Sony Ericsson's Xperia X10, formerly code-named "Rachel," is just way too hot for its own good. It's a great looking phone, and running Android on a 1GHz Snapdragon processor puts internal beauty in-line with external. You're going to pay a hefty price for the allure, though. According to the Wall Street Journal the phone will run $879 off contract. Yes, you read that correctly. $879.

If anything scares away American cell consumers it's high sticker price. Anyone walking around a carrier's showroom would practically vomit to see such a price, even after you'd explained the contract system in full detail. That's probably why Sony Ericsson is looking for a carrier to partner with on this side of the pond. The company has never made much of an impact over here, mostly because of high prices.

Though the article didn't mention, it seems plausible that the search for a carrier has delayed the phone's release. The product page used to list a February launch. That's gone now, back to TBA in the meantime.

If you didn't pre-order your Nook, you won't be seeing a holiday arrival. Barnes & Noble announced today that it had sold through the initial order and wouldn't have more before the holidays are out.

"While we increased production based on the high consumer interest, we've sold out of our initial Nook allotment available for delivery before the holidays," said a company statement. It's not a huge delay - any order placed from today forward will be filled on January 4th. Anyone who pre-orders up to that date will receive a holiday certificate. Sometimes those are the best gifts. Right when you thought the festivities were over there's a package on your doorstep.

B&N announced the delay after Sony did the same for its "Daily Edition" ereader yesterday. Despite the high price of ebooks and still limited functionality, ereaders seem to be one of the hottest items on the world's gift list. Amazon's Kindle and Kindle DX are both in stock and ship immediately.

Source: Reuters

Google had its official Chrome OS reveal today, finally giving us some screenshots and a whole lot of Q&A to dig through over the coming weeks. YouTube is flooded with new footage of the OS in action, so I'll leave you to watch it while I cover the more general details here.

First and foremost, Chrome OS is about speed. “We want Google Chrome OS to be blazingly fast," said Sundar Pichai, Google's VP of product management. It should be so fast that it will be able "to boot up like a TV," according to Pichai. If you're trying to figure out whether or not your TV has a boot time, just think of the time it takes for the screen to warm up to fully vibrant color. That's how quickly Chrome will go from pressing the power button to ready to check email. About 7 seconds. Now that's fast.

Most of that speed comes from the shift to web applications from traditional local applications. Everything in Chrome OS will be managed on the web, even Photoshop-like functionality (though that will come at a later date). For consumers it means no more software updates or hardware backups. The first will be nice, but I'm sure people will have trouble getting used to trusting their data to Google (let's just avoid the discussion of how that's already the case, shall we?).

A lot of people wondered why Google would need two operating systems. The company says that Chrome OS is all about the web, while Android is more app-oriented. Chrome, much to my surprise, won't support any Android apps. Pichai and Sergei Brin were pretty clear about the intentions for Chrome - that it's all web, all the time - and that it won't share in Android's Marketplace.

Check the gallery at Gizmodo for some official screenshots.

It's been a long time since we've heard anything about Michael Arrington's CrunchPad, the slim little web tablet the TechCrunch founder was developing. As Arrington has it, though, the project is moving forward, headed for production at some still unannounced date. The price has gone up from the original $200 to somewhere between $300 and $400.

A few months back everyone thought the CrunchPad was dead, doomed because of rising production costs. While the price has gone up, the new range is definitely reasonable, but what about the features? The longer the CrunchPad gets delayed, the less likely that it can really be competitive. Apple already has a desirable tablet in the works and ereaders like the Nook are getting sturdy enough to make the CrunchPad look irrelevant.

I can't say a November release for $400 would have been better, because that's the weird price point everyone seems to want to avoid. At this point, though, the CrunchPad needs some new life, or it's going to be a huge flop.

Source: YouTube (Gillmor Gang)

Rumors that Nokia might take a look at purchasing Palm resurfaced today, giving Palm stock an eight percent bump. It's a deal we've been hearing about for months, though not always with Nokia as the buyer. There have also been rumors that Dell or Microsoft could nab the struggling mobile company.

Let's consider the Nokia thing for a minute, though. I would be amazed to see it drop the estimated $2 billion to purchase Palm, especially since Palm isn't exactly going gangbusters. Stock dipped 30% after this same deal failed to mature in September. So why would Nokia spend so much just to acquire the company, not to mention the marketing that Palm needs to stay alive, when the Finnish handset manufacturer is bleeding market share to Apple every day? It just doesn't make sense.

Palm's struggling stock is a clear reminder that the company needs help, but I don't think it would bring enough value to any of the potential buyers to make a deal reasonable. If anything, Nokia could license WebOS for a facelift on a few devices, but even Palm's operating system seems to have an expiration date looming in the near future.

Joe Hewitt's been unhappy with and outspoken about Apple's app approval process since about the time he started working on the Facebook app. Well he's finally had enough. According to a recent, tweet he's done working on the app and ready to move on.

