The features on the device are actually pretty reasonable, and we'd imagine it to sell for a reasonable attractive price-point at release. The Motorola Opus One will run Android 1.5 with iDEN service enhancements, make use of a "Zeus" CPU, and will feature a 3 megapixel autofocus camera.

• 3.1″ hVGA 320×480 capacitative touchscreen display
• 3 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash
• Accelerometer
• Proximity sensor
• Wi-Fi 802.11b/g
• Bluetooth
• microSD card slot
• 2.5mm headset jack
• Home, Menu, Back, Speaker buttons are capacitive buttons with haptic feedback
• iDEN PTT & PTX
• Android LBS which is integrated into the iDEN GPS engine
• "Enterprise email"
• Plastic-molded housing with some rubberized texture finishes
• 58mm in width, 118mm in length
• 100g weight
• 512MB Flash / 256MB of RAM
• 64k and 128k iDEN SIM card support
• A-GPS
• Motorola dual-mic technology noise-canceling for noisy enviroments
• Flash Lite v3.1.x
• Some of the preloaded apps include: corporate email client with ActiveSync support, MOTONAV navigation app, barcode scanner, and document viewer.

That's what we have for you on the Motorola Opus One at this time. Not the most mind-blowing Android device, but with it being an iDEN device and all, we'lll cut it some slack and even say that it could do reasonably well at launch.

BGR features the latest tech news, mobile-related content and of course, exclusive scoops.

Crispin Porter Co-Chairman Alex Bogusky (profiled here) posted the shot to demonstrate CP's massive real-time job management system, which clearly lists two ad campaigns, on January 4th and 8th, for "Windows Phone," first as "Windows Phone Q3 Media Refresh" and second as "09 Windows Phone Banners." So who knows what the actual timing for these ads will be, but its a safe bet that ads will be previewed at CES in some way. (Crispin Porter, by the way, was responsible for the Seinfeld Ad campaign).

To help satisfy our curiosity (and maybe your own), head over to the poll corresponding to the continent you spend most of your time on and tell us which phone you use:

• Africa
• Antarctica
• Asia
• Australia
• Europe
• South America
• North America

Photo by James Nash (aka Cirrus)

Android.in writes that the application was filed on December 10th, a bit before all the excitement about Nexus One began, which they speculate could mean that there'll be little involvement by carriers, but who knows at this point? I'm just going to keep staring at mysterious countdowns. [AndroidOS.in]

Maybe we'll finally see a Zing now. [WSJ]

Google Offering to Snail Mail a Holiday Card for Free

Google's getting into the spirit of the season and offering a neat freebie: To mail out a old-fashioned holiday postcard for you. All you have to do is fill out the recipient's info, add a message, and select a card. Basically that's about 44 cents for the stamp and maybe about a buck for the card in savings in exchange for the pleasure of handwriting a nice note. [Google via Neatorama]

About Three or So People Rejoice as Twitter Updates Its Mobile Website

Does anyone actually use Twitter's mobile website instead of an app anymore? It's always been accessible at mobile.twitter.com, but now it actually looks nicer and has nearly all of the features of the regular page. That's lovely and all, but I doubt most will ever see it. [TUAW]

One Pain-Inducing Cellphone Strap

I'm fine with the fact that some people like to put silly charms on their cellphones, but I just can't figure out how they'd avoid injury with one like this. [Deal Extreme via Nerd Approved via Dvice]

One-Touch Toothpaste Dispenser for Lazy Squeezers

Squeezing toothpaste tubes is so tough that I don't know how people do it. I'm just thankful that there's a six dollar gadget out there to do the work for me. [Giz Fever via ShinyShiny via Uber Gizmo]

Is it running Windows Mobile 6.5, Android, or another platform? Engadget is pointing at the lack of buttons as being a telltale sign it's running a "homegrown" OS, but we're rather interested in the addition of the ExtUSB port, considering HTC was meant to be pursuing the microUSB connection.

