I’m lying on the floor watching the Olympics with a stomach full of vindaloo and a post-prandial coffee in my hand.

I’ve got to tell you…I’m kind of glad that I’m not in Barcelona right now.

Though I did really want to go to GSMA’s Mobile World Congress 2010, the exciting announcements so far haven’t been anything extremely shocking.

The first noteworthy announcement today was that Sony Ericsson’s first Android device, the gorgeous Xperia X10, is now the parent a full family of devices. The new members of the Sony Ericsson Android family include the X10 mini and X10 mini pro. It’s a bit like the iPod line now, you’ve got the full-sized version, and the miniature ones (one with keyboard, one without, lots of color choices.) Not a bad way to go, actually.

Here’s the features and stats right from Sony Ericsson:
Timescape UI
“Four corner control”
5 megapixel camera and video
QWERTY keyboard – slide and text for quick and easy messaging (Mini pro only)
X10 mini and X10 mini pro support HSPA 900/2100 and EDGE 850/900/1800/1900, HSPA 850/1900/2100 and EDGE 850/900/1800/1900.

Xperia X10 mini:
Size: 83 x 50 x 16 mm
Weight: 88 grams
Phone memory: Up to 128MB
Memory card support: SanDisk microSD, up to 16 GB
Memory card included: 2GB
Operating system: Google Android 1.6
Processor: 600 MHz Qualcomm MSM7227
Talk time GSM/GPRS: Up to 4 hours
Standby time: GSM/GPRS: Up to 285hrs
Talk time UMTS: Up to 3.5 hours
Standby time: UMTS: Up to 360 hrs
The X10 mini will be available in selected markets from Q2 in Pearl White, Black, Pink, Lime, Red and Silver

Xperia X10 mini pro:
Size: 90 x 52 x 17 mm
Weight: 120 grams
Phone memory: Up to 128MB
Memory card support: SanDisk microSD, up to 16 GB
Memory card included: 2GB
Operating system: Google Android 1.6
Processor: 600 MHz Qualcomm MSM7227
Talk time GSM/GPRS: Up to 4 hours
Standby time: GSM/GPRS: Up to 285hrs
Talk time UMTS: Up to 3.5 hours
Standby time: UMTS: Up to 360 hrs

The X10 mini pro will be available in selected markets from Q2 in Black and Red.

It’s the first Samsung device to run Android OS 2.1. and the first Samsung device in South Korea. Kind of a big deal when they’re supposed to do a lot with this whole Bada thing. Called the SHW-M100S, the new device will arrive in March on SK Telecom. This means I can head over to the random SK Telecom store I found in Little Korea and maybe be able to get my hands on it.

Some early features/specs listed:
Android 2.1 with TouchWIZ UI
800MHz processor
3.7″ AMOLED touchscreen (WVGA),
5 megapixel camera with 720p video capture
802.11n
Full GPS
T-DMB mobile broadcast TV

Not too shabby!

There was a period of time from Thanksgiving to Christmas when I wasn’t contributing the same amount of literary/journalistic content that I usually do, and it wasn’t because of the holidays or anything. It was because my dad passed away.

My mom died when I was only seven, and my dad and I never had the best relationship, partially due to the fact that our communication skills are shit, partially due to the fact that he was doing clandestine government work throughout the cold war and was sort of limited in what he could even talk to me about.

I never knew much about my dad because he had top secret clearance and couldn’t tell us much about his day-to-day work in the bunkers of Aberdeen Proving Ground or his four-day stints at the Pentagon once a month. One time when I was a kid, I asked him what his job was like, and he said, “You know everything you read in science fiction stories? It’s all real, and that’s what I do.”

I believe my next question was something to the order of, “You work on jetpacks!?”

I had never even seen the above picture of him until yesterday, and it made me wish we could have made it to the level where we could speak to one another as gearheads, because this is goddamn cool. I’m dating the picture around ‘76 by my dad’s appearance and by our family’s location at the time.

He was totally going for the “Meathead” look.

Rob Reiner...Not my father.

I believe machine in the picture above is a Commodore because I zoomed in on the placard on the left, and it looks like it says “CBM Termicare.” I’ll continue looking that one up.

But the real sci-fi shit my dad was working on was ARPANET. Long before the term “Internet” even existed, that was a major part of his job…check this out:

This article is from 1980…so this is in the period of time when it was still ARPANET, before it got turned into MILNET, when the packet-switched network was still a new concept, and there were only 100 something nodes in the entire Internet.

