No surprises here. The Nexus One by Google was supposed to be the one phone to rule them all. It was supposed to be available on every single carrier through Google, with or without subsidy. It should have been the sales model of the future – buy your phone without the hassle of dealing with customer service reps or retail stores. T-Mobile was the first to have the Nexus One and, according to Google in January, it was coming to Verizon in the spring of 2010. That never happened. Sprint said that it would still move forward with its plans to carry the Nexus One after the Verizon news, but recently changed its mind. What’s going on here?

The problem is Android and the fact that it is being adopted by manufacturers who are making radically better hardware every single month. Why would someone want the Nexus One when the HTC Droid Incredible from Verizon is now available? Even Verizon encouraged its customers to look at the Incredible instead of holding their breath for the Nexus One. And why would Sprint customers want a Nexus One when the HTC EVO 4G is going to be available soon? Android’s fragmentation as a platform was already a problem for Google, but now rapid hardware evolution is causing problems, too. This ecosystem almost makes it impossible to ever find a “right time” to buy an Android handset.

Another issue with the Nexus One is the inconvenience of buying a handset and waiting for it to be shipped. You never get to touch the device or play with it first, and that’s crucial for a lot of people. Videos, pictures and online reviews can never replace the personal user experience. Blindly buying a device from Google isn’t appealing to customers who are so used to the walk-into-the-store model. And what if you don’t like the device? You go through the hassle of shipping it back and shopping all over again.

Sprint is a great network and the Nexus One would have made a nice addition to its relatively weak line-up. Unfortunately, both Sprint and Google couldn’t make it happen faster, and it just wouldn’t make sense to release it now only to be swallowed whole by the EVO 4G.

The Nexus One is dead. Long live the Nexus One.

via MacNN

From left to right: Awesome mini-helicopter created at MIT, potential 3D image created by a swarm of said helicopters, and the Mona Lisa created by the miniature flying robots. Eat your hearts out, fireflies!

What could be cooler than a massive swarm of mini-helicopters equipped with LEDs to create awesome 3D images in the sky? Not a whole lot, I can tell you that much. Fireworks are likely to see a swift end if this project takes off, and here’s a video showing how and why.

[via Singularity Hub]

Earlier today, I wrote an article on MobileCrunch that resulted in a comment which left me scratching my head. It was clear to me that the commenter didn’t read my post or headline and skipped straight to the comments and attacked me for being misinformed. I told my editor, Greg, to check my info and he sent me a link to ReadWriteWeb; more specifically, a post entitled The Internet Is Hard.

It’s an article written in response to another ReadWriteWeb post regarding Facebook login. Thanks to some clever SEO, or search engine optimization (and a reason some web nerds loathe SEO), Google searching “Facebook login” landed that post at the top of the list of results. Hundreds of users were thoroughly confused when they clicked on the link, expecting to be taken to Facebook, and left comments saying they loathe the new redesign and the red color everywhere.

Oh my.

It made me laugh, but when I finished reading it, I was quickly reminded of what I’m doing on the Internet and the people with whom I interact. The post was very well-written and it touched on some points that nerds/geeks/media people easily forget. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Building for geeks makes for great customer immersion if you’re building something like (the wonderfully useful) GitHub, but that same process doesn’t work so hot if you’re building a site for middle-aged moms.
• For example, none of the 200 or so confused Facebook users who commented on our earlier post read the post itself, the huge logo at the top of the page, the many links to non-Facebook-related content or the huge, all-bold paragraph about how ReadWriteWeb is not, in fact, some ill-conceived redesign of Facebook. They simply searched for “Facebook login” and, upon navigating to our site, scrolled until they found the one button they wanted to click.
• As a tech geek of the 12-hours-a-day-online variety, I appreciate innovative and intuitive web interfaces. But a lot of users don’t. Even if it’s simple, it needs to be familiar.
• 400 million people now use Facebook, and they don’t all have CS Master’s degrees from Stanford. But if you work in the IT/tech/Internet/online media industries, they do manage to pay your bills. They’re the ones who open emails, click ads, make purchases, sign up for subscriptions and generally take the majority of actions that make our whole ecosystem work.

I think the same advice can be applied to anyone within a certain field. The elitism that runs rampant on the Internet can get a little ridiculous. Even I’m guilty of this when I groan at a friend who can’t find a cached page on Google, or they have trouble accessing e-mail privacy settings. ReadWriteWeb’s post is a great reminder that we’re not all pros at everything, and I’m glad they refrained from openly insulting all the users who were leaving confused and snarling comments.

No one likes to be barked at by an IT guy because he or she doesn’t know how to set e-mail retrieval intervals. No one likes being shamed by a mechanic when a car owner doesn’t know that you’re supposed to check your tire pressure every month.

The point that ReadWriteWeb made is that everyone is good at something, and we shouldn’t bemoan them for being incompetent at what we do. After all, these non-web-savvy people could be the ones fixing our cars, flying our planes or even protecting our country. It would benefit us all to point each other in the right direction instead of snarling at ignorance. And, after all, it never hurts to help.

