GPhone - It's Confirmed

Update: 9:36 AM CST (10/02/207): This is where the update on all the new gPhone confirmations are.

Update 5:36 PM CST (8/27/2007): 211 Blog Reactions to the story, according to Technorati. Apparently I struck a chord talking about the what people seemed to have now dubbed it, the "gPhone" (notice the iPhone-style capitalization). At any rate, I encourage you to check out the podcast discussion over at Podango to get the full sense of context of the conversation. It's around 7-10 minutes into the show or so, but the first story off the top. Since it's such a big deal and everyone is talking about it now, I'm going to check again with my friend and see if he or someone at the company will make a statement on it. He had mentioned a name (that presently escapes me) that had demo'ed it in the past and that might be willing to speak about it. My goal is to track him down or be given a good reason why he can't (or won't) speak to it now.

Update 11:33 PM CST (8/27/2007): I spoke to my friend again this evening and told him about everyone's linking and talking about the story. He was moderately amused, but ask for re-assurance I wouldn't use his name, which I told him. He gave me the name of the fellow that's the lead programmer/designer on the gPhone. He's set to speak with him in the near future, and he's going to try to casually ask whether or not he was actually supposed to say something about this or not. To re-iterate: my source re-assured me there is a gPhone, but wasn't for certain whether or not he was allowed to say that.

Also (to answer some of the emails I've been getting), the picture below is not a confirmed image of the actual gPhone, but an image I found on Engadget and about a hundred other blogs that seems to be used every time the gPhone is mentioned.

Regarding the $100 laptop strategy, he clarified that it's more of a long term possibility (based on functionality) of this device rather than an original design strategy. Development on this began, as I understand it, before both the $100 Laptop and the iPhone hit the market. Regardless, as Google's primary source of revenue continues to be advertising, I can still easily see them subsidizing purchase of the phone and attempting to recoup investment off ad revenue.

Last Update Here 2:59 PM CST (8/28/2007): Further gPhone commentary will be found here for the time being.

---{Original Post Below]===>

I'm going to talk about this on the show today, so don't miss Episode 116 of RizWords.

I talked to one of my inside sources at Google today. He spoke on conditions of anonymity, but the guy is someone I trust implicitly. He said that he was baffled at Google's apparent internal confusion on the GPhone issue - that they've actually demo'ed the thing in public before.

He said that the Google (applications) Suite is going to play a huge role in the usability of the GPhone, and the thought process behind it's functionality is less about beating the iPhone and more about beating the $100 Laptop, which provides a huge clue behind what will be the pricing structure on this.

This is my analysis based on what he told me: It'll probably be sold at a loss or sold as a loss leader to increase ad-monetized content viewing. Just a guess though.

When he was telling me about all the nuances of what he's seen the thing do, I couldn't help but audibly remark about the FCC bid for the 700mhz spectrum making a whole lot more sense. He didn't come out and say it, but I got the impression that they were gunning for the spectrum with a vengeance.

Essentially, this is a post to say that this is a solid confirmation on the GPhone - regarding the two week timetable on it's release, he said he could not confirm that part of the story. I suggested a theory that perhaps they'll show a version of the phone in two weeks (or a press conference about it), but it might not be available for American release until later, and he seemed to think that was a reasonable theory.

Other tidbits that I'm trying to recall based on questions I've received from readers:

• It's a modified Linux kernel
• There is integrated GPS and GoogleMaps

I couldn't get much more out of him than that, and he wouldn't put anything on the record, due to his unique position at the company he wasn't sure what exactly he was allowed to say, but his exuberance and confidence was quite clear when he talked about the GPhone.

We'll analyze this on the show today (Episode 116), so don't miss it.

/rizzn

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RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP59

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
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James Smith and Art Lindsey both join me today as co-hosts.

We kick off the podcast today discussing a bit of politics inspired by the Cato Institute.

What Mitt and Hillary Have in Common
As he campaigns for the White House, Mitt Romney has had to tap dance around the health-care reforms he enacted while governor of Massachusetts. The first bit of bad news was that the plan's cost was higher than predicted. Then it reneged on its commitment to cover the uninsured. But the latest bit of news about "RomneyCare" may require even fancier footwork.

The Left is now thanking Romney for making HillaryCare respectable again.

