Motorola Razr

>Hello Kitty is back. And this time she's taking no prisoners with a touchscreen cellphone which does calls, photos, music, video, SMS, games, FM radio, MMS, has a memory card, and is pink. Meow.

It even comes with its own matching purse and complements. For $142, I don't really know what else do you want, really. [eemobi via Fashion Funky]

There are loads of games in the App Store for the iPhone/iPod Touch, but if you want to save money and space, which are the true essentials? Here are our 10 must-haves.

While there are enough good games in the App Store to fill up multiple pages on your iPhone or iPod Touch, you don't need that many, nor do you need to spend that much money. If you focus on filling certain genres with single games and not doubling up on multiples, you can make yourself the ultimate "games page" of apps. Here's the list.

Touchgrind: This skateboarding game was designed from the ground up for the multi-touch iPhone platform, and it shows. The completely unique control method of using your fingers as legs on a skateboard immediately makes sense and is totally addicting. As you get better, the new skateboards that are unlocked with high scores continually feel just within your grasp. $4.99

Galcon: Galcon is a space-based strategy game that delivers super-short games, which is perfect for the iPhone. Rather than getting dragged into games you won't finish, Galcon lets you play a bunch of one or two minute games. You can refine your strategy with each game, and every time you lose it's just too easy to try again. Lite: Free; Pro: $4.99

Fieldrunners: Many call this the best game in the App Store, and it's tough to argue with them. A tower defense game with a super-high degree of polish, this is the definition of addicting. Basically, you want to set up weapons to stop soldiers for storming your towers. You earn more cash for more weapons for every guy you stop, and you lose health for every guy who gets through. And then you can't. Stop. Playing it. $4.99

Line Rider iRide: You've probably played Line Rider on the internet in some form or another: you draw a bunch of lines, then a little man on a sled gets tossed down your makeshift track. The controls are simple and work great on a touchscreen, and you can play in short bursts, saving your maps for later. It's intuitive enough that there's virtually no learning curve, but you can spend countless hours working on your masterpiece of sledding physics. $2.99

Uno: You know Uno, you love Uno. But here's a version that involves no pesky shuffling. If you're more of a poker fan you probably went for Texas Hold 'Em, which is cool, but if you ask me, Uno is a much more fun card game. After all, what fun is poker when you're gambling with pretend money? $5.99

Rolando: This is a wonderful, cartoonish platformer that uses simple controls that are easy to learn but are used in increasingly complicated and challenging ways as the game progresses. You control a series of little balls—Rolandos—by tilting your iPhone and swiping up to jump. But you can control many of them at once, and there are also obstacles and switches you can manipulate. It's got a high degree of polish and will suck you in from the first level. $9.99

Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D: This is our favorite racing game, despite not being fully sold on the accelerometer controls of iPhone racing games. But because of that, you really only need one, and this should be it. Great graphics, good stability and plenty of variety add up to make this the essential iPhone racing game. $5.99

SimCity: This port of SimCity 3000 is stunning. This is no gimped version of SimCity, dumbed down for a touchscreen. It's the full game, complete with advisers and all the building types you can handle, with intuitive touchscreen controls. Finally, you can build the epic metropolis of your dreams whenever you sit down and have a few minutes to kill. $9.99

Touch Hockey: FS5: Air Hockey on the iPhone is just like regular air hockey, minus the high probability of getting one of your fingers smashed with the puck. Simply put your finger on the mallet and try to score some goals. It's also fun to play with two people, with each person holding an end of the iPhone. And hey, no quarters required. Lite: Free; Pro: $1.99

Trism: This is essentially a modified version of Bejeweled, and if you know that game then you know why you'd want it on your iPhone. It's a classic puzzle game, one that makes the transition to the touchscreen beautifully. You're trying to get three pieces of the same color together to make them disappear, and depending on how you're holding your iPhone, the resulting tumble of pieces will happen in a different direction. It adds a new level of strategy to the game while retaining what made the original so awesome. $2.99

[A Bonus 11th game, From Brian: I'd like to add Motion X Poker Quest to the list for its amazing use of the accelerometer and in game physics used to roll the dice, as well as beautiful graphics and sounds and addicting game play. ]

A new company is offering parents another tool to prevent their teenage drivers from sending text messages while driving. Textecution sits quietly in the background and allows the user to use their phone as normal. Once Textecution recognizes that ...
(follow link to read)

Even though we've been waiting, well, just about forever for Garmin's Nuvifone, a marketing director in Asia has confirmed to DigiTimes that Garmin-labeled Android phones are in the oven. Well, maybe not: UPDATED 12:13PM/1:28PM EST

Update 12:13PM: Eric at Information Week called up Garmin US for their comment, and apparently they were just as surprised as we are at the DigiTimes's report, saying:

Garmin media relations manager, Ted Gartner, said that, "There were many inaccuracies reported by the DigiTimes." He also said that Garmin is working on a statement to debunk most of the "facts" reported by DigiTimes.

