New Android Tablet from Dell Drops Tomorrow, Cheaper than iPad

Tomorrow you will be able to get your hands on the new Dell Streak. This 5-inch tablet device will be $300 with a two-year AT&T contract or $549 for an unlocked edition. The Dell Streak uses Google’s Android OS, has front and back facing cameras, Wi-Fi, 3G, and a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor (Nexus One).

 

I don’t know how I feel about this device as it sounds really nice and at the price is a great deal, but it may just fall into the category of “Why do I need this again?” Many other phones, pads, and pods offer the same thing the Dell Streak offers. Why is this device any different from the rest other than price?

 

It’s too big to be a comfortable smart phone and too small to be a “real” tablet. Oh and if you want the $300 deal from AT&T you have to get it with a full data and voice plan. Dell is also not the biggest name when it comes to mobile devices. So maybe we’ll see some Kin numbers or it could be in Droid territory. Who knows?

 

How does this affect you?

 

You have so many choices now with phones and tablets that you may just want to check it out tomorrow at a local AT&T store. But with the Droid 2 coming out and the HTC Evo, the Dell Streak seems a little late to the party.

 

Would you buy a Dell Streak? Let me know in the comments!

Posted via email from Neville's Blog

Google Updates Gmail Contacts Manager

Today Google announced an update to the contacts manager in Gmail. Photo by gaharoni

 

The Official Gmail Blog had this to say:

We're constantly reviewing user feedback about Gmail, and for a while now the number one request has been for a better contacts experience. You’ve asked us to generally make Contacts easier to use, as well as for specific improvements like sorting by last name, keyboard shortcuts, and custom labels for phone numbers. So, by popular request, we're happy to announce that an overhauled version of Gmail Contacts will be rolling out today.

 

The best part is that Google says that Contacts now works more like the rest of Gmail. Well thanks Google – are we sure Gmail is out of beta yet? Don’t get me wrong, I love Gmail, but the contacts manager was a royal pain at times. So it's good to see that Google listened to their user’s feedback and resolved some issues with Contacts.

 

Google added some features based on feedback and requests:

• Keyboard shortcuts (go to Contacts and hit "?" for the full list)
• Sort by last name (look under "More actions")
• Custom labels for phone numbers and other fields
• The ability to undo changes you've just made
• Automatic saving
• Structured name fields, so you can adjust titles, suffixes, and other name components
• A bigger, more prominent notes field

 

How does this affect you?

Well if you use Gmail, this is great news. Your life just got a little bit easier in respect to Gmail. From the image above you can see it looks much cleaner and is better organized.

 

Do you use Gmail? If so, do you like this update to the Contact Manager? Let me know in the comments!

 

Read the full post at The Official Gmail Blog.

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Microsoft Street Slide: Better Than Google Street View

Microsoft Research demonstrated a new street-level image viewing option that way better than Google Maps Street View last week.

 

From Microsoft Reasearch:

“Street Slide is a novel browsing interface for street-level imagery that combines the best aspects of the immersive nature of “bubbles” with the overview provided by multiperspective strip panoramas, figures to attract significant interest, in large part because of the ingenious way in which Microsoft Researchers tackle problems with current street-side imagery on the web.”

 

 

This looks great, but Microsoft is great at teasing us by showing us really clever technologies that they have developed. The problem is that they tend to show us these great ideas well before they can deliver them to customers.  One example would be MS Surface.

Google and Apple, on the other hand, tend to develop without any public updates or rumors and then drop a new product (mainly for increased hype). Pretty much saying, “Look at this cool technology! It’s ready for you to use”.

Both business approaches have their own merits, but it seems like Microsoft previews these amazing technologies to far in advance of launch, if they launch at all. Basically showing their hand to the competitors and giving them time to develop a competing product doesn’t seem like a smart business strategy.

 

What do you think of Microsoft’s new Street Slide?

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New Payment Options for the Android Market

Android developers will have more ways to satisfy customers in the near future according to Google's Tim Bray. He mentions that the Android team is working on "introducing new payment options" for the Android Market.

 

From the Android Developers Blog:

In the spirit of transparency, we wanted to highlight the changes:

• In Section 13.1, “authorized carriers” have been added as an indemnified party.

• Section 13.2 is new in its entirety, covering indemnity for payment processors for claims related to tax accrual.