What he was researching is anybody’s guess, though. The only thing I know about this is that he once gave us a full-sized injection molded replica of an AK-47, and two smaller calibre replica handguns from his lab. Once he came back from one of his weekends at the Pentagon with a gasoline-soaked russian tank driver’s helmet. My stepmom says those monthly trips actually took him places like Cuba and Russia during the Cold War, and I know he went to Panama and Germany in the 80’s. I may never know exactly who he was watching.

He was a spy, after all…and an Internet espionage pioneer. Pretty cool. I just wish we could have talked more about his work when I had the chance.

Motorola just announced another new device, the MotoROI.

We’ve had the MotoRAZR, MotoROKR, MotoRIZR…but, MotoROI? what the fuck does that even mean?

I laughed when I first saw it because we commonly encounter ROI in venture capitalist blogs and such as “return on investment,” which would be kind of hilarious in Motorola’s case…it’s effectively investing everything in the Android platform, and this is what we get. Is that really what they’re going for here?

If his device ran Android 1.6, it would have been perfectly named MoTOROID!

*waiting for laughter*

…this might help…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toroid_(geometry)

see?

Toroid=Donut!

RDRR!!

Seriously though, I’m looking for what they’re going for in Korean. There’s a popular Korean site called “Roiworld” which has fashion games for little girls and shit. I’m having trouble because 저는 한국말 잘못 해요 and pretty much the only things I know in Korean end in a “da” or a “yo.”

Watch, it’s probably something stupid like KRAZR.

Since I’ve now handled almost all of the following devices, I decided to re-do my “140 characters” list and just do a simple rundown of every Android phone with pictures. We’re going to see a lot more at Mobile World Congress. I really want to go, but it’s a little expensive, and I’ve got about 5 trips coming up that are going to be expensive. I also really really really want a Sony Vaio X Signature Series (VPCX115KX/S)…but that’s $1,589.99. money.

RELEASED/CONFIRMED:

G1 (HTC Dream) This is the phone that started it all one year ago: Keyboard, Chin, Trackball, Slider, and Android 1.0

Mytouch3G (HTC Magic) , (Dopod) It’s still got the chin, but no keyboard. Shellable, skinnable, endorsed by Whoopi.

HTC Hero (World) Slim and sexy, this is the first ‘droid with a custom UI #HTCSense The CDMA version is Sprint’s first Android device.

HTC Tattoo yet another all-touch device with HTC Sense bound for Europe. Mysteriously ditched the “chin” but went with custom shells.

HTC Droid Eris (HTC Desire) Launch partner of Verizon Droid, standard 528MHz CPU, very similar to the Hero.

HTC Nexus One  Sold directly through Google, all-touch, 1GHz Snapdragon, cross-carrier, world phone. Very controversial and reputed to have some problems, but otherwise a totally compelling device.

Motorola Cliq/Dext the first Android phone from Moto, which unveiled MotoBLUR, the second big UI premiered for Android. Thanks to the timing of the big data loss of 2009, this became a replacement for many Sidekicks.

Motorola Droid aka “Sholes,” “Tao,” and “Touchstone.” QWERTY slider as thin as an iPhone. VZW’s first Android and first Android 2.0 (eclair) device. A killer.

Motorola Backflip, aka “Enzo,” a weird form factor with keyboard on back of chassis and trackpad behind the screen, also rocks the MotoBLUR interface.

Motorola MotoROI, First released in China and South Korea, this powerful device features 720p video capture with HDMI output and has a fully-featured 8 Megapixel camera. Rumors say it’ll be released in the U.S. also.

Huawei U8220 aka T-mobile Pulse, the first prepaid all-touch Android device “perfect entry level smartphone”

Huawei U8230 3.2 megapixel camera on the back, VGA cam on the front, update to the T-Mobile Pulse.

LG inTouch MAX (GW620) aka “Etna” this QWERTY slider was launched in EU, turned up unlocked in France €450, and is now available in the UK on Virgin and T-Mobile.

LG GT540, don’t know the name of this one, but is all-touch, runs 2.0, and comes in various colours. Launched at CES, coming to EU/Asia

Acer A1 or Acer Liquid, like Motorola, Acer said it’s focusing on Android now. Launched UK 10/14, runs Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset.

Dell mini 3i, one of China Mobile’s first Ophones, rumored to be AT&T’s first Android phone, we’ll have more. Dell is good with staying in touch.

Lenovo O1, another TD-SCDMA Ophone for China. Pretty, but not likely to come to the U.S.

Samsung Galaxy, @I7500, typical Samsung quality display, all-touch AMOLED with light sensor, not a “Google phone,” available in Germany, Austria, and Poland.