Jonathan Cohn has an article in the latest New Republic titled "Hillary Was Right" [$] that helpfully explains similarities between HillaryCare and RomneyCare:

In Washington, at least, praising HillaryCare will get you laughed off the talk shows. But...if you look closely at the proposals experts and officials are tossing around, you may start to recognize some familiar elements...They also envision, as did HillaryCare, a government role in making sure affordable, high-quality plans are made available — typically, by creating (again, like HillaryCare) some sort of purchasing cooperative through which some, if not all, of the population would buy their coverage. That's true of the plan former Senator John Edwards proposed as part of his presidential campaign a few months ago. It's true of the plan Senator Ron Wyden introduced in Congress back in December. It's even true of the plan former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney signed into law before leaving office last year — even though Romney has made mocking HillaryCare a staple of his campaign rhetoric as he seeks the Republican presidential nomination.

We explore a little bit of the why's and how's over online gambling law in America:

Group Sues Over US Online Gambling Law
It's well known that, last year, Congress hid an anti-online gambling law inside a bill about protecting our ports, knowing that politicians wouldn't vote against protecting our ports. There's been quite an uproar about this, and at least some politicians are starting to reconsider the law. However, that process is apparently too slow for some. A group called the Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association, an organization apparently put together so hastily that it has no website, has filed a lawsuit preventing the government from enforcing the law. The lawsuit apparently also notes that even the WTO says that the US is violating international treaties with its stance on online gambling. While any court case would take years (probably longer than any change to the laws), it could certainly bring some more attention to the law (and potentially prevent its enforcement for the duration of the case).

After the break, we took a good long look at our expectations of the iPhone:

How Big Will the iPhone Become?
palewook writes "Combine the best elements of an iPod with a BlackBerry's addictive usefulness, and you may just get Apple's Next Big Thing. Around 2009, when the lower cost version of iPhone appears, Business Week believes the yearly market for iPhones could be over 10 billion dollars a year. Its an interesting prediction; if those numbers come to pass, iPhone could become a bigger source of revenue than the traditional iPod. 'The answer may not come until 2009. By then, Apple should have begun creating lower-cost iPhone variants to reach consumers scared off by the introductory $499 price. It also will probably have moved into overseas markets and cut deals with more carriers to utilize higher-speed wireless networks. So while most analysts look for Apple to sell around 3 million units this year and 10 to 12 million in 2008, many figure that 20 million will move in 2009.'?"

We couldn't stand it any longer, we discussed a bit of Paris Hilton news:

Paris Hilton Bawls Her Way Out of An L.A. Celebrity Slammer Paris Hilton has finally done it to me. She has so outraged my sensibilities that here I am blogging on this sack of celebrity excrement instead of analyzing every jot and tittle of the presidential race.

As everyone but those hundreds of tortured souls rotting in Gitmo surely know by now, the hotel heiress was streeted only five days into her 23-day sentence (already reduced from 45 days) in a celebrity lockup for repeatedly driving drunk.

The reason: Paris couldn’t sleep and had become a sniveling mess. She will serve the rest of her sentence at home with a tracking device attached to her ankle.

The New York Post said she was seen crying after she cracked “under the pressure of prison.”

Paris, who reportedly is a moderate Republican, had unsuccessfully appealed to California Governor Schwarzenneger to commute her sentence. Her attorneys argued in an irony-free petition that “She provides hope for young people all over the U.S. and the world. She provides beauty and excitement to (most of) our otherwise mundane lives.”

And in other whorific news...:

Jessica Cutler Files for Bankruptcy

This is news?

Yes, it is -- when you have a background as a "sex blogger". :-)

An AP newswire article, via PhysOrg.com, reports that:

Jessica Cutler, the former Senate aide whose online sex diary landed her a book deal and a Playboy photo spread but got her kicked off Capitol Hill, has filed for bankruptcy.

Cutler, a former aide to then-Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, created the "Washingtonienne" blog in 2004 and began posting racy details about her sex life with six men, including a Senate colleague and "a few generous older gentlemen" who she said paid many of her living expenses.

When the blog was discovered, Cutler was fired. She moved to New York, wrote a novel based on the scandal, posed naked and started a new Web site that describes herself as "a published author who jumps out of cakes for money."

Under the occupation heading of her Web site, it reads: "I'm freelancing."

More here.

Background information here and here.

Two Neat Links: Akamai gives a peek at the internet, and more online ad spending.

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