These new terms apply immediately to anyone joining Android Market as a new publisher. Existing publishers have been notified of this change via email; they have up to 30 days to sign into the Android Market developer console to accept the new terms.

 

Right now, T-Mobile is the only carrier that lets its customers put charges for mobile apps on their monthly phone bill. This is great news for anyone who doesn't like or know how to use Google checkout. I know I would like a PayPal option and it would be welcomed by other many people as well.

 

Read the Android Developers Blog Post.

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Was Nexus One a Loss Leader for Google?

Chris Brogan’s post on Blogs as Loss Leaders inspired me to write this post. Ironically he got his idea from Chris Voss. Basically Voss was explaining that his blog was a loss leader, because it didn’t exactly earn revenue. But the flip side is that it leads to other things that can earn money and possibly at a higher rate.
Photo by Steve Snodgrass

To better understand what a loss leader is; imagine a supermarket selling sugar or milk at less than cost to draw customers into the store. Now scale this formula up about 1000 times and you have Wal-Mart. That’s just one example, but you should know that loss leaders are as old as retail and some companies just use them better than others. So why do I think Google’s Nexus One was a loss leader?

Nexus One as a Loss Leader
Before the Nexus One was delivered to the world, what were your options if you wanted an Android phone?  Well, let’s take a walk down memory lane:

• G1 (T-Mobile) – Released October 22, 2008
• myTouch 3G (T-Mobile) – Released August 5, 2009
• HTC Hero (Sprint) – Released October 11, 2009
• Motorola CLIQ (T-Mobile) – Released November 2, 2009
• Samsung Moment – Released November 1, 2009
• Motorola Droid (Verizon) – Released November 6, 2009
• Droid Eris – Released November 6, 2009
• Samsung Behold 2 – Released November 18, 2009

Out of all of these phones only 3 stand out: the G1, myTouch 3G and Motorola Droid (the fastest selling android phone). And of those 3, only the Motorola Droid was pushing the upper limits for smartphones when it was released.
So what is my point? Back in 2009, rumors were going around that Google wasn’t happy with current lineup of Android devices. This may have prompted them to build a “What-If” phone. So January 5, 2010 the Nexus One was born – with a little help from HTC.
Jumping back to the present and with Google essentially ending Nexus One’s life, some have said that Nexus One was a failure due to low sales. Mainly due to the much criticized direct sell method by Google. Sure sales weren’t at the level a major release smartphone should have been, but Google didn’t make a great effort either. I am sure that T-Mobile offered to carry the Nexus One in their retail stores. The Nexus One could’ve had 3 times the sales if T-Mobile sold it in their stores.



I don’t believe selling millions of phones was Google’s primary goal. Their goal may have been more of a large scale market research / development project. Their audience wasn’t exactly customers only but technology geeks, developers and manufacturers. It’s not like Google couldn’t afford to go ahead with a possible project like this. They seem to buy a new company every month.
In my humble opinion the Nexus One was more of an effort to push phone manufacturers (HTC, Motorola, Samsung and LG) and carriers (T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint. AT&T doesn’t count: see iPhone) forward with Android.  Once the Nexus One was released, the passion mobile developers had for Android was definitely known; possibly causing the Android OS to be more attractive to the manufacturers stated above.
Another good reason why Google released the Nexus One may have been to alert these same manufacturers that Google could enter the market with an excellent phone. Mainly a warning shot. There is no greater motivator than the bottom line.

Loss for Gain
So did Google achieve the goal of loss for gain? If you look at the recent stats, I would say yes.

Back on June 23, 2010 Google posted the following to their Official Blog:

Every day 160,000 Android-powered devices are activated — that’s nearly two devices every second, used for the first time by people from New York to New Zealand.
Android started with one simple idea: Provide a powerful, open mobile platform to drive faster innovation for the benefit of consumers. This idea has come to life around the world. Today, there are 60 compatible Android devices, delivered via a global partnership network of 21 OEMs and 59 carriers in 49 countries. The volume and variety of Android devices continues to exceed even our most optimistic expectations. In some instances, Android devices are selling faster than they can be manufactured.

