A January release date sounds reasonable based on what we know about the phone so far, and the information gleaned from the FCC details also makes T-Mobile a potential carrier, should Google take that route. A $199 subsidized price seems like the standard we are seeing elsewhere.

What I really want to know is how much this thing will cost without a contract. [HTC Source via Android and Me via ABC—Thanks, Steven!]

"The tablet planned is NOT a kindle as we know it."

The Tweet followed two other posts that also dealt with tablets ("interactive, full color" she says). They're kind of cryptic, but if she's anything like the New York Times or Conde Nast then she might be talking with a certain company or companies about magical newspaper/magazine-saving tablets too. No surprise. Here are the other two:

"Would like more comments on reading colorful magazines on a tablet reader- new improved, very interactive. will you use such a device??" AND "Serious question: how many of you will read magazines on an electronic tablet(interactive-full color) within two years? three years?"

Martha, Martha. What have you seen and when do we get instructions on how to knit handmade protective sleeves for it? [Martha Stewart - Thanks, Johnsie]

By "taking the internet seriously," we mean, in one sense, getting more serious "the cloud," which is a digital yuppy euphemism for "stuff stored on honking servers out there somewhere that you access over the internet." A few things—a few acquisitions, really—make us think Apple is eyeballing the internet in a new way as means of service. And we don't mean in the sorta kinda way they run MobileMe, which has been, at first, a flop and now, decent if it were free like all the Google stuff is and not $100 a year.

• The biggest piece is Lala. It remains to be seen how radically Apple uses it to transform iTunes, but the potential for a complete upheaval of the current iTunes model is enormous. Right now, you buy stuff on iTunes, download it to your hard drive, and sync it to your iThing through a rubbery white cable. A LalaTunes would be re-oriented around the web: You buy and manage songs over the web, and could stream your library anywhere, like to other computers, to your phone, directly. You can buy the streaming rights to a song forever, for 10 cents (well, that's what Lala sells 'em for now, anyway), rather than download it. And if this new, de-centralized iTunes is indeed embedded all over the web, it would become the de facto way to listen to music on internet, the same way Google is just how your search.

• Apple tried to buy AdMob, before Google did. AdMob is a mobile advertising company, formerly, one of the biggest. The sell ads, on the internet, for mobile phones. Apple might've wanted it as a defensive move to keep it away from Google, but just as likely, Apple wanted a slice of the mobile advertising revenue that's simply going to explode over the next couple of years, much of which is being sold for the iPhone.

• A somewhat shakier rumor is that Apple's is thinking about buying iCall, not for the name, but because they're a VoIP company. If Apple's really diving into the internet stuff, an internet calling service makes some sense. Also, though unrelated, it's interesting that after Apple blocked the app Podcaster for being iTunesy, it later released the functionality it provided, and Apple's complaint about Google Voice and other GV apps, were that they "duplicated" functionality.

• Update: Oops, forgot all about the massive, 500,000 square-foot data center Apple's supposedly building that would be one of the largest in the world

Again, Apple's dabbled in internet services for a long time—you know, .Mac and MobileMe, with its storage and syncing and photo services—but in the future, you'll probably mark the iPhone as when the internet really started to matter. It's a relatively modest piece of hardware compared to a real computer—when Ballmer said "the internet is not designed for iPhone," truthfully, he wasn't horribly off-base since a ton of non-game apps really are particular means displaying stuff from the internet. Remember how limited the iPhone felt before apps? Before it became a real internet thing?

The defining conflict of personal computing for the last two decades has been Apple vs. Microsoft, Mac vs. PC. Today, it's a three-way battle: Apple vs. Microsoft vs. Google. Steve Ballmer's been mocked for years over his obsession with Google, manifested through their Microsoft's blind pursuit of search marketshare, but his single-mindedness looks far less loony today. It's funny, actually, that Microsoft has been entirely absent from Apple's recent collisions, which have all been with Google: Maps, voice, mobile advertising, music, executives, phones, etc. Microsoft doesn't even enter the picture here, at least from Apple's perspective. And these fights are all about the internet or mobile services.

Which is illuminating. Microsoft has had their lunch chewed, swallowed and spit back into their faces on mobile, on digital music and on, um, the internet. They let all of those things, which they were in a serious position to dominate, pass them by. Windows Mobile is hosed. Zune HD is amazing, but far too late. Google owns over 70 percent of the search market, and people are still abandoning Internet Explorer in droves after Microsoft let it rot for years. Microsoft, with its OS on 90 percent of the world's computers, obviously has much more to lose than Apple if the OS becomes truly irrelevant.

Apple probably doesn't want to be Microsoft. Complacency breeds extinction. And it's clear that things are continually shifting away from the traditional desktop (or laptop), to the internet. I'm not saying Apple's abandoning OS X and MacBooks and we're going to all wake up in the puffy cloud tomorrow, but anybody who thinks things aren't going in this new terminal-client direction, where OSes and hardware doesn't matter is blind or stupid or in denial. I mean, it's already here in some ways. (Uh, just look at Google.) A model that stays tethered to the traditional desktop is like tying a weight around your ankle and trying to fly by flapping your arms.

