Only a day after Google announced that it was offering an AT&T-compatible version of its Nexus One smartphone, Sprint has announced that the phone will be headed to its network as well.

While there are no details on when the phone will be available on Sprint, the carrier confirmed that it won’t be selling the Nexus One in stores. Instead, you’ll have to buy it directly from Google. There are no pricing details either, but I would suspect something similar to Google’s deal with T-Mobile — which makes the Nexus One $179 with a two-year contract, or $529 purchased on its own.

The announcement isn’t exactly surprising, since we know that the Nexus One will be showing up on Verizon sometime this spring. Both Verizon and Sprint use the same wireless technology for their networks (CDMA), which makes it trivial for Google to bring the device to Sprint.

The news also means that Google now has a spot on all four major mobile networks for the Nexus One, and potentially its successors. Meanwhile, Apple has still yet to release the iPhone outside of AT&T — even though it has long been rumored to bring it to Verizon.

This is the high-end of Google’s Android takeover. Over the next few years, we’ll be seeing Android popping up on many inexpensive smartphones, and eventually traditional cellphones as well.

Tags: Android, nexus one

Companies: Google, sprint

By Evan Ackerman

Earlier this month, we posted a review of Cloud Engines’ Pogoplug, a piece of hardware that takes USB hard drives and makes them network accessible (among other things). Iomega has come out with another option for centralizing your storage, called the iConnect. Like the Pogoplug, the iConnect lets you plug in standard USB drives, and then puts them on your home network. Plus, it throws a whole bunch of other cool stuff into the mix, like wireless access and printer networking. Read the review, after the jump.

The setup is really, really easy: plug a USB drive into one of the 4 ports on the iConnect, plug the iConnect into your router (even if you’re going to run it wirelessly, you still have to start this way), and power it on. Next, insert the install CD.

Oh. My optical driveless netbook does not approve of that. A quick trip to the iConnect support site got me what I needed, though. The automatic installer does its thing quickly and quietly, which usually means that it’s not doing anything super invasive. Starting the Storage Manager software starts a program running in the background which finds the iConnect on your network and maps the drive(s) you’ve attached to it to a network drive which you can access right away. Simple.

It turns out that once you’ve got it up and running, any computer attached to your network can access the iConnect’s HDs as a standard network drive also, no install necessary (at least on my Windows XP computers). This is as easy as it could possibly be, which is the way things are supposed to work.

The iConnect manager is browser based, which is nice, since it minimizes the weight of the program you have to have running. There are a lot of configuration options that you can set, including handy things like setting up multiple user accounts with vary levels of permissions, email notifications, and changing the intensity of the LED on the front of the iConnect.

The wireless setup was not difficult, but I wouldn’t call it simple, just because the interface is a little bit clunky and the wireless setup is buried a few screens down. At least, the process seemed not difficult, since the software told me that it had connected to my network with a strong signal, but unplugging the iConnect and restarting both it and the software didn’t get the device to show up wirelessly. After some lazy troubleshooting that mostly involved turning stuff off and on again, I realized that I was attempting to connect through my isolated guest network, which of course was not going to work. My bad; connecting the iConnect to my primary network worked like a charm.

I bring up this admission of my own technical idiocy as a warning, of sorts… Messing with wireless networks is tricky, especially when you’re trying to do anything but the most basic of tasks. We obviously shouldn’t expect all pieces of hardware to be plug ‘n play, but at the same time, when a company knows that some particular piece of the setup process is likely to be (or has the potential to be) especially complicated I feel like the least they can do is have a help page somewhere that says “Wireless connection not working? Here are some obvious things to keep in mind!”

I have to say, though, despite the potential hassles the wireless connectivity is a pretty sweet feature. For some of you, it may not matter at all, if you’d be sticking the iConnect and your drives next to your router anyway. But beyond convenience, it gives you the option of (say) hiding the whole setup in your closet (or garage) if you’re worried about security.

‘Course, you might not want to do that, since you can also hook a printer up to the iConnect to easily network it. There are a bunch of other things you can do too, like setting up one-touch drive backups (it works as a Time Machine server, too) or automatic picture transfers, and the iConnect even talks to your Xbox and PS3 (and iTunes), allowing you to stream media. There are a lot of options and a lot of features, software-side. Maybe more than you’ll use, but there’s certainly nothing lacking when it comes to functionality.

