Google's CEO has been fuelling rumors of a Motorola-made shatter-proof Google X phone

According to some recent rumors, Google and Motorola may just be working on a phone that that can go without the usual protective cases and accessories.

Mashable reported recently on a rumored Motorola-made Google phone termed the Google X, which has been stirring up speculation since at the Wall Street Journal broached the topic this past fall. Still, there's been little information as to what the new phone's specs might be.

But in a recent interview with WIRED magazine, Google CEO Larry Page gave us a pretty fresh hint – the Google X may be unbreakable:

"There’s a lot of room for innovation in hardware [...] The phones we use now have glass that everyone worries will break if they drop the device. Five or 10 years from now, that will be different."

Needless to say, Page is a reliable source when it comes to what we can expect from a Google-backed phone. And some are positing theories that the Google X may sport a flexible display or may, at the very least, be shatter-proof.

"The benefits of a 'bendy' phone are questionable, but using a flexible display would result in a phone that's much more immune to shattering, unlike the relatively fragile touch screens of today," says Mashable.

If these theories hold any water, Google may have a product on its hands that doesn't even need the shock-absorption of a case. And while that's bound to make users happy, third-party accessories makers probably wouldn't be thrilled.

But all this is moot anyway, since Google hasn't officially confirmed the existence of the Google X, much less its design specs. Until they do, the talk of a case-less, shatter-proof, bendy Google  phone will have to remain squarely in the realm of speculation.

Related articles

• Will the Google X Phone Be Shatter-Proof?
• Google CEO hints at unbreakable 'X Phone' from Motorola

Amid the slew of smartphones being released right in time for the holiday shopping season, Google's new LG-made Nexus 4 is winning the popularity contest.

Within hours of going on sale on the U.K.'s Google Play store on Monday, the latest nexus smartphone sold out. Same story in Australia, except that the successor to Google's Nexus 7 Tablet, the Samsung-made nexus 10, was also listed as "out of stock" before the day's end.

Meanwhile,  BGR reported that in the U.S., it took only minutes before all available units of both the 8GB and 16GB models of the Nexus 4 sold out on Google Play. And before long, 32GB models of the Nexus 10 were out of stock, with only 10 units of the 16GB model remaining.

To use the old adage, tehy're selling like hotcakes. But it's not hard to see why.

Starting at $299 for the unlocked Nexus 4, the pricing is pretty competitive compared to other smartphones, especially considering its specs: Snapdragon S4 quad-core processor, 4.7-inch True HD IPS screen with a resolution of 1280×768 resolution, and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean to boot.

However, it doesn't have LTE – if it did, people would probably be killing each other for it at that price – but TechCrunch is right in saying that it's essentially "a high-end 3G device for a mid-range price."

Likewise, there's no reason that demand for the Nexus 10 Tablet should cool down anytime soon. Starting at $399.99, it's greatest draw is its super-sized 10.1" 330PPI display, one of the biggest tablet screens out there.

By Aldo Panessidi

In addition to Android 4.1 (Jellybean), last week’s Google I/O introduced us to a Chrome Browser update, Google Play news and the Project Glass carnival ride. Here’s the lowdown:

Chrome Browser:

The official version of Chrome Browser is now in the Google Play Store. You can download it for free. For those already using mobile Chrome, the new version provides much-needed stability and a few performance enhancements. Tablets got some UI adjustments - a good idea considering this will be the Chrome running with Nexus 7 tablet . There was no word on availability of this update for devices running older OS versions than Android 4.0.

Google Play got quite a bit of Google attention. Here its new angles:

Google Play Books:

Play Books was updated to support embedded streaming video and audio in books. This will have lots of useful applications, particularly in the educational environment.  There’s a new UI feature where you can tap the upper-right corner of a page to bookmark it. New settings options allow for auto text-to-speech and the ability to lock downloads to WiFi only. The rest of the updates were improving support for various formats and other stability fixes.

Google Play Movies:

Now you can purchase Google Play Movies in addition to renting them. TV shows are also available in the Google Play Store as well. The more Google can offer in the Store, the better they will be able to compete with Apple. Next we’d like to see Google step up to the subscription plate and give the likes of Hulu, Netflix and Amazon some nice competition.

Google Play Remote Features:

Uninstalling and updating apps you bought from Google Play can now be managed from a web connection. Just like it’s easier to edit your address book online rather than from your phone, apps need the same kind of management tool. So, maybe it’s time to clean out your app junk pile.