An Apple that's seriously focused on the internet could be a curious thing. Apple's all about ecosystems that flow and work together. Would it be a walled garden in the clouds? Or would it be open, you know like people seem to think the internet should be? (I think of how Nintendo transitioned Mario from 2D to 3D with Super Mario 64. It was totally Mario, but something completely new.)

Whatever the case, it's hard to imagine Apple not taking the internet and internet-based services more seriously than ever—butting heads again and again with Google, the new Microsoft (of the internet) shows at least that much. We'll have to wait and see what that really means, though.

• The Wall Street Journal says it's made by HTC and called the Nexus One. It'll be sold online, directly by Google. You'll have to get your own cell service (which suggests it's an unlocked device). Curiously, the WSJ says, "unlike the more than half-dozen Android phones made by phone manufacturers today, Google designed virtually the entire software experience behind the phone." Sounds weird, since they designed the look and feel of the software on the Droid and G1 too, except that our source had told us before that the current Android we know isn't the "real" Android. Also odd sounding: that name, Nexus One. But maybe not that odd.

• Google confirmed they handed out "a device that combines innovative hardware from a partner with software that runs on Android to experiment with new mobile features and capabilities and we shared this device with Google employees across the globe."

• A bunch of Google employees tweeted stuff like the phone is "like an iPhone on beautifying steroids."

• It probably looks like this:

• It's supposedly an unlocked GSM phone running Android 2.1, powered by the crazyfast Snapdragon processor, with an OLED touchscreen (no keyboard), dual mics (for killing background noise), and enhanced voice-to-text powers. It's gonna be alllll Google branding. And it's probably coming out in January. Which jives with what our source saw a couple weeks ago, a huge screen running a brand new version of Android unlike anything out there.

• We heard it was referred to, at least in some capacity in the staff meeting where they were handed out, as the "Passion."

If Google really is going to push this as The Google Phone (and it's not just a dev phone), it's hard to overstate just how radically this changes the landscape not just for Android, but what it means for Google and their relationship to the cellphone industry. The Google Phone would be a radically different model, a shift from the Microsoft one—make the software, let somebody else deal with the hardware—to the Apple and BlackBerry one—make the software and the hardware, tightly integrated. And Google's even taking a step further, by selling it directly, bypassing the carriers, at least initially. (Google would not be the first to sell a high-powered unlocked phone—see Sony Ericsson and Nokia—but neither them are, um, Google, and their well-known failures with that approach makes it even ballsier.)

It's a powerful message: to the companies making phones running Android, to the carriers, to developers, to consumers. Google is in this, to win. Everything has changed. You know, unless it hasn't.

Google isn't saying much, but the way the post ends with "We hope to share more after our dogfood diet" suggests that there's something coming. It's much more coy than their usual outright denials (by the way, Google, what about those?).

TechCrunch is reporting that the mystical Google Phone is indeed the HTC Passion we saw leaked a few weeks ago (pictured above). Our sources are calling it the Passion, too. Update: Now the Wall Street Journal is calling it the Nexus One.

Update: TmoNews is also saying that the device will be sold directly by Google, but supported by T-Mobile at launch. No word on if T-Mobile will be the exclusive carrier.

Everything keeps lining up. Judging by how fast this news is coming, I wouldn't be surprised if this thing pops up in the wild soon. [Official Google Blog via TechCrunch, TmoNews, thanks Travis]

Update 2: Google speaks!

Update: We're hearing from our sources that it's the HTC Passion. We're not sure if it's the same Passion we saw a few weeks ago, but we're on the lookout for pics.

Assuming this isn't some sort of coordinated Twitter joke (trust me, it happens), here are the details we can extract:

• It's running Android 2.1 on HTC hardware (the Passion, see above)
• It should be coming out in January
• Employees were given unlocked versions
• "It's beautiful," "a sexy beast."

No one grabbed any concrete hardware details, but hopefully those are the next to come around. Great White Snark elaborated on his original tweet in the comments over at TechCrunch:

Yeah, it's a hot, sexy mess. And I mean that in a good way. Similar form-factor to the iPhone, but with a smooth-brushed-metal-looking shell instead of a glossy one. And perhaps a smidgen lighter.

Super fast, speech-to-text in EVERY app, awesome "live wallpapers" in the background that respond to touch in really beautiful ways. Like water ripples that emanate out from a touch.

Confirmation, or mass hysteria? It's confirmed, see above. Whatever it is, we'll be on the lookout for more details. [TechCrunch]

Indeed, says the source, as part of a move that goes against the shrinking retail space, Amazon would open a number of branded retail stores there, and soon.

It's not entirely crazy. As we reported earlier this year, Amazon has already jumped headfirst into the peripherals market with a line of low-cost branded merch called AmazonBasics.

Now there's allegedly a secret land grab going on behind closed doors to stock some of that merchandise. The sites are described as "high profile," possibly in locations recently vacated by the Borders book chain. [Times Online]

And by "Google Phone" we don't simply mean another Android handset. We're talking about Google-branded hardware running a version of Android we haven't yet seen.