So, with the wireless network storage working, the next step is remote access. This requires enabling security on the iConnect, which by default, is not enabled, allowing anyone access to the iConnect’s networked drives. After you set up an admin username and password and go back to the remote access setup, you get this message:

Before enabling Remote Access, it is highly recommended that you change your Iomega iConnect network settings to manually configure the IP address.

Now, I’m a reasonably experienced computer user. I know what an IP address is and stuff. But this kind of thing scares me. I was hoping that the iConnect would somehow take care of all the dirty work, but instead it has me log in again, takes me to the network settings page, and leaves me there, helpless. Trying again, I tell the iConnect to forget about manual IP address config, and… Uh oh. I have to select a “remote access subscription service level.” Huh. Turns out that you’ll be paying $10 per year (after the first free year) for remote access, or $25 per year if you want to use your own domain name.

If you use their domain name, you have to pick a prefix that’s not already in use. “iConnect” is already taken, and I just picked up “ZipDrive,” so good luck with that. After confirming numerous Firefox security exceptions and restarting the software, I tried going to “http://zipdrive.iomegalink.com/” and arrived at my router login screen. Um, oops. After some messing around, I was able to figure out what the internal network IP address of the iConnect was and just went there manually, so to speak. This is what the file browser looks like:

You can upload, download, delete stuff, and view a few different types of files like pictures. Nothing fancy, but it works. Browsing around a bit more, though, I ran across this message on the remote access config screen:

IP Changed. However, your router could not be automatically configured. To connect to your device remotely you will need to configure your router manually.

This is just the sort of message that I dread, because Iomega is basically cutting me adrift in a sea of network configuration. I mean, what am I supposed to do now? I’m sure it involves something about port forwarding through my router or cable modem or both, but beyond that involvement, I have no clue.

Unfortunately, the support site that Iomega currently offers doesn’t seem quite ready to handle the potential pitfalls offered by the iConnect’s diverse networking options. Like, a bunch of the answers in the FAQ refer to a different product, and searching for “remote” (as in “remote access”) doesn’t provide much in the way of help.

Still, despite the potential remote access issues, the iConnect is a solid performer when it comes to local networking. Setup is easy, and you’ll be sharing USB drives across your network in just a few minutes. The wireless connectivity is a great feature, as is the ability to add a printer. The iConnect isn’t just a smart replacement for a very expensive and generally more trouble than it’s worth NAS system, but a feature-packed peripheral that gives you an impressive variety of data access options.

You can find the iConnect for $99 on Amazon (pre-order), and slightly cheaper elsewhere.

[ Iomega iConnect ]

EA says Command and Conquer 4 features absolutely no DRM on the PC… except for the fact that it has to be connected to the Internet at all times.

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Filed under: Software

No press release, no big fanfare, but reader Chris sent in the news earlier tonight: Amazon’s long-awaited Kindle application for Mac is ready for download. The 22 MB free application works on Intel Macs running Mac OS X 10.5 and above, and reports a version number of 1.0.0 beta 1. The app has been anticipated since last October, back when the iPad was still a rumor. [Update: The press release was a couple of hours behind the software release, but 9to5 spotted it; it notes that full-text search and annotation features will be coming soon.]

The app allows you to download Kindle books you already own, and read them at leisure on your Mac; synchronization of your progress through the book is automatic, and will keep track with your Kindle or iPhone reading. It displays your bookmarks and highlights from your Kindle reading sessions, but doesn’t let you create new highlights. You can adjust font size and line length to suit your visual acuity; turning pages is accomplished by using the scroll wheel on your mouse, or with the arrow keys.

It’s definitely no-frills, but it’s good to see that the Mac app for Kindle reading is finally seeing the light of day, although it’s too bad PowerPC and Tiger users are left out of the fun. Thanks, Amazon… now, about that iPad app…

Thanks Chris!

