Microsoft showed us the retail packaging for Windows 8 today, while eBay gave us a look at its incoming redesign and launched a brand new same-day shipping app for iOS. Huawei may be facing a ban in Canada after US lawmakers suggested the company could potentially help China with espionage, and like so many other companies these days, PayPal has updated its policy to prevent disgruntled users from taking it to court.

Today’s Canadian launch of the DROID RAZR HD suggests that we may soon see it launch in the United States, and NASA’s new satellites that are powered by the HTC Nexus One will be heading into space next year. Earlier today we heard that Microsoft Office will be coming to Android and iOS next year, but it wasn’t long after that rumor hit before Microsoft was saying that there wasn’t any truth to it. Gearbox said today that the freshly-released Mechromancer DLC and the rank reset bug in Borderlands 2 have nothing to do with one another, while we learned that Wing Commander designer Chris Roberts is making a new space MMO.

Dishonored developer Arkane Studios said today that it wasn’t pressured by Bethesda to include multiplayer in the game, while Rovio released a brand new Bad Piggies-themed update for Angry Birds. A new Twitter study gives us a much closer look at the differences between male and female tweeters, and TweetDeck has been updated with a new theme and adjustable fonts. Finally tonight, we have a pair of original articles and a review for you to look through. Chris Burns discusses why AT&T’s new partnership with IBM will give the cloud the boost it needs, and why the Galaxy S III Mini proves that Samsung’s hero branding is working. He also gave us a review of the new Lenovo IdeaTab A2109, so be sure to have a look at that.

That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, so go out and enjoy the rest of your night folks!

This program has been announced to be taking off in 2013 by HTC this week, with the program having been initially revealed not long after the HTC Nexus One was first sent to the market in January of 2010. One of the most recent tests done with the Nexus One was a rocket launch back in July of 2010 when the smartphone was connected to a rocket. This launch worked with a Intimidator-5 on a CTI N4100 load and shows a whole lot of spinning action.

The mission that the Nexus One will be going on in 2013 has been made possible by a massive amount of tests over the years including thermal-vacuum chambers, extreme vibration tests, and again, high-altitude balloon flights. Using the Nexus One, a device that’s now tried, tested, and proven to be robust enough to function all the way up into space, NASA can make rather tiny (no more than 10 inches on each side) satellites that can probe the universe – or at least our own atmosphere for starters.

In an announcement of the timeframe by HTC, their own Global Community Manager Darren Krape mentions that it’s amazing how much NASA will be able to do with the Nexus One even though it’s now several years old. With the HTC devices out on the market today – like the HTC One X+, so much more will be rocking forth in the future as well – here’s to NASA and HTC’s continued partnership in space!

“The operating system is thought through with the needs of the next three years in mind; it’s a wholesale revamp of the way people interact with the phone” Barra said of ICS, something that will come as cold comfort to Nexus One owners whose device was only announced in January 2010. Many will still be within their original two-year contract, forced to watch later Nexus adopters – who picked up the Nexus S after it was launched at the end of December.

As for Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmert’s recent comments that Android demanded a computer science degree in order to get to grips with, Barra was not impressed. “Android, especially this new version 4.0, is an incredibly intuitive platform – the best one we’ve ever built” he insisted. “There are power user features, but there is no need for an instruction manual or a computer science degree.”

We spent hands-on time with Ice Cream Sandwich back at the Galaxy Nexus launch earlier this week. The smartphone will hit shelves in November, with open-source code availability tipped for the same time. More details on Android 4.0 in our full hands-on.

Ice Cream Sandwich hands-on:

Before we even begin to take the actual status apart (as seen below) for its grammatical errors, horrible way of putting things, and general downright unprofessional nature, let’s take a sip of the punch: what if?