Samsung Behold 2, shown with #TouchWiz #Cube UI, will be first Samsung droid phone in US on T-Mobile

Samsung Moment, thought to be the #InstinctQ, this 800Mhz QWERTY monster came to Sprint and is being test marketed as an ATSC TV.

Samsung Galaxy Spica @I5700, 800MHz CPU, 3.2-inch HVGA, a 3mpix cam, 180MB internal memory. Actually quite dull. Announced on Nov 16.

@GeeksPhoneONE QWERTY slider available in EU (Spain) in December “extremadamente ágil y eficiente!”

@SaygusV1 Their V1 has 2-way video calling and is a huge, heavy monster of a phone

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, comes with slick UI and new “UX Platform,” powered by Snapdragon. SE is forgoing the Android praise and just sticking with making phones. This thing is big and burly, it’s one of 2 I still haven’t played with yet.

UNCONFIRMED:

@MotorolaDevour aka @Calgary…the name has shown up for 2 years, and only recently has any actual evidence shown up.  We’ll see at CES!

@MotorolaHeron or @IronMan This Windows Mobile phone was pulled from AT&T, listed as “specifications subject to change due to move to Android.” Whereabouts unknown.

@MotorolaZeppelin Spotted in China in a regulatory filing, with not much known besides 5Mpx camera, and HDMI output

@MotorolaOpusOne – Supposed to be the first iDen Android Device, to ship with 1.5, 3.1″ screen, 3 megapixel cam—looking cheap

@TMobile “Tap” shown on the Samsung Behold II launch paper…possibly a #ZTE device?

@INQ committed to an Android device, but we haven’t seen anything yet.

I  made it my mission to handle every Android device at CES 2010…and believe me, there were a lot of Taiwanese manufacturers cranking out random ass Android-based devices…but there were also a fair amount of major companies showing off new phones and new uses of the platform.

LG actually debuted a new Android phone at CES with pretty much no fanfare whatsoever and a very forgettable name (GT540)…however,  it’s actually a pretty slick phone destined for Europe and Asia. Sorry, fellow Yanks.

GT540 specs that LG is advertising:

• Custom theme and active widget (I guess it’s just one of each)
• Social Networking Manager:  Linkbook 1.3, SNS Widget, Dedicated Client
• Motion UI player
• DivX and WMV support
• 3Megapixel camera with face detection and tagging as well as camera effects
• Support for LG 3Way Sync

This phone totally has the Y2K bug.

Click that picture to enlarge it and see what I’m talking about.

LG surprised me with its new smartphones, and I actually ranked the Expo’s keyboard as the best of the dozen or so new devices I tested. There was another LG Android device there which has already been released, so I’m going to have to update my “every handset” list.

Up next: Huawei’s unbranded Android sets (including 2 camera model), Broadcom VOIP units, Android-powered microwave, and more!

To be totally honest, I’m not all that thrilled about the Nexus One.  Yes, it’s powerful and sleek, but like I said on Betanews today, it’s not about the device…the big deal is that it’s available across multiple carriers and directly from Google.

So yeah, that’s something, but I have CES to think about.

I’m heading over to CES Unveiled or Unleashed or Unchained or whatever the fuck it’s called, where there are going to be a number of Android devices, including the Sygus V1*  and perhaps the Android Tablet.

I’ll update later.

*Android device names +1 are starting to really rub me the wrong way.  G1, A1, Nexus One, V1… I mean, it’s like car names.  If I tell you I’ve got a Pinto, you have a clear picture what i’m talking about…but if I say ZX20, or TR-7, or I30, or whatever, you may know what I’m talking about, but the name lacks a hell of a lot of punch.  It’s like naming your child “Blitzwing Traurig Smith” versus naming him “John Smith VII.”   One’s just much more evocative.

In my modest Facebook friend group, the holiday season turned 5 more of my friends into Android users.  Interestingly, it’s not because of my influence (I don’t think.)

I mean, I don’t push these things. Well…not hard at least.

I’m quite certain it’s more due to Android’s broad appeal, because none of these friends know each other, they all lead very different lifestyles,  they all got different phones, and yet they’re all very happy.

This pleases me because it illustrates the versatility of the platform and the appeal of the existent hardware.

Part of their happiness is probably gadget-related euphoria, but I have a feeling it isn’t much. I just wanted to share with you some of the fun posts I’ve seen from these people as I gear up for the 14 hour drive back to Baltimore from St. Louis and 8 hour flight to Vegas from Baltimore.

Droid phone in meeting = win

at 9:10am via Facebook for Android

· Comment · Like 2 people like this.