Project Glass:

Project Glass is Google’s R&D effort to create an augmented reality head-mounted display (HMD) they call Google Glass. Sergey Brin’s Google Glass presentation was fun. Some guys jumped out of an airplane and another ran down the side of a building. The audience got to see the little adventure play out on the big screen. The perspective was cool, but as a passive observer can’t we can get something very similar from video games and 3D movies? The final HMD won’t be ready for consumers until 2014, but attendees of the Google I/O were given the chance to pre-order a prototype pair of the glasses (to be delivered next year) for $1,500 a headset. Maybe we just don’t see the bigger picture for Google Glass yet…

By Aldo Panessidi

Google helpfully added badges to its Chrome Web Store so you could tell if an app offers offline functionality, and now Google has made the search even easier with an offline section in the Chrome Web Store.

We are hoping to see mobile apps for both cell phone and tablets from Chrome web store

Go to the "Collections" part of the store, and find the "Offline Apps" section. Lots of the titles will be familiar -  Angry Birds, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Offline Google Mail. Those will be alongside selections like Nitro for task management, NYTimes for news and Space Invaders for those needing a nostalgia rush.

Developers aren’t being left out of the improvements. Google announced the availability of the Chrome Web Store in Turkey, Ukraine, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates.  All developers can use new analytics tools to view their titles’ performance trends over the past 90 days.  This one isn’t surprising. Google does know data.

By Adhurim Murtezai

 Google unveiled its Google Maps upgrade a week before Apple is expected to announce its own default mapping technology for its iOS. It looks like Google is telling Apple “Bring it on.”

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View this insightful video on Google Maps

Google has a new life planned for its Google Maps service:

Realistic 3D mapping that utilizes “fly-over technology”, allowing users to navigate through a 3D cityscape while detailed buildings remain accurately to scale. This feature will be completed in metro areas first.

• The new Tour Guide service available offline for Android devices. If you're in an area without an internet connection, you'll be able to save a map on your Android device and zoom in and out as you navigate.

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Google Maps is the default map service in iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S as well as the iPad 2 and iPad 3. The company said that 3D maps will be coming to both Android and iOS devices in the coming weeks. Apple plans to debut its own 3D maps service at its World Wide Developer Conference that begins June 11th.

By Aldo Panessidi

There’s no doubt that Google organized a big community really fast with its Google+ social network, but a former Engineering Director at Google is denouncing the service as a means to an end:  creating a tool to gather as much information as possible on users for the purpose of capturing more dollars from its advertisers.  Sounds very similar to Mobile service providers creating locked in long term contracts that siphon more and mo0re money from users.

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Spencer Tipping, a programmer who left Google about a month ago, authored a blog post describing the pros and cons of the Google culture. His post delves into the technological environment and the corporate culture at the company. He called Google+ a big corporate culture con game.

As Tipping put it, “I think Google+ is an effort that does not deserve the engineering minds at Google. This is mostly a personal bias. I see Google as solving legitimately difficult technological problems, not doing stupid things like cloning Facebook. Google, in my opinion, lost sight of what was important when they went down this rabbit hole.”

Tipping admitted that he disagreed with what he called Google’s “ubiquitous political emphasis on Google+ that sometimes compromised other engineering efforts.”

Tipping might be carrying some baggage on the subject of Google+, but the pros in his blog post outweighed the cons. He also said he left the company “mostly because I wanted to take the time to pursue stuff closer to my interests.”

By Aldo Panessidi

After years of eating away at Microsoft’s Internet Explorer market share, Google Chrome took what looks to be a sustainable lead as the most popular Web browser in the world. According to the latest figures from StatCounter, Chrome has a 32.76% of the market versus 31.94% for Internet Explorer and surpasses Internet Explorer in the global numbers for the first time.

More and more cell phone and tablet users are turning the performance rich chrome as their browser of choice on their devices.

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Just a year ago, Internet Explorer was leading the Web browser market share with 43%, followed by Mozilla Firefox with 29%. Chrome came in a distant third with 19%. Twelve months later, IE is down 12% while Chrome gained 13% (due to both IE and Firefox losses). Firefox also lost about 4% of its users and now has just over 25% market share.

"Whether Chrome can take the lead in the browser wars in the long term remains to be seen, however the trend towards Chrome usage at weekends is undeniable. At weekends, when people are free to choose what browser to use, many of them are selecting Chrome in preference to IE," added Aodhan Cullen, commenting on the weekend surges in Chrome usage.

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Google Chrome was introduced in 2008 and has steadily gained market share in the past four years. Until now, Google’s browser has never been able to dethrone Microsoft in global usage share.

By Aldo Panessidi

Google jumped its final hurdle in its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility with China approving the deal. The next step may involve layoffs for Motorola Mobility employees in the near future. According to Tech Crunch, layoffs could be on the list of things to do after the deal closes.

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Motorola went through one restructuring after the announcement of the Google acquisition last year. When the announcement went public, Motorola had 19,000 employees. Later that year about 800 employees were laid off.  Neither Google nor Motorola have confirmed the possibility of upcoming layoffs.