What if there were a device not unlike the recent additions to the HTC crew on the Facebook side, that being the HTC ChaCha, the HTC Salsa, and the USA AT&T version of the HTC ChaCha, that being the HTC Status? It wouldn’t be too far-fetched to just take that Facebook button and turn it into a G+ button, would it? Let’s take a look at a video of how Facebook is integrated into the ChaCha, courtesy of Chris Davies from his full review of the unit back on June the 13th:

A single tap allows you to add a status update, options for adding photos you take on the spot or taken from a gallery are right at your side, and tagging friends of yours is instantly apparent. Can you see how easily this would translate to Google+?

A long-hold loads up Facebook Places so you can check in. Google+ already has a similar feature with Google’s checkin feature on Maps and with Latitude – Google’s G+ app even has a feature where you can see all updates from people around your GPS location – cool! The same thing works if you’re using the phone’s built-in media player to play music you’d like to share.

See also: [A Google+ Guide from Top to Bottom]

Then again, Ice Cream Sandwich (aka Android 4.0) is supposed to do away with physical buttons altogether, so who knows. Also you’ll note that they’re saying the next Nexus device will be an HTC device, but that’s obvious if it’s going to bite on the Facebook phone, right? Of course!

Nexus, you mystery machine you!

This device is set to be none other than the next step in the Google line of Android hero devices, this one running their newest, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. This epic story goes all the way back to the Nexus One which, by all accounts, was the original Android “official device” announced in January of 2010 in Mountain View. The two devices in this family that precede this newest Nexus 4G are of course the Motorola XOOM, running Android’s tablet-based OS called Android 3.0 Honeycomb and the and the Nexus S, toting the newest handset-based Google mobile OS, Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

This newest Nexus device has been the target of many rumors and much speculation over the past few months, one of these larger rumors being the image you see below, dreams dashed by the image you see below (perhaps, and perhaps not.) What these images consist of are a possible photograph of the Nexus 3, as it was called at the time, supposedly, and the subsequent admittance of fabrication of said evidence.

Of course that doesn’t mean that the actual unit wont look something like the device you see above. That looks rather like some sort of modern HTC device given the size and the speaker grill, wouldn’t you say? Then again, there’s been a couple of rumors surrounding the idea that LG may be making this device, as you see below. Of course those that remember the original OPTIMUS advertisements and sneak-peeks know that this image isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Is LG out of the question then? No, we’ve got another report that notes that LG will indeed be making the next Nexus device and that it’ll be coming in with one gigantic screen indeed!

This information is backed up by the fact that BGR’s source has reported the display on the next Nexus device to be 720p also, that making it quite likely that 1280 x 720 pixels is the resolution we’ll be seeing here, with a screen right around the standard HTC size at 4.3-inches. What do you think of that? You think a 4.3-inch screen is the place to be after the Nexus S had a comparatively tiny WVGA screen with just 4-inches?

The name of this device is also up for debate. As BGR reported earlier today, this device’s name is set to be Nexus 4G. We’re going to go ahead and call bunk as it would clash heavily with the current name of the WiMax version of the Nexus S, that being the Nexus S 4G. Instead we’re guessing this has a lot more to do with codenaming the device on account of the next factoid BGR is reporting: 4G LTE connectedness. This could mean Verizon, and it could mean AT&T. This, as you certainly realize, would be the first Google hero device carried by AT&T and the last of the big four carriers to have collaborated so close with the big G.

On the processor front, this device, says BGR, will NOT be featuring the legendary NVIDIA Kal-El quad-core processor as previously rumored. Instead we’ll be seeing, it’s said, a TI OMAP 4460 or Qualcomm Krait-based Snapdragon core, this paired with 1GB or RAM for some sweet cruising on the inside. With all the ultra-amazing items revealed for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon and the collaborations they’ve conjured up this year at Uplinq 2011, we’ve got to be crossing our fingers for the latter. What do you think?