“Selling faster than they can be manufactured” – Any company in the world would love to say they couldn’t make enough of their product to keep up with demand. Also the Android OS is no longer limited to just smartphones. You will soon see a version of the Android OS on tablets, netbooks, laptops, and tons of other mobile devices in the coming months.
You may be thinking right now that Google didn’t lose much since they charged $529 per phone. That would be true if retail price and cost to design, develop, manufacture, and bring to market were equal. The fact is most companies take an initial loss on a new product for future gains; when cost goes down due to economies of scale. Essentially the more you produce the cheaper it becomes to make a product. Also new methods for faster manufacturing and cheaper come into place over time.
So considering the Nexus One was only on the market for about 6 months, means that Google may have taken a large financial loss. But that was worth the loss if the gain was increased market share and large brand recognition, which Android has currently.

 

Droid Incredible by HTC

After the release of the Nexus One, take a look at the 2010 Android Phones:

• Motorola Backflip
• HTC Aria
• Dell Aero
• HTC Evo
• HTC Droid Incredible
• HTC myTouch 3G Slide
• Samsung Behold II
• Motorola Droid X
• Motorola Droid 2

I believe that Android still would have been a great platform without the release of the Nexus One, but we may not have seen the phones we have available today. But that’s only speculation as most of this post is…just speculation.

What do you think? Was the Nexus One an overall winner for Google?

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Metaweb Could Revolutionize Google Search

Dan Nosowitz from Fast Company has a great post on the recent purchase of Metaweb by Google.

 

Nosowitz points out that Google acquires companies all the time, little startups with a bit of helpful technology or a  nice patent or a few engineers Google wants. But the acquisition of  Metaweb should not be grouped in with those relatively small other  purchases: Metaweb's technology could change the way Google Search  works.

 

 

Metaweb is a hard concept to describe, although the video above does an admirable job. Essentially, it views keywords, the way we search now, as an inferior search method to what it calls “entities.” Words can vary in meaning, refer to different things, have different levels of importance or relevance at different times, and often return inexact results.

 

Once Metaweb figures out to which entity you’re referring, it can provide a set of results. It can even combine entities for more complex searches–”actresses over 40″ might be one entity, “actresses living in New York City” might be another, and “actresses with a movie currently playing” might be another. Instead of searching through that jumble of keywords, Metaweb would just connect you to those three entities, and file down your results.

 

 

You can see why Google would see value in Metaweb. In a recent blog post, Google said searches like the example above are “hard questions, and we’ve acquired Metaweb because we believe working together we’ll be able to provide better answers.” Hopefully that means Google can integrate Metaweb’s technology into their own search functions smoothly.

 

Google will also keep Freebase, the database that provides Metaweb with its list of “entities,” alive and open:

Better yet, we plan to contribute to and further develop Freebase and would be delighted if other web companies use and contribute to the data. We believe that by improving Freebase, it will be a tremendous resource to make the web richer for everyone. And to the extent the web becomes a better place, this is good for webmasters and good for users.

 

This is great news for everyone. Just think about the time that could be saved searching online.

 

What do you think of Metaweb’s re-imagined search methods?

 

Read Dan Nosowitz’s full post at Fast Company.

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Wind Farm Energy To Power Google For 20 Years

Mashable is reporting that Google has just signed a contract with an Iowa wind farm to purchase clean energy at a set rate for the next 20 years.

 

This move is in keeping with Google’s strong environmental stance; with specific regard to energy consumption and wind-generated energy, the company has been pushing PowerMeter and has invested $38 million in wind farms this year alone.

 

Google gained the ability to buy and sell electricity like any other public utility in February in order to reach its goals for carbon neutrality and more efficient energy use in its expansive data centers. This Power Purchase Agreement is the first deal brokered under the guise of Google Energy.

 

Official Google blog:

“On July 30 we will begin purchasing the clean energy from 114 megawatts of wind generation at the NextEra Energy Resources Story County II facility in Iowa at a predetermined rate for 20 years… This power is enough to supply several data centers. While we are happy to be purchasing renewable energy as part of our environmental commitment, this is also a structure that makes long term financial sense for Google. Through the long term purchase of renewable energy at a predetermined price, we’re partially protecting ourselves against future increases in power prices. This is a case where buying green makes business sense.”

 

Do you think Google is doing enough to stay green?

 

Read the full post at Mashable.

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Google Drops Nexus One

Google for the time being, is no longer in the hardware business.

 

Despite being one of the best smartphones in 2010, the sales numbers for Google's Nexus One were dismal. In the same amount of time it took Apple to sell 1 million iPhones, Google only sold 135,000 of the Android-powered Nexus. Not as bad as the Microsoft Kin, but no where near enough to continue supporting the device.

