It must be the holiday spirit (or end of the year desperation), because T-Mobile is joining Verizon in offering BOGO specials. Yep, that's buy-one-get-one-free. T-Mobile is expected to give BOGO to all smartphones, meaning you can mix and match if you so please. Buy a Motorola CLIQ, get a myTouch 3G. Buy a myTouch 3G, get a T-Mobile G1. Or buy a Blackberry, get an Android phone free. Basically buy 1 smartphone, get 1 smartphone free, however you want. Awesome, right?

If you prefer shopping on Amazon, they've got the Motorola Cliq for $99, myTouch 3G for $98, and T-Mobile G1 for $49. Take your pick.

[via bgr]

So. Hm. Well, okay. We absolutely love that cute green robot of Android but we never thought that Android would actually power a real robot. Asus thinks differently, they're working with the Taiwanese government to develop the EeeBot, an Android-powered robot, that'll be an affordable, educational robot for kids.

Obviously the potential in an EeeBot is huge and given the success that Asus has had with their Eee-line, it should definitely be taken seriously, but really? An Android-powered Robot, however fitting in name, is kind of a stretch when actually thought about. Sure, it's cool that they'd think of Android to power their robots but isn't there a better, more suitable OS out there? Certainly something better than a smartphone OS?

In any case, the EeeBot looks like it'll happen and the project will include human robot interaction, voice and visual technologies, as well as positioning and navigation. The EeeBot won't be available until a few years from now, so we'll see how the project goes.

[pcworld]

We often lament the fact that the Android operating system is a wee bit fractured, with devices running on a number of versions. How bad is it, you ask?

The Android Developers blog spells it out in the chart above (erm, their numbers, our chart): Most of you are running Android 1.6 (myTouch 3G and G1 on T-Mo)., followed by 1.5 and 2.0.1 (Droid owners, that's you!)

Those numbers are based off devices that accessed the Android market for 14 days ending on Dec. 14. We know that Sprint plans on upgrading the Hero and Samsung Moment next year. As for the rest? We'll see.

This rooted Nook story just gets better and better. After getting rooted and receiving Pandora, the Nook has now, literally overnight, got a working web browser and Twitter and Facebook applications from Android Market installed. Given how quickly the amazing guys at nookdevs have achieved all this, we have no doubt that by the time the Nook is readily available (sometime in January), there'll be an easy how-to, easy as pie solution to extend the usefulness of the e-reader.

We can't wait to see what's next.

[via engadget]

Update: OK, Motorla's off the hook here. Instructions for fixing. Thanks, Jason!

Original: Don't know about you guys, but we're loving the Motorola Droid. But there's one major sticking point that time and time again is causing our eyes to glow a familiar red:

The contacts.

Anyone who's used gmail for more than five minutes knows that Google's contacts are hardly the best in the world. They're getting better, but they've got a long way to go. The Droid also has an interesting way of culling contacts, combining entries it believes are similar enough to be duplicates. But it goes too far. My father's name is Ed. My grandfather's name is Ted. They are not the same person, but the Droid treats them as such. (Good thing I go by Phil, or I'd be in the same boat, er, contact entry.)

If there's a way to fix this, I haven't found it. It's been kicked around in our forums for a bit. You can sort things out a little by going to Contacts>Menu>Display options, but entries are still combined. And that's no good. Please, Motorola, fix this with Android 2.1.

/rant

Nimbuzz, the uber-VOIP app, has been available for Android for a while. But what was sorely missing was Skype support.

That day has finally come, my friends.

In addition to Skype, it also works with Google, Yahoo and Windows Live Messenger. New options include mute and speakerphone use while on a call, as well as quicker log-in times.

Nimbuzz is available in the Android Market, at Nimbuzz.com, or you can hit the QR code you see here.

[Nimbuzz via GigaOm]

Yesterday we brought you the bad news that Beautiful Widgets developer, LevelUp Studio, received a nice little letter from HTC demanding it remove its Sense-like widgets from the Android marketplace. LevelUp is currently working on overhauling Beautiful Widgets to be released soon, minus the HTC Sense inspiration. We then got wind that HTC itself might release widgets.

The news of HTC bringing widgets to the marketplace spiked some excitement for those of us who use non-HTC devices. Good news is some official HTC widgets have made their way into the marketplace, bad news is they currently are only compatible with the HTC Hero and Droid Eris. As you can see from the shot above (via AndroidLib), they are as follows:

• Tip Calculator
• Dice
• Today in History
• Battery

More screenshots after the break!

It should really come as no surprise that the Motorola Droid is destined to received Android 2.1 (we just saw a 2.0.1 upgrade roll out a little while ago). And it should point to the imminency of the 2.1 update when we start seeing screen shots leaks, like we do here.

These pics from Androidin.net [via AndroidOS.in] show version 2.1, Build ERD72. Other than that, nothing really to glean other than the graphical goodness. A little oddly, We see the same four-color "X" design we've come to know from the Nexus One. Add that to the "Nexus" desktop option, and we're starting to think Google has bigger plans for the word than just the "Nexus One" phone.

Also of note is that it looks like Palm's card metaphor has been aped. We'll have to see how our pals at PreCentral.net feel about that.

Tons more after the break.

Yeah, yeah, we know how you guys feel about seeing bootscreens. But it's what's follow's the bootscreen that we care about in this case. The Motorola Milestone (aka the UK version of the Droid), which includes multi-touch, has been slapped into its U.S. cousin, bringing all that pinch-and-zoom goodness that so many of you (and us) have been clamoring for.

So, after the break, one good (and one not-so-good) video of the Milestone/Droid mash-up. Along with, yes, the Nexus One bootscreen.

[AllDroid via Engadget]

What, you though you'd get a whole day off from the Google phone craziness? Muwahahaha! And there's more where that came from after the break! [via TheNexusOne]