This device will be featuring a 5-megapixel camera on the back with no word on what a front-facing camera might be rated. This might seem like a step down, but from what we’ve seen the Galaxy Tab 10.1 do with a 3.2-megapixel camera, for example, there might be something wacky going on in the way these cameras are progressing. The disappointment some may feel at the sight of the 5 would be coming from the fact that many high-end handsets these days are running at least an 8-megapixel camera. Will this new Nexus device downplay the need for nice photos and video? No way! Because guess what – this device is said, again by BGR’s source, to be able to not only play back 1080p video, but to capture it as well. That’s the winning combination we like to see, indeed.

Then there’s, again, the newest version of Android. This newest version is said to be designated 4.0, Android 4.0 that is, and it’ll be featuring a slew of new features that tie together all the best bits in both Android 2.3 Gingerbread and Android 3.0 Honeycomb, or 3.1 Honeycomb if you wish. This device will, almost certainly be carrying no physical Android menu buttons (in fact BGR’s source confirms it) as this is the trend with Honeycomb, and will act as a true melding of the two device types, able to work on basically any screen size and look and work rather nice.

So there you have it – all the details in their juiciest form. Sound like a device you’d be apt to buy? Are you a hardcore vanilla-only Android purchaser and worker? How about the manufacturer, do you think it’ll be LG, HTC, or some other worthy brand? And what’ll it be called? Nexus X perhaps, the unnamed, the next generation of excellence in Android!

The OTA update will supposedly be hitting the Nexus S “in the next few weeks” and then arriving on other Android 2.3+ devices “in the future”; it will also bring bug-fixes for the original Nexus One. There are more details on Gtalk video calls in the help center.

Meanwhile, Google is promising another surprise for Nexus users, though right now it’s not saying exactly what that might be. No word on if there’s a manual way to trigger the Android 2.3.4 update, but we’re guessing one will be winkled out very soon.

The two links are below, and there are details on mirror servers at the above link in case the official downloads are too slow for you. Let us know how you get on in the comments!

Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread for Nexus One:

http://android.clients.google.com/packages/ota/passion/81304b2de707.signed-passion-GRI40-from-FRG83G.81304b2d.zip

Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread for Nexus S:

http://android.clients.google.com/packages/ota/google_crespo/e0b546c442bf.signed-soju-GRI40-from-GRH78.e0b546c4.zip

[via Android Community]

Unfortunately, you may be eyeing your Nexus for some time, since Google warns the OTA update “may take a few weeks” to show up on your phone. It’s likely that a side-loading version of the official ROM will be made available well before that, however, so the truly impatient will be able to relieve themselves.

[Thanks n900mixalot!]

Unfortunately, WiFi, phone, Bluetooth, audio and 3D graphics acceleration are all among the things not yet working, so this isn’t the ROM to choose if you actually want a functional smartphone. We’ll see the first official release at Android 3.0 Honeycomb on Thursday, when the Motorola XOOM is released.

[via Android Community]

R3 Media Network

Editor’s Choice
AIDS cure with stem cell transplant found claim German doctors [CAUTIOUS EXCITEMENT]
Japanese dudes skydive Google Earth style [WEEE]
KAIST sells eight HUBO 2 robots to US and Singapore [HUMAN AFTER ALL]

Android Community
Lotus Notes Traveler hits Android
RSA offers new security tools to make Android eCom and enterprise friendly
SuperShuttle app hits Android to get you a ride to the airport
Nexus One Android 2.3 Gingerbread ROM is unofficial work-in-progress
Advent Vega Flash Player 10.1 pulled over missing certification
Vodafone HTC Magic gets Android 2.2.1 OTA update
Google acquire NFC startup Zetawire for mobile wallet ambitions
Words with Friends Port for Android Coming Soon