Not an outright denial, but we'll stay tuned for the aforementioned statement.

Update 1:28PM: Annnd, here it is:

Garmin Disputes DigiTimes Report

CAYMAN ISLANDS—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN), the global leader in satellite navigation, is disputing a Monday, December 22 report in the DigiTimes trade publication entitled, “Garmin expects to ship 18 million GPS PNDs in 2008.” The story contains a number of inaccuracies in both sales figures and product rollout schedules.

“Black Friday sales from our customers were what we expected and gross margins remain relatively strong,” said Kevin Rauckman, Garmin’s CFO and treasurer. “However, the December sales environment is weaker, which we attribute to our retail customers’ desire to exit the year with lower levels of inventory.”

As is customary, Garmin will update investors during its fourth quarter 2008 earnings call, scheduled for February 25, 2009.

Yep, no word at all about the Android phones specifically. The lack of a denial, plus the fact they're in the alliance means there's still a possibility.

Now, your regularly scheduled news pre-update:

You may recall that Garmin was one of the more interesting new members into the Open Handset Alliance, the fraternity of Android-friendly companies that just recently accepted a few new pledges. Whether these phones will have a worldwide release or stick to Asia only, as many of the most recent Android announcements have, remains to be seen. [DigiTimes]

Motorola is rolling out three new handsets that'll be available in the next few months. While the concepts are relatively up-to-date (eco-friendliness, military ruggedness, touchscreens), why did Motorola choose designs from 2002?

The Renew W233, a bright yellow candybar, is allegedly the first phone made from recycled water bottles. It also costs 20% less to manufacture, has a carbon neutral footprint, and a Motorola promise to invest in renewable energy programs. Great, except ugly phones are a tough sell to even the most dedicated of environmentalists.

The Tundra VA76r is a military-spec, rugged PTT clamshell. It comes with CrystalTalk Plus, which uses a second microphone to filter out and reduce background noise, as well as a 2MP camera, stereo Bluetooth, aGPS and support for a 4GB microSD card. I guess ruggedized phones aren't supposed to be the prettiest things, but seeing the same design rehash from last year is boring.

The Surf A3100 is a touch-based replacement for Motorola's Ming. It'll have a 2.8-inch display, quad-band GSM/EDGE, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and two cameras—a 3MP with autofocus and a secondary VGA for videophoning, as well as support up to 32GB microSD cards. The catch is, it's only coming to Asia. Motorola has spoken, and it's said the U.S. cain't have nuthin' nice. [Phonescoop]

A judge upheld an earlier decision that bars Sprint Nextel from providing wireless services in areas covered by iPCS. iPCS had sued Sprint and Clearwire in hopes to block the merger of the two companies' WiMax businesses. iPCS is ...
(follow link to read)

Anticipating a selection of QWERTY-less handsets to run the platform in the near future, the next version of Android will have an onscreen keyboard, among other things. Here's what it'll look like.

The two most notable aspects of the keyboard are its style and its method of feedback, which are both slightly derivative. You may recognize the keyboard styling from HTC's TouchFlo 3D handsets, which are skinned very similarly, albeit with an inverted color scheme. It diverges, however, in its visual feedback; instead of simply magnifying the key around your finger, Cupcake displays a disembodied duplicate at a fixed distance above the original key, for an effect not unlike the iPhone's onscreen keyboard.

Not shown in the video are some of Cupcake's meatier features, namely the video recording and browser find functions. The robust, if unrefined, preview of this keyboard serves to show that developers are taking Android dev seriously, and that the platform could well turn out to be the evolving OS that we originally hoped for. [MomentaryLapseofReason via ModMyGphone—Thanks, Neerhaj]

Here's a list of the very best gear we've seen this year. It's more bragger's guide than buyer's guide—if you have any of this, you can officially tell your friends to suck on it.

