ArcherMind has just unveiled the result of their collaboration with Chinese hardware makers, the first in-car navigation system based on Google’s Android operating system. Embedded with an ARM core processor, the system was shown off at the Embedded Technology 2009 event in Japan.

It’s exciting because we’re talking Android, but some other features include an 800 x 480 resolution 7-inch screen, a navigation system that allows you to surf the web, write and receive SMSs and to play audio books. Using 3G Wi-Fi and Bluetooth the system also features a hard disk drive, and an SD card slot for storage.

Most people have dismissed the once rumored phone as being the Google Android operating system, but word on the street is that Google has an actual piece of hardware is in the works. Apparently Google has an actual phone in the works.

And apparently the Google Phone will be even more exciting than the Motorola Droid, which is really saying something. Google won’t manufacture the handset, but will rely on a major mobile company while Google is in full control of design and specifications.

One of the things that I really hate about the mobile phone industry today is that they won’t just give you a good price. All of the carriers want to offer you a price that looks good, but what you really pay is often much more than that until a mail-in rebate comes in. Thankfully, Best Buy Mobile is cutting through the crap and offers all of the good prices with instant rebates in its stores.

The latest deals include the Sprint HTC Hero and Samsung Moment each for $99 with instant rebates applied. That means no paying more and waiting to get your money back. Both phones are originally priced at $179.

A sibling to the Galaxy, the i5700 has been rumored for a while. Now it has been made official by Samsung and dubbed the Galaxy Spica. Samsung’s latest Android-powered handset is just 13.2mm thick and features a 3.5mm jack, an 800MHz core, and built-in DivX support.

According to Samsung, it’s already out in Europe and will be coming to the Middle East and Asia shortly.

Android smartphones are very hot right now and T-Mobile is trying to land as many of the devices as it can. We have already talked about the Behold II from Samsung before. The device sports Android and uses the TouchWiz user interface.

T-Mobile has announced that the Behold II will be coming to the network on November 18. The features of the device are already known, but in case you missed them, I will go over them again. The device has a 3.2-inch AMOLED screen and a 5-megapixel camera with zoon and flash. The camera can record video as well.

Want to spend a cool $650 on a feature-rich digital photo frame? Today is your lucky day. This one is the first digital photo frame to be powered by Google’s Android. It will do RSS feeds and weather updates, along with the usual displaying of loved ones.

This 10.4-inch digital photo frame even has a dedicated email address of it’s own, allowing you to send your pictures to it for display. It will also grab images from sites like Flickr and Picasa. You can deliver your pictures to the device via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB or SD card.

Traditionally the vast majority of Samsung mobile devices run Windows Mobile. WinMo is falling out of fashion with many mobile phone makers and phone users in the face of competition from Android and other phone operating systems.

Reports are coming in that Samsung is going to be significantly reducing the number of handsets that it produces with WinMo and moving them to Android. Analyst Greg Noh claims that in 2010 the WinMo handsets in the Samsung line will drop from 80% range today to 50%.

Like a Jawa in the Tatooine sun, apparently Motorola managed to sell a whole bunch of DROIDs over the weekend. According to analyst Mark McKechnie at Broadpoint AmTech, they managed to move about 100,000 Droids during the opening weekend. Most stores moved at least half of their original shipments.

He also estimates that Motorola will sell one million Android-based phones in Q4 2009 alone (that includes the CLIQ). Looks like Motorola has something to celebrate.

Looks like Creative will upgrade its ZMS-05 processor to a next-gen version called the ZMS-08. The new system-on-a-chip is powered by a 1GHz ARM Cortex-8 processor, with support for 1080p H.264 video playback, OpenGL ES 2.0 and Flash acceleration.

It will find it’s way into portable media players and offers “low power, high performance” to devices like netbooks, web tablets, TVs, etc. The chip is supported by ZiiLABS’ version of Google Android and the company’s Plaszma operating system. Shipping is expected in early 2010.

You sure took your time Rachel. We’ve been waiting for you. Finally you have arrived, all officially like. The Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 Android phone is a first for the company.

It packs a 1GHz Qualcomm processor, a large 4 inch touch screen display, an 8.1 megapixel camera and of course, the Rachel interface that everyone thought was the name of the phone. The XPERIA X10 will not be available until next year though. By the time it does show up it should be one of the fastest phones on the market.

You might recall that sweet Android-powered eBook reader from Spring Design called the Alex that we talked about last month. Spring Design has filed a suit against Barnes & Noble over its recently announced Nook eReader for alleged IP infringement.

According to Spring, it was in talks with Barnes & Noble to partner to distribute the Alex when executives at Barnes & Noble misappropriated the trade secrets and violated the non-disclosure agreements in place between the two firms. Spring claims that Barnes & Noble made no indications of using the features of the Alex reader in its own product until the Nook was officially announced.

What with all of the Droid excitement, it’s easy to forget LG’s GW620, LG’s first Android smartphone. And so you won’t forget about it, the LG GW620 now has its own mini-site. The page appears to be a work in progress, but there are two video demos, some stock photos, and the user manual and spec sheet for download.

The GW620 will be a dualband UMTS (900/2100) quadband GSM device, with WiFi and Bluetooth. It has either 2GB or 4GB of internal storage, along with a microSD card slot, and a 5-megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash. The touchscreen is a 3-inch HVGA resistive panel, while the OS is Android 1.5 Cupcake with LG’s own S-Class UI running on top.

Looks like both TomTom and Garmin might be having a bit of a bad day to put it mildly, thanks to the announcement of Google Maps Navigation. As the graph shows, things are not looking good. Nope. Not at all.

GPS makers can at least take some comfort in the fact that the new Google Maps Navigation is available on Android 2.0 at the moment, which requires you to have a specific phone to download the maps real time. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

Google has unveiled Maps Navigation (beta), an upgraded version of the current Maps software that will be free and apparently available on all Android 2.0 devices. You get all of the usual Maps features, along with being able to search by the name of a business and it will even suggest the closest matches and traffic data.

There’s also turn-by-turn navigation with a female robotic voice and integration with satellite and street view. Street view will be able to show you what lane you need to be in when exiting the highway, for instance. It will also now search along the route when you’re looking for gas stations or fast food. Some addresses can be added to the Android home screen as icons too.

The Motorola DROID will hit Verizon on November 6th for $199 on contract. That’s after a $100 mail-in rebate. The DROID itself is the first of many Android phones coming to the carrier. There’s Android 2.0 of course, Visual Voicemail, a 3.7-inch display (854 x 480 resolution), 5 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, a bundled 16GB memory card and a beta version of Google Maps Navigation.

The DROID is the first phone to offer that last, which which will turn Google Maps into a turn-by-turn routing system. Some other features include a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 3G, WiFi, voice-activated search and over-the-air Amazon MP3 downloads.