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The Internet is all a-Twitter with talk of Google’s latest phone, dubbed the Nexus One.  I say “latest” because Google has had a hand in several phones before, including the T-Mobile G1 and others.  Sascha Segan at PCMag.com points out the fact that Google is hardly new to the foray of mobile phones.

That’s not stopping others from proclaiming the imminent doom of Apple’s iPhone, though.  Alex Salkever at Daily Finance has a point, though, with this rant about the continual network problems that plague AT&T, the iPhone’s only authorized carrier.  The recent network outage in San Francisco and AT&T’s refusal to acknowledge it as well as their point-blank admission that their network can’t handle the iPhone users’ heavy traffic may have sealed the deal for many smart phone buyers.

As all of this was happening in the tech rumor world, Google’s new phone was being tossed around the blogosphere with leaked pictures and whispered comments about its specs.  So the Nexus One is introduced in the way so many Google things appear to be: through the underground.

And now, Time Magazine has announced its finalists for the Person of the Year.  That list includes Steve Jobs of Apple, who was recently named CEO of the Decade by Fortune.  Of course, he’s competing against the Iranian Protesters, whose green-clad Twitter hordes are voting them to the top, and President Barack Obama, who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize while simultaneously sending more troops to war.  It’s doubtful whether Jobs has much of a chance against those kinds of cults of personality.

The real problem for the iPhone is really just AT&T.  The iPhone itself is a great platform, no matter who you ask, and there’s a reason it’s been the leading smart phone for so long, despite attempts by other companies to compete.  The Achilles heel of the iPhone is its network exclusivity and that seems to be what Google is targeting with their Nexus homing missile.

The problem for Google is the carrier networks.  There are three different spectrum bands using two different radio standards.  This is in part because of the licensing required for the phone carriers to use the radio bands that mobile phones operate on and partly because of exclusivity deals.  Of course, 3G is available on three of the four carriers, but coverage is so limited that it’s all but useless right now.

So an unlocked GSM phone from Google may not be the iPhone killer the current blog meme would love it to be.  Price tags will be another issue, since without locking into one carrier, Google is not likely to be able to sell their phone at a price that competes with the iPhone, who receives heavy contract subsidies from AT&T.

Further, using the GSM network as Google is proported to be doing, limits the Nexus One to only AT&T and T-Mobile.  While this directly competes with the iPhone, it leaves the Android-using masses on Verizon and Sprint out in the cold.  Perhaps Google plans to release two versions of the phone, one for each network?

One can only dream.  Meanwhile, most of us will just keep using our iPhones and hope that AT&T figures out how to improve service somehow.

Designing sites is not usually a simple task.  The designer usually knows the general audience the site is geared towards, but often doesn’t get much feedback on the site’s appearance until a lot of work has already been put into the project.  Sometimes, something obvious to a visitor won’t be to the designer.

Tools like Usabilla.com aren’t a new idea, but they are definitely evolving into something very useful for the design team.  Where sites like IntuitionHQ are aimed towards client collaboration, Usabilla is aimed more towards surveying and commenting from other designers, friends, clients, or prospective site users.

The setup works fairly simply.  You create a design or sets of designs, create a test on Usabilla for them, and then write a series of questions for users to answer.  Then you open the test up for invites and have users go check it out and leave their feedback, answering those questions.  The feedback is analyzed and shown in graphical statistics which can be exported in PDF or PNG formats.

You can see which area of the design is most likely to generate clicks, what portions of the design are most memorable to users after seeing them, and so forth.  A lot of valuable feedback can be quickly received this way.

Usabilla is free to use and just came out of beta.  It’s headquartered in Amsterdam with a team of developers lead by founder Paul Veugen.

Once in a while, something comes along that makes you go “Wow, I can’t believe I didn’t think of that!”  RoomAtlas.com is one of those.  The site is a mashup of Expedia, TripAdvisor, and Google Maps.  It combines the real-time database of hotel availability from Expedia with the reviews at TripAdvisor and the mapping capabilities of Google Maps.

Searching for a hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark right now, for instance, will show you only sparse availability.  But those that are there (probably because Al Gore canceled) don’t just get marked on the Google Map of the city.  The marks also include overnight prices, availability times, and more.  Clicking on them takes you to booking and more information.