 

Google is discontinuing the Nexus One altogether. The company announced that it received its final order from HTC.

 

There are a ton of phones available running on Android and by one measure, it is even outpacing iOS. But the Nexus One was the Google phone, as opposed to simply an Android phone. Customers will still be able to buy the Nexus One in Europe and developers will be able to lay their hands on it for the time being.

 

Customer service will still be provided for the Nexus One, even after it is no longer available from Google.

 

Did you purchase a Nexus One? Let me know in the comments!

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Android Surging in U.S. Smartphone Market; RIM Still Tops

USA Today is reporting that BlackBerry maker Research In Motion is king of the smartphone hill, according to data released by researcher comScore.

RIM had a 41.7% market share among smartphone platforms, topping Apple (iPhone) 24.4%, Microsoft (Windows) 13.2% and Google (Android) 13.0%. Palm, which was recently acquired by HP, lagged with a 4.8 % share.

The folks at RIM may not want to get overly giddy. The numbers reflect the three month period ending in May 2010, prior to the iPhone 4's release and before a slew of new Google Android devices invaded the market, including the HTC Evo 4G from Sprint and Motorola's Droid X from Verizon.

Most of the momentum indeed points to Android. Google gained four percentage points compared to the previous three month reporting period of February 2010, the only smartphone rival with a positive point change in market share during that time.

Still, comScore says overall smartphone ownership continues to grow, with 49.1 million people in the U.S. now owning such a device, up 8.1 percent over the corresponding February period.


I suspect that RIM will be king for another 1 - 2 years as companies relax use of non-blackberry phones on their networks. With the failure of KIN, Microsoft needs a home run with Windows Phone 7.

The competition in the mobile phone market will only get more fierce as more users move to smartphones. We are not even near 80 saturation of the smartphone market, so this a great time for companies to build device/brand loyalty.

How long do you think RIM can hang on? Let me know in the comments!

Read the post at USA Today.

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How 16 Great Companies Picked Their Unique Names

This post is a reprint of Wise Bread's contribution to OPEN Forum from American Express -- where small business owners can get advice from experts and share tips with each other.

 

Anyone who's ever had to form a company can sympathize with how difficult it can be to create a company name that is descriptive yet unique. However, some companies have gone a less-traditional route and used some pretty unique naming conventions. Here are some examples of interesting company names and the back stories behind them.

 

Google

The name started as a joke about the amount of information the search engine could search, or a "Googol" of information. (A googol is the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.) When founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin gave a presentation to an angel investor, they received a check made out to "Google."

 

Hotmail

Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith had the idea of checking their email via a web interface, and tried to find a name that ended in "mail." They finally settled on hotmail because it had the letters "html," referencing the HTML programming language used to help create the product.

 

Volkswagen

Volkswagen literally means "people's car." Adolf Hitler initially came up with the idea for "cars for the masses," which would be a state-sponsored "Volkswagen" program. Hitler wanted to create a more affordable car that was able to transport two adults and three children at speeds of 62 mph. He choose the car manufacturer Porsche to carry out the project, and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

Yahoo

The word "yahoo" was coined by Jonathan Swift in the the book Gulliver's Travels. The term represented a repulsive, filthy creatures that resembled humans (think: Neanderthal). Yahoo! founders Jerry Yang and David Filo considered themselves yahoos, and thought the term would be appropriate for their joint venture.

 

Asus

The consumer electronic company is named after Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology. The founders dropped the first three letters for the high position in alphabetical listings. In 1998 Asus created a spin off company named Pegatron, using the other unused letters of Pegasus.

 

Cisco

Contrary to popular belief and theories, Cisco is simply short for San Francisco. Their logo resembles the suspension cables found on the Golden Gate bridge.

 

Canon

When Canon was founded in 1933 under the name Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory. Two years later they adopted "Canon" after the company's first camera, the Kwanon. Kwanon is the Japanese name of the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy.

 

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola's name comes from the the coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavoring in the soft drink. Eventually Coca-Cola creator John S. Pemberton changed the 'K' of kola to "C" to create a more fluid name.

 

FranklinCovey

The planning product line was named after Benjamin Franklin and Stephen Covey. The company was formed in 1997 from the combining of the two companies FranklinQuest and the Covey Leadership Center.

