Google has unveiled its highly anticipated “Google Phone,” or the Nexus One, an Android-powered smartphone and the first device the company will sell directly from a new online store.

As earlier reports indicated, the Google Nexus One will sell for $529.99 unlocked, or $179.99 with one of T-Mobile’s two-year service plans. The unlocked version will work with an AT&T SIM, but only at 2G speeds, as it lacks support for the requisite 2100 MHz band to access AT&T’s 3G network.

In a first, Google will sell both unlocked and contracted versions of the Nexus One through a new online portal located at www.google.com/phones beginning today. Buyers can also order custom engraving with the phone.

Separately, Google has also announced Verizon and Vodafone as partners, indicating that a CDMA version of the Nexus One will be available in the spring. For now, customers can buy a Motorola Droid on Verizon from the new Google online store.

Read more – PC Magazine

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If you needed any further evidence as to why AT&T and Verizon are so worried about Google Voice, Lifehacker highlights how users have been using Google Voice to make unlimited wireless calls, something many of our users have been doing for a while now.

You of course know that most carriers have plans that allow you to call certain favorite numbers without eroding your minutes (Friends & Family, MyFaves, A-List).

So what happens when you make one of those favorite numbers your Google Voice number?

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As a company that has built a business model atop trust, Google is in a sticky position as it prepares to formally introduce the Nexus One phone.

Google employees were given free Nexus One phones at a company party Friday night, and the Internet went into a tizzy.

Reports surfaced later in the weekend that this device was the long-awaited Google phone, the company’s answer to Apple’s strategy of controlling the hardware, software, and distribution model with the iPhone, rather than the partner-oriented strategy of developing the guts of the operating system and letting partners each put their own stamp on the finished product.

CNET

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Google changed the game of many global GPS appliance makers this month by announcing a completely free and quite capable GPS product as part of the Motorola Droid handset announced and now being sold by Verizon Wireless.

In what seems to be the norm for Google, it is once again disrupting an entire market by giving something away for free that’s both competitive and capable.

TomTom and Garmin saw their share prices plummet upon Google’s announcement, and rightfully so.

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Confused about how to use Google Wave, the new Google product that combines messaging, wiki-like features and group collaboration into a single app? You’re not alone.

To clear up the confusion, we recently published Google Wave: A Complete Guide, a feature-length article that explains Wave in plain English.

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