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"I'm excited to announce today that our Motorola Mobility deal has closed," said Larry Page, Google CEO. "Motorola is a great American tech company that has driven the mobile revolution, with a track record of over 80 years of innovation, including the creation of the first cell phone. We all remember Motorola's StarTAC, which at the time seemed tiny and showed the real potential of these devices. As the company who made a big, early bet on Android, Motorola has become an incredibly valuable partner to Google."

While the news of any layoffs under any circumstances is bad news, maybe Google can turn the phone- maker around. Motorola has been in trouble for awhile now. Earlier this month, the company reported a fifth straight quarter of losses including a net loss of $86 million for the first quarter of 2012. In previous consecutive quarters, Motorola reported net losses in the low $80 million area. Motorola hasn’t been able to figure out how to compete with other Android device manufacturers like Samsung and HTC.

Google also announced today that Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha has stepped down and Google executive Dennis Woodside will take over.

By: Aldo Panessidi

The latest results are in for NPD Group’s monthly Mobile Phone Track service. It looks like Apple retails it’s top seat as the #1 smartphone vendor in the U.S.

Apple’s market ownership continues to strengthen. It’s market share increased by 7% in the first quarter year-over-year. In the past year, Apple’s iPhones were responsible for 29% of all smartphone sales in the U.S. Samsung with Its Samsung Galaxy S2 and the Samsung Galaxy Tablets seems to be the only company breathing anywhere down Apple’s neck.

I wrote another blog indicating that Samsung currently has the titles for the world’s largest smartphone vendor and largest overall mobile phone vendor. In the last year, Samsung recorded huge market share growth of 140%. That gives them ownership of 24% share of the market.

Why the confusion? Many analyst interpret market data differently... in addition a giant like Apple would react fervently to any news saying that its market position has been upset

Apple and Samsung together are responsible for 53% of all smartphones sold in the U.S. LG, HTC, Motorola and RIM sales continue to fall.

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“Samsung is the only market leader from the feature phone era to transition to market leadership in the smartphone era in the U.S.,” said NPD analyst Ross Rubin. “Its broad carrier support and advertising – particularly in the ascendant pre-paid segment – have helped it achieve the highest market share among Android handset providers in the U.S.”

NPD also reported that Google’s Android operating system is the highest selling mobile platform. Android use is trending in the right direction, and it regained some of the ground it had previously lost to Apple.

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Android smartphone sales grew 24% over the last quarter of 2011 to 61% of the market. Apple iPhone sales are down significantly. The high of 41% in the last quarter is now 29%, a decline of 29%.

Apple is still the People’s Phone. Regardless of what the market share number shows, Apple’s iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS still hold the top three spots in NPD’s overall handset ranking for first quarter of 2012. Samsung’s Galaxy S2 and HTC’s EVO 3D round out the top five.

Rubin tries to explain what the poll number show: “After some release of pent-up demand from customers adopting the iPhone 4S, coupled with the company’s strength in the holiday season, Apple’s share fell in the first quarter, as we’ve often see it do in the quarter following its introduction of a new handset. Now that the iPhone is available on Sprint, though, the increased carrier coverage has created a higher baseline for Apple’s share than we have seen in the past.”

By Aldo Panessidi

LG the manufacturer the LG Optimus 7 smartphones of is giving consumers another reason to reach out to the cloud with the beta release of the ”LG Cloud”. With the LG Cloud users can manage and use content for devices such as Android smartphones, smart TVs and PCs (LG calls this “three screens”).

LG’s Cloud service automatically synchronizes smartphone content with the cloud server and the user’s PC and TV. As an example of the usefulness of the service, photos and videos taken with the smartphone can be viewed and streamed to the PC or TV almost instantaneously. Unlike other cloud services, there’s very little waiting or lag time since the content is streamed directly to the device, not downloaded first. The service also works with 3D content.

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Most consumers think of the cloud as a storage device or a service to access one type of content (like YouTube or Flickr). The LG cloud provides seamless connectivity and streaming access to all digital content across electronic platforms.

As LG’s Home Entertainment President and CEO Havis Kwon put it, “Tomorrow’s consumers don’t want to go to one cloud for music, another cloud for video, another location for photos and yet another cloud for their office files.”

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To use the service, users need to download the LG Cloud app from Google Play or LG SmartWorld app store from their Android smartphones, LG SmartWorld store from their LG Smart TVs or the LG Cloud website (www.lgecloud.com) from their PCs or laptops.

LG Smart TV or smartphone owners may be eligible to receive 50GB of free LG Cloud storage for six months. The company’s cloud service will be offered in both free and paid versions, with each member allotted 5GB of free storage.