SlashGear
AIDS cure with stem cell transplant found claim German doctors
Google Chrome OS is “careless computing” warns GNU founder
Dell Venue Pro delayed until Jan 6 2011
Toshiba unveils enterprise class SSD
Hitachi 3TB HDD ships to OEM
Acer Iconia dual-touch laptop arrives UK on Jan 14 2011 for £1,499
Nokia E7 delayed until early 2011 [Updated]
eLocity A7 tablet now shipping
IBM Watson supercomputer to challenge all time great Jeopardy champions
Chevy Volt loaded on to car carriers and on way to first customers
EFO outs Rechargeable mini loud-speaker
Advent pull Flash Player 10.1 from Vega tablet until “early 2011″
Japanese dudes skydive Google Earth style
Verizon 4G LTE modem gets Mac OS X hack
KAIST sells eight HUBO 2 robots to US and Singapore
Final bids are due for Nortel Network patent treasure trove
Colorful offers up special edition single slot NVIDIA GTS 450
Samsung Tegra 2 tablet for 2011 tipped
RunCore offers SSD specials for Christmas
Google attempts to Teach Parents Tech (so you don’t have to) [Video]
Comcast Xcalibur smart TV trials tip Google TV rival
Toshiba Retina Display LCD plant gets Apple investment
HP webOS tablet due March 2011 tips analyst
Samsung Gloria & Dell tablets to star in Ballmer’s CES 2011 Microsoft keynote?
Google acquires NFC specialist Zetawire for “Walleto” e-wallet tech
Best Buy Nexus S sales plans detailed: 2 per buyer from 8am on Dec 16
CLEAR iSpot and Spot 4G mobile hotspots price-slashed
LG Optimus 2X (aka Korea’s LG Star) gets video demos
Amazon Windowshop for UK, France & Germany hits iPad App Store

To see more wrap-up posts, follow the following tags: [The Daily Slash] or [SlashGear Morning Wrap-up]

“It looks like Google is experimenting with the future of its mobile model in the UK. It tried releasing through a single carrier, now it is trying a single retailer.  It could be a solution to the problems it experienced when it tried to sell the Nexus One exclusively through its website. People like to be able to go to a store – this solves that” anonymous source

The Nexus Two would apparently run Android 3.0 Gingerbread, according to the rumors, though the OEM responsible for the hardware has not been identified.  Rumors that Samsung would be Google’s partner on this occasion, rather than HTC, have apparently been debunked.

The news conflicts with comments made by Google CEO Eric Schmidt back in July, when asked whether the search giant was planning a second-gen Nexus handset.  ”The idea a year and a half ago was to do the Nexus One to try to move the phone platform hardware business forward” Schmidt said at the time, “It clearly did. It was so successful, we didn’t have to do a second one.”

[via Android Community]

Next step is to apparently migrate from Arduino to the Cellbots platform, in which the phone itself acts as the brain for the robot.  It’s unlikely to make it to Mars, perhaps, but with the parts (including the phone) coming to under $600 – though the rover itself is around $5k – we’re hoping they at least publish the instructions so we can make our own.

[via Android Community - thanks mdNomad!]

The satellite was made of a Nexus One smartphone and Arduino. The rocket that launched the satellite is called the Intimidator-5 and was built by James Dougherty. The thing makes those Estes kits I built as a kid look like a rocket made from toilet paper rolls.

The SmallSat was blasted to an altitude of 28,000 feet and the smartphone shot some video while on its trek that is very cool. Check out the video below and prepare to get dizzy.

Video comparison after the cut

To Howard’s eyes, response times were pretty consistent across the board, but the SLCD and AMOLED screens offered more significant differences in viewing angles and other details.  Super LCD showed better horizontal viewing angles, while AMOLED had better vertical viewing angles; in comparison Super AMOLED bested both, as well as having the best contrast.

Both AMOLED and SLCD were reportedly “very reflective”, but all beat the Motorola’s LCD screen (which is admittedly still a good example of a regular LCD panel).  We’re withholding judgement until we can have an eyes-on play with an SLCD-based HTC device ourselves, but it seems HTC CEO Peter Chou’s comments that SLCD offers “a comparable visual experience” to AMOLED may not be so unbelievable.