 

IKEA

IKEA is simply a random collection of letters, based from the first letters of founder Ingvar Kamprad's name in addition to the first letters of the names of the Swedish property and the village in which he grew up: Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd.

 

Lego

Lego is a combination of the Danish phrase "leg godt," which translates to "play well." Initially the company built wooden toys, and later switched to making plastic bricks. Lego also means "I put together" in Latin, but the Lego Group claims this merely coincidence and the origin of the word is strictly Danish.

 

Reebok

Reebok is simply an alternate spelling of "rhebok," an African antelope. The company founders found the word in a South African edition of a dictionary won by the Joe Foster, son of the Reebok founder J.W. Foster.

 

Sharp

The Japanese consumer electronics company is named after its first product, an ever-sharp pencil that was created in 1915.

 

Six Apart

Six Apart's name has one of the most interesting origins. The web company's co-founders Ben and Mena Trott were born six days apart.

 

Skype

The original prototype of the company's flagship product had the name "Sky-Peer-to-Peer," which was shrunk down to Skyper, then finally Skype.

 

Verizon

Verizon is a combination of the words veritas, which is Latin for "truth," and horizon.

 

Sometimes the best ideas are from completely unexpected places.

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Hate Looking for Parking? Google Has an Answer

Google Labs has just released a new Android app that aims to help users find and share parking. It's called Open Spot and works by letting people who are leaving parking spots share their spots with people who are searching for parking.

 

Have you driven around aimlessly, trying to find a parking spot? I know I have and whether it’s on a street corner or in a shopping mall, Google is hoping to crowdsource a solution that can save, gas, pollution and ultimately time.

 

Open Spot will show you parking spots located within about a mile radius of your location. While moving, Open Spot will automatically refresh to show you parking spots within about a mile radius of where you currently located. Spots are removed from the map after 20 minutes.

 

The Google FAQ has more on this:

We know that 20 minutes is a long time for a parking spot to stay open, but we think that more information about available parking is better than less.

 

There are some issues and limitations to this new service:

 

• No fresh spots available

  They will remove spots from the map after 20 minutes. Although 20 minutes is a long time for a parking spot to stay open in places where parking is hard to find, they think that knowing where someone has recently left a parking spot might be useful information.

• Not enough users near you

  Another reason you might not see any parking nearby is there may not be enough Open Spot users in your area. 

 

Just getting people to use the app is going to be the biggest challenge. It’s the sort of clever solution that I could see using once or twice and then utterly forgetting about.

 

All in all, this just looks great on paper but may be too much work for too little payoff to gain lots of traction. But this is from Google Labs so this is not a app they are fully pushing. If it gets some traction, I'm sure Google will bundle it with another app or newer version of Android. Maybe 3.0? Who knows - only time will tell. Still a clever idea.

 

Android owners can download the app now and give it a try.

 

Would you be interested in using an app to find parking spots? Let me know in the comments!

Posted via email from Neville's Blog

U.S. Will Invest $2 Billion in Solar Power

Over the weekend, President Obama announced the Department of Energy would be giving almost $2 billion in conditional funding to two solar energy companies, Abengoa Solar and Abound Solar Manufacturing.

 

Money will come from the $863 billion economic stimulus package. Projects funded by this move are expected to create more than 5,000 construction and permanent jobs.

 

One of these initiatives is the Solana project, which Abengoa says will be the largest concentrating solar power plant in the world when it’s completed. The Arizona-based plant will produce enough energy to power 70,000 households and will save the environment from about 475,000 tons of CO2 each year.

 

Most of the development and permitting for Solana is already complete, and the project has a green light from the Department of Energy (DOE), as well.

 

The President had this to say:

These are just two of the many clean energy investments in the Recovery Act. Already, I’ve seen the payoff from these investments. I’ve seen once-shuttered factories humming with new workers who are building solar panels and wind turbines; rolling up their sleeves to help America win the race for the clean energy economy.

 

Solar power has become an increasingly interesting alternative for providing energy for all kinds of purposes, from our homes to our gadgets  , from airplanes to spaceships.

 

Green and clean tech in general have been surfacing as exciting areas of investment recently; Google   recently invested $38 million in wind farms.

I personally think this is great news! We need hundreds more of these solar projects. Clean tech is the future. The sooner we stop using oil, coal and other finite resources, the better our children will be in the future.

