Google to Unveil Online Music Store

The Google Music store will compete with Apple's iTunes and other digital music services from the likes of Amazon and Spotify.
Google Inc is expected to unveil on Wednesday an online music download store featuring songs from three major music companies, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Sony Corp's Sony Music Entertainment, Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group and EMI Music are expected to have deals with Google in place in time for a Wednesday afternoon announcement in Los Angeles, the Journal reported.
The Google Music store will compete with Apple Inc's dominant iTunes and other digital music services.
Google's store will sell songs for around $1 apiece, the Journal reported. The store also is expected to allow users who buy songs to share one or two free listens with contacts on the Google+ social networking service, the newspaper reported.
A Wednesday evening event tied to the announcement will feature pop group Maroon 5 and R&B singer Drake, among others.
Representatives for Google, Sony and Universal Music Group did not immediately respond to requests for comment. An EMI spokesman declined to comment.

| Reuters
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Google Nexus One/Review

Price: $529 unlocked; $179 with contract
Official Site: Google.com/phone
Specs: Depth: 0.45”; 4.58 oz; Processor: Qualcomm QSD 8250 1GHz; Capacity: Up to 32GB 
Company: Google & HTC

The Nexus One (built in partnership with HTC) sells for $529 unlocked or $179 with a two-year service plan.
With no physical keyboard, and a spacious 3.7-inch OLED touch-sensitive screen, the Nexus One draws almost immediate comparisons to the Apple iPhone. However, unlike the current king of smartphones, the Nexus One is slightly thinner, lighter and comes with a removable battery, 4GB microSD storage card (expandable to 32GB), USB charger and microphone headset. It can be said without any reservation that this is the finest smartphone display screen ever released. The 800 x 480 resolution blows away anything else available today, showing off visuals that are bright, bold and just a pleasure to look at.
Unlike an Android phone such as the DROID, the Nexus One has four functional touch buttons and a trackball below the screen for more efficient control. One of the big improvements on the Nexus One phone over the competition is with the camera, which has a streamlined and faster application and five megapixels with a very sharp flash.

The big highlight of the overly impressive Nexus One package has to be the unveiling of the Snapdragon 1GHz core processor. With enough power to run your old laptop, the Snapdragon is more than capable of handling multiple applications, 3-D graphics and heavy browser use all at the same time. Unlike previous Android phones, or really anything else on the retail shelves today, the Nexus One shows no slowdown or stutter when you push the device to its limit.
Of course, all of this mind-blowing power and tech bling comes at a price, and that shortcoming is the battery life. With an on time that feels brief even by iPhone standards, it is easily possible to kill an entire charge in way under the advertised seven hours. Google does take some internal measures to try to extend the battery life, like auto adjusting brightness and turning down the processor when it is not in heavy use, but you should still be prepared to have a charger at arms length whenever possible.
The Nexus One is a superior effort among both Android phones and smartphones alike, and with the backing and application support of Google, the first great phone of 2010 is here.

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World's First Google Store Opens in London

When Google opened its first physical shop you might have expected a song and dance. Instead the arrival of Google’s “Chrome Zone” in central London has happened so quietly you almost wouldn’t notice it had happened.
The London Evening Standard reports: “The world’s first “Google store” opened not in California but in the less glamorous setting of PC World in Tottenham Court Road at 9 a.m. local-time.”
The 285 sq. ft. pop-up “shop within a shop”, which only sells Google’s Chromebook laptop and a few accessories such as headphones, will run for three months up to Christmas.
The report continues: “A second pop-up store will open at Lakeside shopping centre in Essex on Oct. 7 and more pilot shops are planned around the world in the coming months. A spokeswoman said: ‘We’ve put a lot of effort into making it feel welcoming, homely and, dare I say it, Googley.’”
The news has been picked up, perhaps not surprisingly given the publication’s proximity to Google’s worldwide headquarters, by the San Francisco Chronicle, which talks about Google’s retail plans being just an experiment, for now. But this is exactly how Microsoft got into the retail game a few years ago: by creating “Microsoft stores” within big outlets like Circuit City, Best Buy, and–yes–PC World in 2008. It learned what it needed to know.
A few months later, Microsoft opened its prototype Retail Experience Center to journalists. In February 2009, Microsoft announced it would open its own line of stores. Now, it’s approaching a dozen. It plans to build 75 of them by 2014.

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Weird Gadgets/Google Wallet?

Smartphones are in the process of replacing cameras, phonebooks, land lines and maps ... and wallets are next. First announced in May but just launched today, the Google Wallet free app allows its users to store electronic versions of their credit cards on their smartphone, and pay for items simply by tapping their phone on a near field communication (NFC) reader at a store's front counter.

A number of retailers, along with one financial institution and one carrier are on board, and so far Google Wallet is compatible with the Citi Master Card along with Google Prepaid Cards, that can be "loaded" using any existing credit card. Currently it only works with Google's Nexus S 4G phone, on the Sprint network. Needless to say, the number of cards, devices and networks is expected to grow soon.

It can be put to use at merchants that display a MasterCard PayPass symbol at their till. Users simply enter their PIN on their phone, tap the device on the merchant's NFC reader, and the payment is electronically made. At some retailers, electronic coupons and loyalty points will also be passed along. Participating businesses can be found using the MasterCard PayPass Locator for Android app.

Special Google Offers will also be made available to users, and will automatically sync with their Wallet.

Down the road, Google would also like to see the Wallet containing things such as gift cards, tickets, boarding passes, and even electronic house keys. Google Wallet can be downloaded now, free of charge.

Other companies that have experimented with similar payment technology have included Orange, SIMlink, SAGEM, and Visa.

Vdara Hotel & Spa

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Google to debut Dart, a new language for the Web

Google's at it again with a new programming language, this one called Dart.

In 2009, Google launched Go, a language designed for writing server software and handling other chores often handled today by C or C++. Dart, though, is "a new programming language for structured Web programming," according to the schedule for the Goto conference where Googlers plan to describe it next month.

There are two Dart presenters. First is Gilad Bracha, who created the Newspeak programming language that just reached version 3. He also was co-author of the Java Language Specification and worked at SAP Labs, Cadence, and Sun Microsystems.

Second is Lars Bak, who led the team that built the Chrome browser's V8 engine. V8 was built in Aarhus, Denmark, where the Goto conference will take place in October. Bak has a particular specialty in virtual machines, software foundations that act like computers that run higher-level languages.

It's tough to design new programming languages and tougher to get them established. The payoff, though, can take several forms: higher programmer productivity, software that runs more efficiently, hardware features that can be tapped.

The interesting thing about Google is that it has enough programmers on staff creating enough in-house software that the company can single-handedly make a programming language at least somewhat relevant. And because it's got such a vast computing infrastructure, anything that increases the efficiency of power consumption, or improves the flexibility of the computing foundation, can pay off directly in lower electricity bills and higher reliability.

In other words, even the very academic subject of programming languages can be a very practical activity at Google.

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