Time for me to try something new. I’ve handed the Facebook iPhone app off to another engineer, and I’m onto a new project.

Hewitt also said in very clear language that he left iPhone development because of Apple. Speaking to TechCrunch he said, "My decision to stop iPhone development has had everything to do with Apple’s policies. I respect their right to manage their platform however they want, however I am philosophically opposed to the existence of their review process." As are a lot of people, but to this point no one with Hewitt's resume has made the same decision (Arrington left the iPhone for a different reason and he's not a developer).

Hewitt's in a better position to "quit" then some developers, though. He's got a swanky gig at Facebook, where he'll still be developing after his announcement. A house like Tapulous, on the other hand, is making enough money off the App Store that it's unlikely it will leave, and we probably wouldn't hear about one of its developers quitting because of a philosophical opposition like Hewitt's.

Instead we'll probably continue to see the trickle of policy changes Apple has made over the last several months. The most recent allows developers to see real time status updates about the app, so when it's sitting in "waiting for review" you can start throwing around some lawsuits.

Apple has been slowly stealing Nokia's market share since the release of the iPhone, but this past quarter it finally passed the Finnish handset manufacturer. By a mile. Well, half a billion dollars actually, but that's not how the saying goes.

At first glance it might not seem like terrible news for Nokia. According to research firm Strategy Analytics the company still leads in overall handset share, shipping over 108 million handsets in the third quarter (compared to 7.4 million iPhones). But that actually makes the news worse. Nokia is selling more phones - nearly 15 times as many - but losing in profits by 50% of what the company earned? That's insane, and it's a trend that will likely continue. Apple has put the iPhone on multiple carriers overseas to great success, something we'll likely see stateside in the near future.

The Strategy Analytics report points to several factors for Apple's success, high subsidies and low manufacturing costs among them. There's no reason those things should change for Apple anytime soon. Enough people want the iPhone that carriers would be crazy to boycott the phone based on the price. It's a problem that points back to branding. If you asked a hundred people what an iPhone is I'd guess 85 or more could tell you, most in great detail. Ask about an N97 and you might get 10. 15 tops. How long before the same can be said for Nokia itself?

Today Samsung announced that it was entering the open mobile operating system business with a service called "bada." It's still unclear as to the plan for the system, but we at least know that it's not for smartphones. Yes, Samsung has designed a feature phone OS with its own SDK to lure in developers. And by "lure" I mean attract so few developers that the plan is scrapped for a stripped-down version of Android in the next year or two.

There are precious few details about the operating system. The press release tells us that the word bada means "ocean" in Korean, which "was chosen to convey the limitless variety of potential applications which can be created using the new platform." Awww, your optimism is so adorable, Samsung. Really, that's about all we know. The rest is coming in December, which is when Samsung will release the SDK. Wait - an SDK release just a month after the OS is announced? Are you watching this, Palm? Hmm?

If you haven't heard of the Twitter account "shitmydadsays," you should check it out. Written by a guy named Justin Halpern, the site is supposedly just what the account name suggests - a running list of anecdotes from this guy's grumpy old curmudgeon of a father. According to the bio on the account, Justin says, "I'm 29. I live with my 73-year-old dad. He is awesome. I just write down shit that he says[.]" Things might change around the Halpern household, though, unless Justin is in desperate need of new material for his TV deal. Yes, the Twitter account has turned into a TV deal for Halpern.

The deal for the show came from CBS, with Warner Bros. set to produce. Halpern is actually going to write the show, and will be working with Will & Grace creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick. I'm still so shocked I feel like I should rewrite the whole thing to see if it makes any more sense. The weirdest part is that the account doesn't even have that many followers. Sure, it's grown exponentially, but exposure on sites like TechCrunch will do that. But 700,000 followers = TV deal? CBS must really like the content.

Maybe that's the part that isn't so surprising, and actually turns out to be kind of reassuring. I think Halpern's funny - damn funny, in fact - so it's kinda cool to see a network pick up something with a little potential. Now, if we could just get them to stop cancelling shows like Arrested Development.

Source: TechCrunch

There's a worm spreading among jailbroken iPhones in Australia that makes one hilarious modification. The virus changes the iPhone wallpaper to a picture of Rick Astley. Luckily for those who have picked up the bug, there is no malicious code involved. It's just a stunt by a 21-year old who hopes to get a few laughs and get people to get a little more serious about phone security.

"The virus itself is not malicious and is not out to hurt people. It's just poking fun and hoping waking people up a little," said the creator, who lives in Sydney. For those of you who are unaware, jailbroken phones can be accessed using the password "alpine" for SSH control. If you don't change the password upon jailbreaking, anyone with a little tech savvy can add or remove files to/from your iPhone.

Luckily for you, the fix is really simple. Just load up Cydia and get the MobileTerminal app, and then use the "passwd" command to make the necessary change. And do it now. Rick Astley may seem harmless, but he's just a gateway drug to much more serious problems.