[via OLED-Display.net]

Last month the company insisted to Android Community that they would continue using Samsung’s AMOLED screens alongside Sony’s SLCD alternatives, though there’s no mention of AMOLED in this newest press release.  Instead, the company suggests that SLCD offers “a comparable visual experience to HTC’s current 3.7 inch displays with some additional benefits including battery performance.”

In fact, they say SLCD battery usage is five times less than regular LCD; considering one of the major selling points of AMOLED is its power frugality, that could be a big draw.  HTC tells us that they’re “committed” to both display technologies, and that we can “expect to see both types of displays in current and future HTC devices”, but we’ll have to wait until the first SLCD handsets arrive in order to find out just how comparable the technologies really are.

“HTC believes that both technologies offer exceptional user experiences, and we will employ both types of displays concurrently within our current product lineup.” HTC statement

Press Release:

HTC INTRODUCES SLCD DISPLAY TECHNOLOGY TO ITS PORTFOLIO

New Displays to be integrated into HTC Desire and Nexus One

Taoyuan, TAIWAN – July 26, 2010 – HTC Corporation, a global designer of smartphones, today introduced Super LCD display (SLCD) technology into a variety of HTC phones including the HTC Desire and global Nexus One later this summer. The SLCD display offers an exceptional natural balanced colour, clear contrast, broad viewing angles and improved power efficiency.

“HTC is experiencing high-demand for many of our phones, specifically our phones with 3.7 inch displays. The new SLCD display technology enables us to ramp up our production capabilities quickly to meet the high-demand,” said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC Corporation. “The SLCD displays provide consumers with a comparable visual experience to HTC’s current 3.7 inch displays with some additional benefits including battery performance.”

SLCD is the latest generation of LCD technology that offers improved performance from earlier LCD panels including approximately five times better power management. SLCDs also offer an enhanced viewing experience with wider viewing angles that are enabled by Sony’s new VSPEC III™ technology.

About HTC

HTC Corporation (HTC) is one of the fastest growing companies in the mobile phone industry. By putting people at the center of everything it does, HTC creates innovative smartphones that better serve the lives and needs of individuals. The company is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange under ticker 2498. For more information about HTC, please visit www.htc.com.

That includes a Froyo update for the Vodafone Google Nexus One as early as next week, with the carrier-branded device finally getting what unlocked users have been enjoying for a few weeks now.  Handy, since Google has announced that they’ll soon not be offering the unlocked version themselves, leaving it up to carrier partners to supply the phone.

Finally, the Samsung Galaxy S is tipped to get Android 2.2 in September 2010, in France at least.  That’s particularly good news, as we found the Galaxy S’ processor to have plenty of promise when we reviewed the smartphone and expect Froyo to only make things better.  Remember, if you want to keep up to speed on Android, check out Android Community our sibling site; they’re pretty darn obsessed over there.

Meanwhile Nexus One handsets sold via carriers outside of the US – such as in the UK and Korea – will continue to be available.  Google’s Eric Schmidt has already confirmed that there isn’t a Nexus Two in the pipeline, believing that the first model did its job in driving advanced hardware adoption among Android smartphone manufacturers.

Unfortunately, those manufacturers also seem particularly inclined to augment the native Android experience with their own customizations, and the end result is devices that go long periods before being updated to the latest version of the Google OS.  Ironically, we can see a time when Google may have to consider another own-brand device, only to promote standardized software rather than improved hardware.

[via Android Community]

Video demo after the cut

Rather than wiping out the basic Android OS – which would rather limit your phone’s abilities to be, well, a phone – the Ubuntu install runs alongside the original platform.  The terminal runs in the background, while the Ubuntu X11 UI shows up in the Android VNC app.