HTC, if this leaked Touch.B is running Android, we'll be very interested. WinMo 6.5? We'll give it a chance, sure. But we're slightly worried about these proprietary-platform stories we've been hearing. [MobiFrance via Engadget]

UPDATE: Word reaches us that it's running Qualcomm's BrewMP platform, and has a 2-megapixel camera (lame), 3G and Bluetooth, but no Wi-Fi.

The gadget's apparently based on a Japanese show about "a high school boy, his transforming cell-phone robot, and his six detective partners that fight against an internet-based criminal organization." Guess it might not be too upset if I compared it to a Transformer after all then. I'll still keep the "cute" remark and the $135 I'd pay for the phone to myself though. [XL-Shop via Technabob]

AdMob is one of the most dominant players in the mobile advertising arena—you've probably seen their ads in iPhone apps and things like that, as a bar on the top or bottom of the screen. AdMob isn't restricted to one platform; they're on pretty much all of the major consumer mobile OSes, including both iPhone and Android. What does this mean for you? Nothing, yet, since it's going to take at least a few months for the deal to go through. But it means that Google will have a huge influence in mobile advertising, way beyond Android. [Google]

It's a simple text link that leads to Google's mobile partners page which then has a link to the actual Verizon Wireless site. But despite that extra click, it's still incredibly rare to see any sort of ad on the otherwise clean homepage. Especially when it kinda conflicts with Google's attempts to make the things even more minimalist lately. [TechCrunch]

You were born but a hyped, sidetalking Taco. Then, after we had our laughs for several years, papa Nokia ditched your dedicated hardware and opened it up to phones of all kinds—as long as they said N-O-K-I-A on them. It was a smart move. Because you sell lots of phones, and if your gaming platform was to live, it needed to be on as many of those as possible. It looked ok at this point, as a platform and service. And the hardware was nice at times. But that didn't change the fact that no one I know ever talked about you, n-Gage, much less played with you. The button layouts, games and online vs modes never really came together as well as you'd liked in terms of people buying and using it. Why? I don't know. I guess, at least in America, we couldn't get the handsets for less than the price of 5 Nintendo DSes. But beyond that, you never had any games that people cared about, despite having signed up companies like EA so easily because papa Nokia was still number one. And every year at E3, your booth was like a buzz-vacuum. So, I can't say we'll miss you. We hardly knew you were there. But let's just chalk this up to more high end consumer failure to excite at Nokia, which has been a trend of late.

I'm done. Honestly, this much word count on nGage is charity, even as a farewell. See ya. Hope we never have to see you again. But the word is, you'll probably just fold some games of yours into a general app store. The dead never stay dead for long in the gadget game.

With Google's increased focus on collecting map data (and less reliance on third-party map providers such as Tele Atlas) and Android 2.0's rumored turn-by-turn directions in the soon-to-be-released Droid, it's feasible that they are in fact making preparations to let out a new Google product.

Android and Me, who has dubbed this app as the Google Navigator (which seems like it would fit well enough with Google's naming pattern), predicts that we'll see it in 2010. Forbes doesn't care to throw out a date, but one thing's for sure anyway: A free app of this nature from Google could definitely shake up the mobile navigation game. [Android and Me; Forbes via Engadget]

Touch sensitive menu keys? Check.

And there's our pal Android, and a camera of indeterminable mega pixelage. [The Unlockr via BGR]

Specifically, he said "No, we're not going to do that," which is odd, considering the sheer persistence—and substance—of rumors about "Pink" phones, which they've clearly been considering, at the very least. On Pink, Bach clammed up:

We're not going to discuss the rumors, or discuss any of the things you might see or might read.

So what about a co-branded phone, made by a separate ODM? Could that explain Pink? Are there any plans for that?

Yes, we announced that today, it's called the Windows Phone.

