Drop the Lonely Planet book and flip on Google Goggles. Have a hard time reading menus and museum descriptions in foreign languages? Problem solved with Goggles – maybe the coolest Android app in the market. Quite simply, take a picture of the Mona Lisa, Big Ben, or Brooklyn Bridge, and Goggles searches the web for any information on that object. If that is not enough, Goggles now translates words written in languages you don’t understand, and the translation appears on your phones display.

The new text recognition app uses optical character recognition to work out what the text says. Currently it reads English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, and translates into assorted other languages. Other languages like Chinese, Hindi, and Arabic are also in the works. Other cool features of the app include the ability to add Goggle images in your phone’s photo gallery. To get the latest version of Goggles, download the app from the Android Market.

[By the way, we can alert you when FoneWars (iPhone battles Android) starts. Just follow FoneGigs on Twitter or Facebook!]

Currently available on Android devices via the Android Market, but also being developed for the iPhone, Motorola has developed the first Android powered mobile with a push-to-talk function – the i1. Sold exclusively by Nextel, there are no monthly fees, no SMS fees, and no use of talk time minutes! It uses an email account as a message router and as a temporary message store. Plus, there is an iDEN development kit, which allows developers to program new applications for the push-to-talk function.

In addition to the walkie-talkie functionality, the i1 also meets military specifications for performance against dust, shock, rain, and vibration. Who treats their mobile phone this? I guess maybe you know someone who is always dropping their phone, so this may be good for them. Nevertheless, the two-way radio service is pretty cool as it will also allow you to broadcast voice messages to groups of people and respond to all recipients.

[By the way, we can alert you when FoneWars (iPhone battles Android) starts. Just follow FoneGigs on Twitter or Facebook!]

As far as mobile gaming goes, Android has been fighting an uphill battle, but Google (NSDQ: GOOG)’s make a concentrated effort at the next Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, which covers all the major platforms, including mobile

To win the hearts and minds of attendees, Google’s giving out free droid and Nexus One handsets to paid, early bird registrants attending the Mobile, iPhone, or Indie Games Summits.

read full article here.

he Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Nexus One is as good as it gets when it comes to Android phones. With the latest Android 2.1 OS and a bevy of high-end hardware features on board – like the 5-megapixel camera, 1Ghz processor, 3.7-inch touchscreen – the Nexus One packs in almost everything a smartphone user could ask for. That is, unless you’re asking for multi-touch.

Mobile Marketing: Achieving Competitive Advantage Through Wireless Technology

Google, for some reason, didn’t endow their first own-branded smartphone with the multi-touch capabilities that have helped the iPhone carve out a significant slice of the smartphone market. But, there’s hope yet. A newly released “mod” enables multi-touch zooming (pinch zooming) on the N1’s Android web browser, paving the way for custom Nexus One Android ROMs with multi-touch baked in.

read full article here.

Rumours suggest Microsoft will replace Google as default search box on the iPhone

According to report on Bloomberg’s web site, talks between erstwhile rivals Microsoft and Apple have been going on for weeks. At present Google is aso the incumbent on Apple’s desktop and laptop computers.

Mobile Marketing: Achieving Competitive Advantage Through Wireless Technology

Of course, Microsoft’s Bing search engine is being heavily marketed as a rival to Google, and has picked up positive reviews.

read full article here.

Google has announced that it is now providing location-based search suggestions to Android and iPhone users in the US, accessing its mobile web search engine.

When users start typing, the site will offer suggested search queries based on the current or most recent location of the handset.

“For example, when users in the Boston metro area begin typing “Muse”, suggestions such as “museum of science boston” and “museum of fine arts boston” are provided because people near Boston frequently look for these very popular museums,” explains a Google blog post.

read full article here.

Google Mobile Search Goes Local

If you’ve ever used search on your mobile phone to find something nearby while you’re out and about, chances are the process was a pain. Google’s looking to cash in on the power of combining location-based search with a mobile device, and their latest mobile search update is a start at doing just that.

Mobile Marketing: Achieving Competitive Advantage Through Wireless Technology

Yesterday, Google rolled out the mobile search update which adds location-based search (see the official Google blog post here). Type a query into Google.com from either an Android device or the iPhone and Google will now show you results based on your current (or previously logged) location.

read full article here.

Google Runs Multimillion-Dollar Ad For Nexus One

Google began running a one-line blurb on google.com Wednesday to promote the Nexus One mobile phone that the Mountain View, Calif. search engine unveiled the day before. The link goes directly to the Web site set up to sell the phone.

Gene Munster, research analyst at Piper Jaffray, pegs the value of the home page takeover at between $15 and $20 CPMs, or $4 million to $5 million for a buyout per day. It’s not the first time Google has run a one-line tag on google.com to promote products. Munster says they did it for the Motorola Droid phone and the Chrome Browser.

The Mobile Marketing Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Dynamic Mobile Marketing Campaigns

read full article here.

TIME Magazine Names Motorola DROID Gadget of the Year

Wow, work it, droid. Motorola (NYSE: MOT)’s highly popular Android smartphone has been awarded the number one spot in time Magazine’s Gadget category for The Top 10 Everything of 2009. The justification for the top spot is very clear:

This is absolutely true – Google is providing the playground for manufacturers, and that’s it. It’s up to them to take Android and do something awesome with it, namely by way of hardware. Between this award and the upcoming Sholes, Opus One, LaJolla, and other mystery projects, Motorola’s ride with Android is looking promising. The iPhone 3GS was the only other mobile phone on the gadget list, and it managed to snag the number four spot, although it had been number one in the past. Tough break, iPhone, but what do the rest of you think? Was there a more worthy handset to earn the Gadget of the Year title? How about Phone of the Year? No Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre?

Jay Sullivan, Vice President of Mobile at Mozilla, makers of the Firefox internet browser, has said that the the company is aiming to have a release candidate version of their first mobile browser out next week and that a final version is due to hit the market in the next few weeks. Firefox Mobile will initially only be support on Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s Maemo 5 powered N900, but the goal is to bring the browser to Windows Mobile and Android in the future. Firefox for Mobile will have many features such as geolocation support, and in 2010 the browser will also gain:

• Support for multitouch displays, enabling a more blinged out user interface and shutting up the people who point to the iPhone’s web browser and say “I can pinch, you can’t, therefore you fail.”