Basically, once you’ve installed you can then run just about any Ubuntu code you like, as long as it can deal with the Nexus One’s 1GHz processor.  Your handset will need to be rooted beforehand, and NexusOneHacks says they also have it running on an HTV EVO 4G so even if you don’t have the official Google phone you may still be in luck.

[via Android Community]

Video demo of Peer-to-Peer gaming and more after the cut

Qualcomm demonstrated three devices – a Nexus One running Android, an N900 running Maemo 5 and a Dell notebook running Windows – all taking part in a local game, with automatically created peer-to-peer connections made over Bluetooth and WiFi.  As the video below shows, the game could search for local players, send out invites by itself and then manage whatever wireless technology the devices could support.  Play happens in real-time with minimal lag.  CEO Paul Jacobs also sees the peer-to-peer system as being used in multimedia applications, such as automatically showing photos or video on any nearby screen.

As for Unity, they’re working with Qualcomm to add the company’s Natural Feature image recognition system into their gaming development engine.  Natural Feature uses a shots from a device’s camera to calculate an individual signature based on target points on a person, object or glyph; those signatures are then used to track movement in real space, with the device superimposing digital content on top.

Mattel brought back its 40-year-old Rock’em and Sock’em flighting robots to Uplinq, taking advantage of the new AR technology.  The toymaker a printed battle-ring image and a pair of smartphones, with the robots themselves represented on-screen. Mattel developed the title entirely in the Android version of the AR add-on toolkit; however Unity CEO David Helgason says his company’s development engine not only works with multiple platforms – not just Android – but makes AR integration even easier.

Developers interested in taking part in Qualcomm’s AR challenge will be able to download the public beta of the Augmented Reality SDK later this Fall.  The SDK will be free, and will support Android 2.1 and higher.

We’re yet to see an official changelog, however, so that might not be the extent of the differences between the two versions.  According to xda-developers you’ll need to have installed FRF85B before you can install FRF91; they have the necessary download links if you’ve not had luck waiting for an OTA install.

You can currently download the FRF72 beta from http://android.clients.google.com/packages/passion/signed-passion-FRF72-from-FRF50.bc033f9e.zip; of course Google could well take that down at any moment, though there are mirrors linked here.  If you’re looking for instructions on how to manually install Froyo, check out the extensive guide over at Android Community.

[via Android Police]

Now, it’s worth remembering that BGR weren’t able to corroborate the list of device, but it certainly makes sense given what we’ve heard rumored about the carrier in recent months.  We should know more about the two Project Pink handsets after Microsoft’s event on April 12th.

They also say that “Tariffs have not been announced, but the Nexus One is likely to be priced very similarly to comparable smartphones such as the iPhone.”

Both Google and Vodafone would only say that they were committed to delivering the phone to the UK “in the spring”.  We say April is pretty close.

[via Android Community]

HTC have made the FCC submission – no surprise, since they’re the OEM behind the Snapdragon-powered Android 2.1 smartphone – and the device itself is listed as the PB99300. In comparison, the GSM version of the smartphone was known as the PB99100 in its FCC submission.

What the device appears to lack is “globalphone” hybrid support for both CDMA and GSM networks, which would have meant the Verizon Nexus One could be taken abroad and used, roaming, with GSM carriers.  As for a release date, the confidentiality agreement HTC have with the FCC expires on April 30th 2010, so we’re guessing at a launch shortly after that.

[via Unwired View]

In the video, Doherty plays a 17-minute long natively embedded video in the full Youtube site (you may want to skip the first 17 minutes of the video, your choice).  He proceeds to open the Android battery usage utility, which points out that only 6 percent of the battery has been drained (although the screen does dim out in the video).  He also reveals that Adobe in-house tests has seen three hours of H.264 playback over an Wi-Fi connection, which is enough for a movie or two, even Avatar.

It’s promising to see that the newest generation of Flash content can run without killing the battery life on the Nexus One.  Let’s hope that the Flash update actually comes now.