Sassy! Of course, an official denial of an unannounced product shouldn't be taken as gospel—Microsoft isn't in a position to admit too much now. But I can't help but think these flat denials will sound a little funny when Pink phones show up on shelves, made by Microsoft, cobranded with someone else, or otherwise.

Also equally interesting: we have a higher percentage of male readers than the NFL, the NBA or even MAXIM. More women look at softcore boobies than look at gadgets! [Nielsen]

Twitter user Beninato quotes Ballmer in saying "This will not happen again" and "We've pumped in some new talent," and Pjozefak gives the blockquote in our headline: Microsoft screwed up with Windows Mobile, and it should have already launched. We've seen a few promising bits previews of Windows Mobile, notably the browser in the Zune HD (it's not perfect, but it bodes well), but Windows Mobile has been a stinker for years now and Microsoft had better bust out the big guns to get it right with WinMo 7. [Twitter and Babbling VC via WMPowerUser via MobileTechWorld via Engadget]

Looks like LinkedIn might be working well for Hand Huang's because his profile certainly caught some attention for this little blurb (emphasis mine):

3. Joining Caesar product development, lead a team to do telephony feature and other applications development. Migrated relative applications from Windows Mobile 6 to Windows Mobile 7

Language: C++
Tools: VS2008, AKU, Platform Builder
Runtime Environment: Windows Mobile 7.0 (Beta)

According to Ars Technica, Huang might not just be fluffing up his resume. The timeframe seems about right for WinMo 7 to hit beta testing since it's been in development for years and there'd been a search for internal testers in the recent months. The timeline Ars lays out based on this information is that testers would truly be seeing the OS in November of this year, while we would see it out in the wild in April of 2010. The dates are loose and based on rumors, but when isn't that the case?

The way I see it is that WinMo 7 is pretty much Microsoft's last hope for a decent mobile OS, so I certainly hope this is true, shortening the time we'll have to endure Windows Mobile 6.5. [Ars Technica]

They demonstrated power drain by playing a DVD on two identically configured ThinkPad T400s: one with Windows 7 (15.6 watts), the other with Windows Vista (20.5 watts). That could translate to about 1.4 hours of increased battery life.

The improvement comes through "timer coalescing", which lets one processor core sleep as long as possible if it's not needed.

The big gains should come when Intel's Arrandale (laptop Core i7/i5) chip hits later this year, possibly with Windows 7 on October 22. The dual-core processor (based on the 32nm Westmere shrink of Nehalem) is able to execute two threads per core.

So, yup, November is looking like a good time to pick up a new laptop. [PC Mag and PC World]

"Interestingly enough, we discovered that most people who carry a Windows phone don't realize it's running Windows Mobile."

Well. I'll just leave it at that. Except to wonder precisely which Windows Mobile 6.5 phones we'll see on Oct. 6—T-Mobile is oddly missing from the list of North American carrier partners—and um, when, dear god, will we see Windows Mobile 7? And please tell me by now they've come up with a better plan than this.

Update: Also opening Oct. 6 is the Windows Marketplace, Microsoft's app store for all 6.X Windows phones, which we're interested to see how it pans out. [Windows Team]

It's pretty cool, especially since it requires "just about no effort" on our part. All we have to do is load Google Maps before starting a drive, and it'll measure everything automatically. That data is then collected and mixed with other similar data until a clear view of traffic patterns emerges, which is available for all to see. It's not a new idea, but Google Maps is so widespread that it has access to tons more data than the similar Dash GPS.

Google spends a lot of time debunking various scary thoughts about the privacy issues involved in this kind of thing, which makes it a little more worrisome. Google does indeed have access to ridiculous amounts of information, so they're taking measures which may or may not assuage your concern. Speed and location information is all anonymous, and Google tries to combine data from different sources together so it's tougher to tell exactly what information came from where. Still, we really like this idea—it's nice of Google to put their massive store of data to use for something simple and useful like avoiding traffic. [Google]