Over the next few weeks, Google Phones (most probably in early, prototype form) will flood the Mountain View campus. They'll don large LCDs while running a new version of Android—either Flan or the version of Android beyond it—which our source spotted running on Google's handset as well as a laptop. (Whatever the software was, it most certainly wasn't Chrome OS, we were assured.)

But maybe the most intriguing bit is what someone said to our source offhandedly, that the current Android, the we all know and love, is not the "real" Android. So what makes for a "real" version of Android?

Our best guess is an Android OS with Google Voice at its heart.

The 3,1 phone was spotted in an analytics report from November for the iPhone app iBART.

This isn't the first time something with that ID popped up on the rumor radar. In August, 3,1 was discovered hiding in iPhone firmware files. However, as MacRumors notes, this is the first time the marker's been "seen" gallivanting out in public.

Also noteworthy is the timing of the discovery: In October 2008, Apple starting testing the 3GS in and around the San Francisco area. [MacRumors]

Like the Google Wave-inspired interface for Gmail, the new user interface is cleaner and bolder than the current version, offering more options to the user. It may still be far from deployment, however, but it's good to see some changes after so many years of same all same all.

The latest rumor reads like it's August all over again, but it does have one particularly disappointing aspect. According to the source, the iPod touch camera will match the not-so-hot quality of the nano's.

Here's to hoping the engineers can somehow stuff the iPhone's camera into an iPod Touch. Sure, there's not much space to work with in the Touch. And Apple releases iPods in fall, not spring, but we can believe. [The Examiner via 9 to 5 Mac]

DigiTimes says that the 9.7-inch OLED panels are priced at about $500 bucks today, and the screen would account for about 30 percent of the device's $1500 to $1700 cost when it arrives in the second quarter of next year. OLED prices are expected to fall over the next couple of years, though. As for the 10.6-incher, that's still said to be in the $800 to $1000 ballpark.

No word yet from them on the rumored matter synthesizer and teleporter module, but give it a couple more months, and they will spill it all out. [DigiTimes]

But Mike notes that AT&T is already ok with setting up Windows and Blackberry phones with data only plans (but not iPhones) and that a data/voip-only phone is what Google proposed to the FCC when bidding on wireless spectrum back in the day.

The initial post that there would be a Google phone—an in-house, top-to-bottom Google developed handset running android—was met with skepticism by the press. Most people quoted previous statements from Google's Andy Rubin stating that they would not "compete with their own customers" by releasing a handset of their own. That mimes microsoft's strategy with PCs and Phones, versus their in house designed Xbox and Zune hardware. But there is a difference here, despite the quote from Rubin: Google does not charge for Android, so are these people customers or beneficiaries of the only real modern mobile operating system that they can license. And Free. I mean, Win Mo is currently terrible and costs money and symbian is a joke. Blackberry isn't up for grabs. And does Google care if they lose a few points of market share? I don't think so. This isn't even close to their core business, except that whenever someone gets on the internet, Google stands to make money. In this case, Google wins not by licensing more OSes to be used on phones, but in the very act of getting more phones in the world, no matter what the OS or platform. Now that's scary power. [Techcrunch]

The idea of multiple models seems to sync up with Dell's previous comments about considering MIDs with screen sizes ranging from 4- to 12-inches. Last month's apparent leak suggested the 5-inch Streak has an 800 by 480 touch screen, 3G, Wi-Fi, a 5-megapixel camera with dual LED flash, microSD card storage, and a 1,300mAh battery. Commercial Times says it'll be built by Qisda. [DigiTimes via SlashGear]

The information posted regarding Sony television models is incorrect. Any specifications, model names, photographs or other details were not issued by Sony and do not represent the company's current or future product line.

The updated XBR series would scale up to 60-inches, and feature 240Hz Motionflow, W-LED-backlighting, a new Bravia Engine 3 Pro with HD video processor, and UV2A panel technology. HDTVLounge also believes the shot above may well be a glimpse of the 32-inch XBR11's new floating glass design.

As for the OLED TV, it's just one of several models that are on the proposed list:
• KDL-S6100 | Entry CCFL
• KDL-V6100 | Mind Range CCFL
• KDL-W6100 | Mid Range CCFL
• KDL-Z6100 | High Range CCFL
• KDL-X500 | Mid Range Edge-Lit LED LCD
• KDL-650 | High Range Edge-Lit LED LCD
• KDL-XBR11 | High Range W-LED Backlit LCD
• KDL-XBR12 | High Range Advanced LED RGB Backlit LCD
• KDL-ZX Series OLED

Fingers crossed we see some of these at CES in January. [HDTV Lounge]

Note that Piano Black and Pearl White have both already been released, but there are a slew of others that the company is at least considering putting on shelves. I'm remiss that there's no Fireball Orange option. That Bright Yellow just isn't getting it done for me. [Destructoid via Kotaku]

OK, the last one isn't super interesting, but the Facebook feature would be nice. Looks like Sony caught on before we had the chance to confirm the pics ourselves, but ScrawlFX says it found the them here, here and here. [ScrawlFX via Kotaku]