Details are scant, but Iran just announced that it is shutting down Google’s email service, Gmail, permanently. Apparently, the Iranian government is planning on its own, national email client to replace the free and open Gmail service. So far, there are no comments from Iran or Google and how this will affect Gmail in Iran (likely going to a landing page).

After all the controversy in Iran over Twitter use during last year’s bloody elections, it appears as though the Iranian government is buckling down on the information that goes in and out of the country. Since nothing is confirmed just yet, keep an eye out here and I will update as I can.

[via Reuters]

One, please! Just one! Why can’t we have one service where we toss up all of our pictures, status updates, videos and personal information? With Twitter, FriendFeed, Foursquare, and MySpace Facebook, today’s announcement from Google knocked me back on my ass.

Google Buzz is what plastered news headlines today and it looks like it could actually be a decent social networking service. It will be integrated into Gmail, which millions of us already use, and the interface seems simple enough. The people you e-mail the most will become instant contacts and you can share pictures, videos and all your mundane little thoughts and activities with them. Awesome! But wait, I can already do that with Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed. Why is Google Buzz so special and how is it different?

Quite frankly, it’s going to boil down to a matter of taste and privacy. To start, Buzz looks like it has a very nice interface and it’s integrated with services we already use like Google Maps. You can also integrate Twitter, Picasa, Google Reader and Flickr onto it so you don’t have to feel like such a narcissist by visiting every single site to share every little thing you want to project to the world. One thing you will have to consider, however, is whom you’ll be sharing this information with. That’s because your contacts will have your personal e-mail information, and in an age where our actual and perceived privacy shrinks by the day, personal e-mail seems like the last semblance of what life was like before social networking.

It’s honestly hard for me to tell whether this will take off or become a flop like the Google Latitude, the search giant’s location-based social networking service. All I know is, with tons of these social network and media outlets, I’m tempted to just close my computer and hide out in a corner somewhere before it consumes me.

When the iPad was announced in late January, the biggest part of the announcement was pricing. While camps were separated on just how great the device actually is, one thing most could agree on is that pricing is reasonable. Well, given Apple’s premium nature, of course. Still, for a device that intends to fill the gap between laptops and smartphones, $499 to $829 depending on features is still a little hefty. It wouldn’t be completely surprising if sales start off slow, but Apple has a plan in the event of a lukewarm reception.

According to Credit Suisse analyst Bill Shope, who recently met with Apple executives, Apple is going to be flexible about pricing depending on initial sales. “While it remains to be seen how much traction the iPad gets initially, management noted that it will remain nimble (pricing could change if the company is not attracting as many customers as anticipated),” writes Shope to his clients.

The same was done with the iPhone when it launched back in June 2007. While it wasn’t the poorest of debuts for a new gadget, $599 was a steep price to pay for an 8GB smartphone. Just weeks later, prices were dropped to $399 and those who bought the device at the original sale price were given $100 gifts to spend freely at Apple.

So, if you’re dying for an iPad and you’re typically an early-adopter, take one for the team and just wait. If we ban together and hold off on our impulses, we just might see more attractive pricing options from Apple!

[via Business Insider]

Super Bowl commercials are usually hilarious, riotous or just plain weird. So when Google’s first television commercial aired, quiet and quaint as it was, it was like a palate cleanser between the beer-and-babes ads. Along with the calming ambient music, the commercial tells a tale of Parisian love – starting with a search for studying abroad and ultimately ending with a search for how to assemble a crib. Watch the video and tell me you don’t think it’s cute!

I’ve been gone from True/Slant for a few days here, but I’ve been shuffling around behind the scenes and moving from one place to another. Since the summer of 2008, I’d been writing for Boy Genius Report. It was loads of fun, I learned a lot and I got to see some cool things in the tech industry that I wouldn’t have seen anywhere else. My decision to leave was an agonizing one and I was sad to go.

However, I decided it was time for a change of scenery and the TechCrunch family welcomed me with open arms. I’m now writing for MobileCrunch with a great group of folks and it’s been a fun and busy week so far. Although I’ve written about technology in all sectors, I will be focusing on the mobile space at MobileCrunch. Here at True/Slant, I’ll continue to dish out interesting tech news from all corners of the web and hope I can continue to inform and entertain you readers. Seriously, you guys and gals are the best and I appreciate the feedback I get here.

Steve Jobs is a man with a plan and he isn’t afraid of anyone. After announcing the iPad last week, he decided to go to town fielding questions from the curious. When asked about Google and the Nexus One, he said, “They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them.” And what about Google’s mantra, “Don’t be evil”? According to Jobs, it’s “bullshit.” Ha!

Of course, you can’t grill Steve Jobs without bringing up the Flash issue and Adobe. “They’re lazy. They have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it,” says Jobs. Take that Adobe! Regarding Flash, he says no one will be using it in the future – everyone will be jumping on the HTML5 bandwagon. Oh, snap! Of course, the company behind Flash probably doesn’t care what Steve Jobs thinks since Apple only represents about 7% of the computing market. Still, this just proves that despite having had liver issues, Jobs’ balls are still very much intact.

[Source: Wired]

Video courtesy of TechCrunch.