[comment] Yay!! Droids rock!!

at 10:18am

[comment] did you get one too?

at 10:32am

[comment] Hey I gotta droid too! By the way…..why did the Steelers lose to he browns?

at 11:56am

[comment] Well, I have a G1 from t-moble… it was the first android phone… i love it!!

at 11:59am

And then there’s…

I love my fiphone, (fake iphone) Tue at 10:27pm via MOTOBLUR™

One more announced how he got the Hero (but was having network-related SMS issues), one got the Eris, and another got his entire family MyTouch3Gs.   These are all what I’d call “regular people,” too, with non-techie jobs or hobbies. I like that non-fanboy types post excited messages about Android to each other. Happy New Year, everybody!

I’ll be at CES for Betanews again this year, and in addition to BN reporting and lending a hand on the Plan8 Podcast, I’ll be singling out Android goodies in my usual fashion.  To simultaneously whet your appetitie for next week, and help me remember the booths to visit, here are some of the Android drops I’ll be looking for in the miles of floorspace at CES:

1. Notion Ink  Android Tablet (with Pixel Qi “transflective” display and nvidia Tegra GPU)
2. Snapdragon-powered (1GHz) Devices (Passion/Nexus One/more)
3. Qualcomm’s newest mobile chipsets
4. LG Prada 3 or other devices from LG
5. MIPS/ Tensilica System-on-a-Chip for Android-powered audio devices
6. Rumored Dell Android Tablet, pretty much anything Android from Dell
7. Saygus Vphone - the CES Innovation award-winning 2-way video phone running Android
8. A ton more devices from HTC (Legend? All those from that supposed leaked roadmap) and Motorola (Backflip, Calgary, etc?)
9. Nvidia Tegra 2
10. More platform-defining apps, possibly from Google…but not necessarily.

When we first saw Android 1.6 (donut) long long ago, we heard about the accessibility features afforded by the text-to-speech engine made by SVOX.  By default, your donut device doesn’t have the speech libraries loaded, and you have to add them yourself.  Eclair-based devices such as the Motorola Droid, however, come with the speech function fully loaded and ready to rock.

To turn it on, go to Menu> settings > accessibility, click on the “accessibility” checkbox, and then click on the “TalkBack” checkbox.  A warning box pops up telling you that it will read things such as credit card numbers aloud and that it “may be able to collect the data you type, ” so be careful..

When you have TalkBack turned on, all it really does is verbally tell you where you are, such as the home screen, sub-menus or URLs.  It also reads pop-up messages and warnings, but that’s the limit of it.

But I started thinking the other day that maybe TalkBack could come in handy if I could highlight text and have it read aloud, sort of like what you can do on many Kindle books, and what you can do with Speech in OS X.   Since I have to edit other people’s documents for work, I’m always using speech.  I even have a macro set up to highlight all text in this one field and automatically launch the voice reader.  So yeah, I thought it would be cool to have TalkBack read my Google News or Techmeme headlines to me as I’m driving or walking the dog or something.

Unfortunately, I haven’t found a solution that doesn’t require the installation of another application.  I try to highlight and copy text with menu-e on the Droid, which then copies my selection to the clipboard.  But then I have no access to the clipboard to read my selection.

So what the hell…I downloaded Talking RSS Reader by Google Engineer Stephanie Doyon, which integrates with Google Reader.   It doesn’t use the nice built-in Android reader voice, but the Linux text-to-speech voice which I now equate with the dumb smiley face on the OLPC “Speak” program.  I got my niece an XO-1 for Christmas last year, and she spent quite a lot of time playing with the Speak app, making it just go “fhfhahfhfhehehehehnfmsisisisioep” and such…over and over and over.

This is the guy I picture reading my RSS feeds in Talking RSS Reader. Or more accurately, I picture him reading every single bit of text in every article in my feed in order.  When you use this app, half of the time it’s going to be saying things like “image link, image link, image link,  image link, image link”  and other such useless info that I don’t want to hear. It’s the worst in blogs because it reads all the usernames, link names, comments, and stuff.   Talking RSS reader is free and alright, but it’s better for reading the full text of articles in sequential order rather than just reading headlines.  I want something that will just speak all the headlines to me in a clear voice, and have speech recognition so I can say something like “read that one!” and it will stop its listing and drill down into the article I chose.  That kind of app would be awesome for commuters, and I guess I have to continue my search.

Talking RSS reader crashed on me quite a few times when I was playing with it, but it didn’t ever throw up an error message.  The app just silently closed, which I guess is kind of less annoying, but still bad.  I won’t uninstall this yet, as I intend to use it in the car, but it’s really not quite what I had in mind.