Photo by picturebuilder

 

So what do you think? Do you think more people should be investing in and working on greener sources of power? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Posted via email from Neville's Blog

Rumor: New Android 3.0 (Gingerbread) Details

Some new details about what to expect from Android 3.0 have come to light:

 

• Android 3.0 (Gingerbread) will be released in time for the holidays.
• Android 3.0 will have a complete new UI. Team working on this is led by Mattias Durte.
• Android 3.0 will have a new look and feel for the music and media player.
• Music downloads will be available from the Android Market for gingerbread and probably for the older versions as well.
• Google will include streaming of DRM-free music from a desktop app to an Android device based on "Simplify Media"' (which they acquired a few months back) technology.
• There will finally be a normal way to sync your android with your PC.

 

Exciting news for Android fans! Also there is news about the possibility that Gingerbread might not be Android 3.0. Stay tuned kids....

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Google to Launch Music Service Alongside Android 3.0 (Gingerbread)

Google is targeting the holidays for the debut of its much anticipated digital music offering. Google Music will be launched concurrently with Android 3.0 (Gingerbread) at the end of this year.

 

When Google's VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra announced that the company had acquired music-streaming service Simplify Media, it was immediately apparent that Google intended to do battle with the giants of the digital music business.

 

Now, in an interview with top Israeli financial newspaper Calcalist, Android product manager Gaurav Jain has revealed that mobile will play a huge part in Google's music strategy right from the beginning.

 

New rumors circulated earlier this week suggesting that Apple is on the verge of revealing the fruits of its Lala acquisition in the form of new streaming music and video options tied to its mega-store, iTunes. These rumors suggest a September announcement for streaming iTunes service, which would be bad news for Google.

 

Streaming iTunes services might overshadow Google's plans, but Android has built a tremendous user base that continues to grow at a rapid rate. Google recently stated that over 160,000 Android phones are activated each day around the world

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Is Google Chrome Coming for Firefox?

Chrome overtakes Safari for first time to claim third place in US Internet browser market

 

Google Chrome continues to gain browser marketshare, edging past Apple’s Safari in the U.S. and, apparently, also taking some users from Mozilla’s Firefox according to StatCounter. The firm's research arm StatCounter Global Stats reports that for the week beginning 21 June Chrome overtook Safari to claim third place in the US browser market.

 

Aodhan Cullen, CEO for StatCounter commented:

This is quite a coup for Google as they have gone from zero to almost 10% of the US market in under two years. There is a battle royal going on between Google and Apple in the internet browser space (Chrome v Safari) as well as in the mobile market (Android v iPhone).

 

 

To see how much Chrome has grown over time, check out these extended stats, which go from October 11, 2009 through the end of June 2010:

 

 

Chrome with 8.97% took third place in the US browser market ahead of Safari with 8.88%. Microsoft's Internet Explorer still dominates the US Internet browser market with 52%, followed by Firefox (28.5%).

 

Globally Chrome has been well ahead of Safari for some time with 9.4% of the market compared to 4% for Safari. Microsoft's Internet Explorer has 53% of the global market followed by Firefox on 31%.

 

The data is based on an analysis of 3.6 billion page views (874 million from the US) for the week 21 to 27 June 2010 collected from the StatCounter network of over three million websites.

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Rumor: Android 3.0 (Gingerbread) Coming this October

Judging by these latest Gingerbread rumors, this fall may be exciting times for Android fans:

 

• Android 3.0 Gingerbread Q4: The new OS will be released in mid- October (around 15 -16th), 2010. First handsets shipping in November/December for the Holiday Season.
• Minimum Hardware Requirements for Android 3.0 devices: 1GHZ CPU, 512MB of RAM, displays from 3.5" and higher. Rumors have also being going around that Android handsets with 2GHz CPU's are coming.
• New 1280×760 Resolution: Available for the devices with displays of 4" and higher.
• Completely Revamped User Interface: The Android 3.0 Gingerbread UX will be similar to the Gallery App on the Nexus One. The same overall feel, light animated transitions,etc. Naively, through all the UI.
• Two Official Flavors of Android: Android's split into 2 branches becomes official. 3.0 for top of the line/high end devices. Cheaper, low-end mass market handsets will keep Android 2.1/2.2

 

The last one is very interesting as Android 2.2 (Froyo) has only just been released by Google, but most manufacturers and operators are yet to push it through themselves. It's believed HTC for example won't update their phone line until October.

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