The best part is that finding what you’re looking for is quick.  At the RoomAtlas front page, for instance, you can search for location and then once inside, you can narrow your search by hotel type, and even required amenities (spa, pool, etc.).  The map shifts to your location and all of those matching your criteria are displayed on it.  Quick and easy.  The tabs marking each hotel, for reference, are color-coded by price so you can more quickly find the cheapest or most expensive.

The site doesn’t charge a premium, but monetizes through affiliate collaboration with Expedia and Hotels.com.

A very awesome, very useful site.

Google Labs has introduced Image Swirl as a test platform for alternative image searching and viewing.  It works similarly to the Wonder Wheel, but for image searches rather than standard queries.

It’s a cool concept, pulling similar results form your search together into “stacks.”  Each stack is from a specific site or sites that are very similar in subject matter, so the images under the stack are likely to match as well.  When you choose a stack, you’re presented with a Wonder Wheel-like circle of the images within that group as well as sub-groups of more, related images.

Google’s Blog says that “Image Swirl expands on technologies developed for Similar Images and Picasa Face Recognition to discern how images should be grouped together and build hierarchies out of those groups.”

The search capabilities of this new tool are expanding rapidly, now at over a quarter of a million searches.  The capabilities of the search are limited by processing time, as each “stack” and related spoke on the “wheel” are algorithmically-determined.  This takes a lot of processing power, of which Labs has a limited supply.

The tool is very cool  and fun, though.  Search for free-hand things to see what it comes up with.  In the example above, I used one of Google’s suggested searches (DaVinci drawings), but I also tried World Wrestling, lolKatz, and (of course) pizza.

We’re getting closer to that Minority Report virtual screen where grabbing and moving, manipulating, and organizing images and information as it hovers in front of us becomes normal.  Fun!

If you’re eco-conscious and wondering how green those items at the store really are, well.. Now there’s an app for that.

GoodGuide, the product green rating site, has developed an iPhone app that uses your phone’s camera to scan the barcodes on items at the store and then retrieve their green creds for you.  The information is based on company practices, the product’s production cycle, and other information.

The information is said to be independent, scientific, and based on health and wellness as well as environmental data.  Products are given a rating from 1-10 in (appropriately) green dots under the product’s match information.  GoodGuide boasts a database of over 50,000 products so far, with more added daily.

Ratings are delivered with an overall and three categories, depending on the product type.  Food items will have health matches, for instance, while household cleansers would have environmental and toxicity ratings.  GoodGuide also tracks what is being scanned so that those products scanned most often without a match are put higher on the list to be rated next.

The app is available for free from the iTunes Store.  It uses Occipitat’s RedLaser barcode scanning technology, which integrates with the iPhone’s camera, and the GoodGuide online database of product information.

Are you part of the 9-5 daily mob that hit the streets in the morning and drags yourself home at night, spending as much time on the commute (it seems) as you did at work?  Then what happens if you have to deviate from your usual plans to meet someone or because of transit or road changes?

Well, have no fear!  The iPhone has a lot of apps geared towards the problems commuters face.  The built in maps and compass are just the beginning.  Here are three that most will find indispensable.

Aha: Stuck in traffic?  Wondering what the heck is going on up there, holding everything up?  Ask and ye shall receive, kemosabe!  Aha gives real-time traffic information based on your GPS location and route (direction).  It also shows you possible ways around the obstacle or where to turn off if you’ve got an imminent potty break coming.

Transit Maps: If you ride public transit (buses, subway, etc.), this is the app for you.  It links to your public transit authority and downloads the latest maps as PDFs, which are easily read on your iPhone.  These are the latest, most up-to-date maps the authority will have to offer and you won’t have to wade through their website on your phone looking for them.

Bike Your Drive: Not interested in driving?  Proud to be green on your two wheeler?  Then REI can help you with their little app.  Using your iPhone’s GPS, this app shows you the best bicycle route and even gives you the feel-good kudos by showing you how much gas you saved and how many calories you burned (not including that Snicker’s you ate en route).

These awesome iPhone apps prove two things: getting around isn’t nearly as hard as it seems to be and it’s always true that “there’s an app for that.”