TUAWAmazon stealthily releases Kindle app for Mac originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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<!– div style="background-color: #B3B3B3; width: 160px; padding: 1px;">#pc</div –>

Brace yourself, lovers of all things retro, because the Commodore 64 will raise from the dead in all its keyboard form factor glory. It will probably be based on the Cybernet ZPC-GX31, although I hope it looks like this: More »

Metro 2033 (PC)
Metro 2033

So in 2008, a company called Integra Communications filed for a “Nexus” trademark having something to do with voice and data telecommunications. Along comes Google a year later and files for “Nexus One.” Trademark office says no go. I’m not really surprised at this; it’s not really their job to determine which is the better or more popular product, but rather whether it is possible for the two trademarks to be mistaken for one another. Oh god! Will you have to scribble out the name of your phone now and write something else?

Nah. I mean, Cisco had a legitimate product out there called the iPhone for years, which was actually in use and still being sold when Apple dropped the iBombshell. They buried the hatchet, probably for an undisclosed sum, but nominally so they could “explore interoperability.” Whatever that means. So I think it likely that Google will call up Integra, say “name the next one something else and there’s a hundred thou in it for you” and in the meantime they’ll just leave the ™ off the Nexus One name.

HTC just hit us up with an official response to Apple’s patent lawsuit filed against them. In short, HTC is sticking up for themselves, naming the innovations they’ve been to market with, and listing some of the industry-wide reckognition they’ve received. Look, we’re not arguing for either side, like whether Apple is wrong for filing suit for whatever reason, or whether HTC actually did violate some of Apple’s patents, but this press release is more of a slight of hand movement than an actual response. Though they do say pretty clearly that they will defend themselves. What do you think? It’s after the break…

Seattle – March 17, 2010 – HTC Corporation today outlined its disagreement with Apple’s legal actions and reiterated its commitment to creating a portfolio of innovative smartphones that gives consumers a variety of choices. Founded in 1997 with a passion for innovation and a vision for how smartphones would change people’s lives, HTC has continually driven this vision by consistently introducing award-winning smartphones with U.S. mobile operators.

“HTC disagrees with Apple’s actions and will fully defend itself. HTC strongly advocates intellectual property protection and will continue to respect other innovators and their technologies as we have always done, but we will continue to embrace competition through our own innovation as a healthy way for consumers to get the best mobile experience possible,” said Peter Chou, chief executive officer, HTC Corporation. “From day one, HTC has focused on creating cutting-edge innovations that deliver unique value for people looking for a smartphone. In 1999 we started designing the XDA

The O2 XDA by HTC was the first 3.5-inch color touch screen smartphone in the world in 2002. and T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition The T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition by HTC was the first 3.5-inch color touch screen smartphone in the United States in 2002., our first touch-screen smartphones, and they both shipped in 2002 with more than 50 additional HTC smartphone models shipping since then.”

The industry has recognized HTC’s contributions through a variety of awards including Fast Company’s 2010 Top 50 Most Innovative Companies and MIT Technology Review’s 2010 50 Most Innovative Companies. The GSMA also recently awarded the HTC Hero as the “Best Phone of 2009.” Some of HTC’s technology firsts include:

• First Windows PDA (1998)

• First Windows Phone (June 2002)

• First 3G CDMA EVDO smartphone (October 2005)

• First gesture-based smartphone (June 2007)

• First Google Android smartphone (October 2008)

• First 4G WIMAX smartphone (November 2008)

In 2009, HTC launched its branded user experience, HTC Sense. HTC Sense is focused on putting people at the center by making phones work in a more simple and natural way. This experience was fundamentally based on listening and observing how people live and communicate.

“HTC has always taken a partnership-oriented, collaborative approach to business. This has led to long-standing strategic partnerships with the top software, Internet and wireless technology companies in the industry as well as the top U.S., European and Asian mobile operators,” said Jason Mackenzie, vice president of HTC America. “It is through these relationships that we have been able to deliver the world’s most diverse series of smartphones to an even more diverse group of people around the world, recognizing that customers have very different needs.”

For more information on HTC’s history of innovation, please visit: www.htc.com/history.

• What is it? The first major update to the Scion xB since 2007 • The basics: High-rev V- 10 and rear-wheel drive fun • On sale: Now • Price: From $16,000 Toyota’s youth brand Scion has updated its boxy xB wagon for the 2011 model year, giving it an aggressive new look on the outside and adding more comfort and…

photo via flickr

In a surprising but welcome move, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers today sent a letter to House and Senate leadership stating its opposition to Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s efforts to take away the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The EPA has the ability, known as the Endangerment Finding, to set strict emissions reduction stand…Read the full story on TreeHugger