source Linux based platform can be customized to fit nearly any screen and processor. In this case, the guys from Mobile-facts.com got an Asus Eee PC netbook fully up and running in four hours including all of the necessary hardware (graphics, sound and the wireless card for internet).
• Why is this huge? Google in the past has already said they want Android to be used on more than just mobile phones. Because of the boom in netbooks, which rely heavily on working on applications and storing files online, an Android powered netbook working together with Google’s Chrome browser is a sure way for Google to gain market share in this new computer sector.
• Many think that a Google powered netbook could come to market in less than 12 months. Netbooks were near the top of Amazon’s top holiday sales list, which is a sign that people are tired of the bulk coming with their computers and realize they, like 99% of those using computers can achieve anything they want online.
• What’s it going to take? Just like Google pushing Android onto mobile manufacturers, they will need a computer manufacturer that believes in the operating system to want to put it on their machines. With Intel and now AMD developing more and more processors for netbooks and considering the demand, it wouldn’t be a far reach to say there is a manufacturer already tweaking Android for use on their next release.

• Samsung will release its version of the Google phone in the second quarter of 09′. The company is interested in testing out different open source platforms over the next few years and first on its list is Android.  
• Samsung is currently in the development process of its new Google phone. To speed up the process, they have hired 30 additional Linux and Java experts to customize the Android platform in order to function well with the sleek touch screen. The team now contains 80 members.  
• This will be a big test for Google. As Symbian prepares to roll out their latest open source platform, users heavily adopting the latest Samsung/Android offering may enable Google to get its foot in the door. Although sales have been strong with HTC’s G1, it still was not enough to win the support of companies like AT&T. 
• The phone will be available through Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA in North America. Sprint is a surprising addition considering their CEO Dan Hesse recently said that the Android platform is not ready yet.