The year winds to an end and every product worth a damn has already hit store shelves—there's not going to be any new shiny coolness until next month's CES. We were lucky enough to have a look at most of the best gear out there, and we've passed judgment on all that we saw. Here's a complete list of great products, yanked from our first looks, reviews, and epic Battlemodos:

TV & HOME THEATER
TVs:
Panasonic 65VX100U Plasma
Pioneer Kuro Elite PRO-111FD Plasma
Sony Bravia XBR8 LCD
Panasonic PZ850 Series Plasma
Samsung 650 and 750 Series LCD
Honorable mention for value: Toshiba Regza RV535 Series LCD

Surround Bar:
Yamaha YSP-3050 Sound Bar

Blu-ray Player:
Pioneer Elite BDP-09FD
Samsung Netflix BD-P2500
Sony PlayStation 3

Blu-ray Movies (with iTunes/WMV Digital Copy):
The Dark Knight
Wall-E

CAMERAS & CAMCORDERS
DSLR Cameras:
Nikon D300 and D700
Canon EOS 5D Mark II with HD video
Nikon D90 with HD video
Canon Rebel XSi and Rebel XS
Honorable mention for value: Sony Alpha A900 and Alpha A300

Point and Shoot Camera:
Canon SD790

Crazy Hybrid Camera/Camcorder:
Casio Exilim EX-F1

Mini Camcorders:
Kodak Zi6 HD
Pure Digital Flip Ultra

COMPUTERS & ACCESSORIES
Laptops:
MacBook/MacBook Pro
Lenovo X300
MSI Wind

All-In-One PC:
Vaio LV

Routers:
Linksys WRT610N Dual N-Band Wireless Router

Router/NAS:
Apple Time Capsule

NAS:
HP MediaVault mv2120

Mouse:
Logitech MX 1100 Mouse

Keyboard:
SteelSeries 7G Pro Gaming Keyboard

iPod/iPhone USB Dock:
Griffin Simplifi iPod-iPhone Dock/Card Reader/USB Hub

PHONES & PORTABLE DEVICES
Phones:
Apple iPhone 3G @ AT&T
Sidekick 2008 @ T-Mobile
Samsung Instinct @ Sprint (after firmware update, it's officially better than Verizon's LG Dare)
LG Decoy with docking Bluetooth earpiece @ Verizon
Sony Ericsson W890i @ Europe only; unlocked may be available

Phone Stereo Headsets:
Maximo iMetal iP-HS2 Isolators
Shure Music Phone Adapter to use with your current earphones

In-Ear Headphones:
Etymotics hf5
Shure SE110
Ultimate Ears metro.fi 2

Pico Projector:
Aiptek PocketCinema V10

GPS:
Garmin Nuvi 785T with lane guidance
Garmin Nuvi 880 with speech recognition

ASSORTED CRAZY STUFF
Flashlights:
Wicked Lasers Torch Flashlight
Duracell Daylite CR123

Toy Robot:
U-Command Wall-E

Cheap Night Vision Goggles:
Jakks Pacific EyeClops

Unmanned Vehicle:
Draganfly X6 UAV

Spy Gadget Book:
Spycraft by Robert Wallace and H. Keith Melton

Water Guns:
Super Soaker Sneak Attack 4-Way

—With reporting by Erica Ho

OpenMoko built the first 100% open-source smartphone—hardware and software both—when Android was but a glimmer in Larry and Sergey's eye. But now, the FreeRunner hardware is officially kissing its open-source cousin OS, Android.

Whether it's viewed as a natural move forward in the name of openness or a sign that no one in the world will ever use OpenMoko's own open-source OS—iMAndroid have some blurry-as-hell shots of the FreeRunner hardware running Google's open-source OS alternative. Either way, huge credit is due to OpenMoko, for fighting the good fight early on.

Still, the reliance on only 100% open hardware components means the FreeRunner is still hobbled by a GPRS-only data connection; that's late-90s tech, and for a data-heavy platform like Android, could be a monumental pain. Or maybe it will be the first Android phone with a battery that can last more than 12 hours without needing a reboost? Rounding out the specs is more typical smartphone fare: wi-fi, AGPS, Bluetooth, microSD slot, and a 400 MHz Samsung processor.

Price and availability are not yet available, but I would reckon CES will shed a bit more light on things. [iMAndroid]

We had a strong suspicion before, but this release memo over at BGR appears to confirm that T-Mobile will get the Curve 8900 and the 8-megapixel Samsung Memoir (which has gone by a number of different names through its FCC process) on February 18. In other shocking news, the 3G-equipped TM506 will be available in January in...RED! [BGR]