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/9705969[/vimeo]

[via Android Community]

So what does Sony Ericsson actually have to show?  Its own Android-powered smartphone, the Xperia X10 isn’t widely available for purchase, with a major release date set for months away.   Smart move in this economy?  What would a Sony Ericsson-made Google phone have looked like?

[via Android Community]

(888) 48NEXUS (63987) is the official number that you can call (between 7:00 am – 10:00 pm PST), for additional services supplementing Google’s lackluster support forums and email support.

Google’s not normally known for going the extra mile in terms of customer support, but the Nexus One is anything but a normal Google product.   From the tech company, is the line “Live phone support from Google, combined with an optimized on-line support experience, enables a superior Nexus One customer experience.”  We can only hope that’s the case from now on.

[via CNet]

The bad news?  There’s still a darn $150 to cover on top of T-Mobile’s $200 ETF for subsidized N1 contracts canceled in the first 120 days of use.  The new Terms of Sales decrees:

“You agree to pay Google an equipment subsidy recovery fee (the “Equipment Recovery Fee”) in the event you cancel or downgrade your wireless plan within 120 days of activation of wireless service. If you activate a new line of service with T-Mobile, your Equipment Recovery Fee will be $150 USD if you cancel or downgrade your service plan within 120 days of activation.”

Verdict?  You’re still paying $350 at some point, although a long shot from the $550 lump total that’s something akin to highway robbery.  Kudos to Google for being somewhat less irksome.

[Google via Wall Street Journal]

Android Product Manager Erick Tseng, HTC product manager Tomasz Hasinki, and Lloyd Watts of Audience (provider of noise reduction technology) are all featured in this episode.  Two new phone docks are also shown. One appearing to be a normal desktop dock equipped with a battery charger, and the other, apparently a navigation-friendly car dock.

Great little story, but no signs of when the new docks will be released – check out the video after the break.

[via Android Community}

According to Google, the update will include:

Google Goggles: this mobile application will now be available directly on your device by launching it from your All Apps menu. Just use your Nexus One camera to start searching the web

Google Maps: the Maps application with be updated to a new version, Google Maps 3.4, which will include:

• Starred items synchronized with maps.google.com – access your favorite places from your phone or computer
• Search suggestions from your personal maps.google.com history – makes it easy to search for places you’ve searched for before
• Night mode in Google Maps Navigation – automatically changes your screen at night for easier viewing and driving

Pinch-to-zoom functionality: devices will now include a new pinch-to-zoom mechanism in the phone’s Browser, Gallery and Maps applications

3G connectivity: we will provide a general fix to help improve 3G connectivity on some Nexus One phones

Apparently in order to access the update, you’ll need to wait until you “receive a message on your phone’s notification bar. Just download the update, wait for it to install, and you should be all set. This update will be rolled out gradually to phones – and most users might not receive the notification until the end of the week.”  Hold on, Nexus One owners.

Build quality is decent, and the Desktop Dock is well weighted so that it doesn’t topple or slide around too readily. As for the audio-output, as soon as you plug the included stereo cable into the 3.5mm port on the back, the Nexus One prompts you to choose a default action such as automatically routing music playback through to the speakers.

We’re also pleased to see – Palm take note – that Google include a second AC adapter in the box with the dock, and that you’re not expected to use the original one you got with the Nexus One itself. Altogether, there are certainly cheaper ways to recharge your phone (and you can, of course, simply plug a set of speakers into the headphone socket) but for sheer convenience the Nexus One Desktop Dock does the job. More over at Android Community.

The latest smartphone to get the ColorWare treatment is the Google Nexus One. The handset can be colored with glossy or soft touch hues to your liking. The company will paint the frame, back, bottom, and camera surround.

Like most handsets the company can paint you can get your own Nexus One panted for $175 or buy handset and all. If you haven’t purchased a Nexus One yet, ColorWare will buy it for you and paint it before shipping for $800. Presumably, that would be the no contract version of the handset.