Well, today we're pleased to announce a new way for consumers to purchase a mobile phone through a Google hosted web store. The goal of this new consumer channel is to provide an efficient way to connect Google's online users with selected Android devices. We also want to make the overall user experience simple: a simple purchasing process, simple service plans from operators, simple and worry-free delivery and start-up.

The first phone we'll be selling through this new web store is the Nexus One — a convergence point for mobile technology, apps and the Internet. Nexus One is an exemplar of what's possible on mobile devices through Android — when cool apps meet a fast, bright and connected computer that fits in your pocket. The Nexus One belongs in the emerging class of devices which we call "superphones." It's the first in what we expect to be a series of products which we will bring to market with our operator and hardware partners and sell through our online store.

Today Google launched the Nexus One, in collaboration with HTC. Built by HTC, designed and branded by Google, and launched on T-Mobile's network, they now have their own "superphone".

I don't see the big deal. TechCrunch's Michael Arrington seems to like it so much that you get the impression that he'd marry it if he could, while Engadget is considerably less impressed. Honestly, I don't see the big deal. It's yet another Android phone. That's not a bad thing per se, and it's the best Android phone to date, but it's also nothing to get excited about.

My biggest problem with the new device is that it has even worse stated battery life than the iPhone – in some cases, 33% less. How is this even remotely acceptable anymore? The reason I moved away from the iPhone was because the battery life was abysmal. You can't rely on a phone when it's dead. The Nexus One has a beautiful 800x480 OLED display... but what good is it if you have to set the brightness to 10%?

What is pretty cool is that this shows actual progress towards a more open mobile communication structure in the US. The Nexus One probably wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for T-Mobile, who has will fully support, and even subsidize the fully unlocked device. T-Mobile recently changed their business mode in a wayl which provides support for unlocked devices by providing low cost, no contract plans for voice, text and data.

As someone who now uses T-Mobile, I'm glad to see that there are more big releases coming to the only carrier willing to sell unlocked, unhindered devices, but I'm not about to rush out and buy a phone that will be dead before lunch time.

Technologies tend to be global, both by nature and by name. Say “television”, “computer” or “internet” anywhere and chances are you will be understood. But hand-held phones? For this ubiquitous technology, mankind suffers from a Tower of Babel syndrome. Under millions of Christmas trees North and South Americans have been unwrapping cell phones or celulares. Yet to Britons and Spaniards they are mobiles or móviles. Germans and Finns refer to them as Handys and kännykät, respectively, because they fit in your hand. The Chinese, too, make calls on a sho ji, or “hand machine”. And in Japan the term of art is keitai, which roughly means “something you can carry with you”.

... Mobile phones do not share a single global moniker because the origins of their names are deeply cultural. “Cellular” refers to how modern wireless networks are built, pointing to a technological worldview in America. “Mobile” emphasises that the device is untethered, which fits the roaming, once-imperial British style. Handy highlights the importance of functionality, much appreciated in Germany. But are such differences more than cosmetic? And will they persist or give way to a global mobile culture?

Everyone feels the impending mobile revolution. As notebooks have largely replaced the need for desktops, so too will mobile phones supplant both. But how exactly that will happens isn't quite clear. People around the world use mobile phones differently. The concept of what a a mobile phone is for is different around the world. Can a revolution really happen without a clear consensus of what a mobile phone is for?

Google's Android may present a solution to this problem. Google's vision for Android extends beyond today's elite HTC smart-phones. They have expressed interest in creating a future for Android where all phones are "smart phones". Since Android runs on Java, this is actually possible. If a device has a fast enough CPU and enough memory, in theory, it can run the full Android operating system. Ten years from now the phones sold for $49 in the checkout lane at the supermarket will be capable of running an Android-like operating system.

When Apple came out with the iPod, it created what seemed like an entirely new market. Even today, there are "digital audio players" and then there are iPods. Apple's branding has lead consumers to see them as almost being two distinct kinds of products, and the iPod is now known around the world. Could we see the same thing in the mobile market in the not to distant future? A future in which there are mobile phones and there are Android phones? Can Google do for the mobile market what Apple did with the iPod?

I have no idea. Here's to finding out in the next decade.

Happy New Year.