A black day for Microsoft and Windows Mobile … the Open Mobile Alliance did a great job in launching T-Mobile G1. For 3 years T-Mobile, Google and HTC worked on bringing the first handest of the Open Mobile Alliance to the market.

The features:

• Touchscreen
• Full slide out keyboard
• Multithreading
• Compass-Mode
• Android Market for new applications
• No out-of-the-box desktop-syncing … but the developer community will close that gap soon
• WiFi, 3G (UMTS dual band), GSM (quad band) – with GPRS/EDGE
• 3 Megapixel camera
• Bluetooth
• GoogleTalk presence service implemented in the phone book
• SIM-locked to T-Mobile

Available in the US: October 26th 2008 – $179 for the G1 with a T-Mobile voice plan plus a data plan. Data plan with unlimited data and 400 messages for 25$ option or an unlimited data and messaging plan for 35$.

UK: Early November 2008 and rest of Europe in the first quarter of 2009.

This add’s a lot of competition to the mobile handset market where Apple speeded up the innovation circle with the iPhone. So, let’s get ready to rumble!

Source/Video: Pressconference T-Mobile, New York Sep. 22, 2008, Picture: T-Mobile

Today at 10:30 ETC (16:30 MEZ) we’ll be enlightened: At that time the T-Mobile press conference begins in New York. The first Android mobile phone should be announced there. Even here at the Google Developer Day in Munich there is nothing specific new and interesting about the Android roadmap – the only news: wait until 16:30

The Announcement of T-Mobile is one of the first fire tests of the young mobile platform, which received early praise for it’s Open-Source approach. Now, we’ll see whether a revolution is possible in the closed-source-loving mobile industry … because the best mobile platform is worth nothing, if there aren’t any handsets and mobile data rates that make sense!

Pratik Naik from the Rails core team just published the announcement for a new Ruby on Rails hackfest: The person with the most patches merged into the core at the end of the month wins. In August, O’Reilly will handout a free pass to the RailsConf Europe. Keep on coding!

From Sept. 2nd to Sept. 4th 2008 the Ruby on Rails community will meet at the RailsConf Europe. It’s the third RailsConf in Europe and it will located in Berlin/Germany again. Last year, more than 800 Rails enthusiasts joined the conference – a great developer community event – and always the chance to drink your coffee besides one of the creative minds of the Rails Core team There is nothing that can replace the face-to-face communication within the community. So, I can warmly recommend joining the conference in Berlin to every Rails developer who is able to get there. And all those, who want to develop elegant web applications and do not work with Ruby on Rails yet – they should join us more than ever.
But there is an other group I miss a lot on Ruby on Rails conferences: Designers. Why? Because great application and interaction design and good web-application usability can only be achieved if developers and designers work closely together. That is why developers need to know something about design and designers need to know something about development.

So, I’m really happy that my  proposal, focussing on that issue, was accepted at the conference. In my double role as a designer and developer I’ll talk about

DESIGN ON RAILS FOR USABILITY … Or why designers should start to understand code and developers should start to sketch and use design methods.

I’m really glad be a part of the conferece in September – and to meet all these interesting people – and hopefully some codedifferent-blogreaders, too And please don’t forget to join Bratwurst-on-Rails on the evening before the conference starts.

The berlin Ruby User Group put their shoulders to the wheel for the Ruby-on-Rails-community: At the Kalkscheune, nearby the conference location of the RailsConf Europe 2008 they invite all Ruby-on-Rails-freaks to a socializing and networking event.

Last year it was a great and fun event – you’ll finde some pictures at Flickr. A great developer community shoud know how to party – and there is one thing I know for shure: Yes, we can

So, for all Ruby-on-Rails enthusiasts, who are in Berlin on the first of September – one day before the RailsConf Europe starts: Sign up for Bratwurst-on-Rails! See you there!

By now: Warm thanks in advance to the Ruby User Group Berlin for organizing this event!