There have been lots of rumors about the highly anticipated Android-powered, HTC Dream phone. Now it’s official. T-Mobile confirmed today that it plans to launch an Android mobile phone made by HTC. They are hoping to make it a direct threat to Apple’s popular iPhone.

A spokesman for Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile’s parent company gave no details on the launch date, but according to the New York Times, the phone will hit stores in the United States before Christmas. Maybe even as early as October. Apparently the device will have a touch screen and will slide out to reveal a full five-row keyboard.

I’m going to refrain from doing size doesn’t matter jokes, or perpetuating various stereotypes. Instead I’m just going to say that smoking crack while designing phones is not a good idea. The NEED Phone(As in I need a smaller damn phone) is the longest mobile phone concept we’ve seen yet.

You won’t find any extra features, aside from the fact that it makes a nice weapon. You won’t find a MP3 player, or video capabilities, or even a camera. It does have a touchscreen. In fact, it’s got 2 touchscreens. One is an OLED that displays basic info, while the other is where you do things like scroll forever. This thing is so damn long you could listen to your call on one end while your penis talks it’s head off on the other, for God’s sake.

The new Mobile TV service from AT&T that we first talked about back in March is now available starting this week for customers in 58 select markets in the United States. The service from AT&T in conjunction with MediaFLO streams live TV with over 150 different programs to mobile phone customers.

The service initial will work with just two specific handsets offered from AT&T – the LG Vu and the Samsung Access. The Vu is an interactive touch screen phone that will display video and web pages, has a music player, a 2MP digital camera and Bluetooth. It goes for $299.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate and a 2-year contract.

On Friday the long wait is over for many law-abiding citizens of the UK and Germany as the Apple iPhone will be (officially) sold for the first time in countries other than the United States. The iPhone will be sold through O2 in the UK and T-Mobile in Germany and surprisingly will still be lacking the fast and common 3G connection that is already prevalent with many existing smartphones in those areas. Pricing is expected to be 269 pounds in the U.K. and 399 euros in Germany, which both convert to roughly in the high $500’s USD.

The new iPhones are expected to be basically the same models that the U.S. customers have received although they will come preloaded with the OS X 1.1.2 version which has a fix for the latest hacks that allow 3rd party apps to run on it, which will make it just a little bit harder for hackers to unlock in the next go-round. Apple is likely betting that the cool dual-touch screen interface and media playing integration will overshadow the lack of high-speed data connections with 3G, and users will be satisfied with a jumping from hotspot to hotspot instead. France will be the next country to get their hands on the iPhone later this month through Orange where Apple may run into problems with French law and restrictions on locking phones to exclusive carriers.

This morning Google had a phone open phone conference and made the much anticipated announcement that they along with 33 other companies are starting the Open Handset Alliance. The first and main project of the newly formed alliance is called Android, an open development platform for mobile handsets. The ultimate goal for Google with this is to overall make a better, more usable phone with more features where consumers will benefit, and of course to show advertisements on it where Google will also benefit.

Eric Schmidt was present on the call leading things off, with a number of other captains of industry including Paul Jacobs of Qualcomm, Peter Chou from HTC and Ed Zander from Motorola. The members of the Open Handset Alliance include some big names like Google, HTC, LG, Motorola, Samsung, Sprint, T-Mobile, eBay, Intel, NVIDIA and many others. Some notable big names we’re not seeing on the member list are Microsoft, Apple, AT&T and Verizon.

Today T-Mobile has announced the launch of the new Shadow mobile phone from HTC. This is the first of a number of Shadow-branded phones that T-Mobile has planned for the future as devices that are “designed for people who have lives beyond work.”, according to Robert Dotson, president and CEO of T-Mobile USA. The device runs on an enhanced version of Windows Mobile 6 which hides a lot of the usually interface from Windows Mobile and replaces it with custom menus and navigation. According to T-Mobile the enhanced interface makes the Shadow more intuitive and easier to use.

Aside from this slider looking just plain good, it also features a spin navigation wheel, 2.6″ display (not a touchscreen), microSD memory expansion slot, a full QWERTY keyboard, Bluetooth, 2.0 megapixel camera with video capture, media player for music and video, Wi-Fi and EDGE high speed data. The Shadow also has an enhanced version of T-Mobiles myFaves where users can call, email, text, send a picture, send a video or send a voice note easily from the myFaves screen. It even has some instant messaging clients built in, including Windows Live Messenger, AOL IM, Yahoo Messenger and ICQ.

Motorola revealed today plans to debut its highly desired Razr2 mobile phone from major U.S. wireless carriers Alltel, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile USA, US Cellular, and Verizon Wireless. Specific availability and pricing plans are at the discretion of the carriers, though some are expected to make the phone available shortly.

The Motorola Razr2 is considered a significant improvement over the original Razr. This new model gives you a larger internal screen for what Motorola says will be an ability to have full HTML Web browsing. There will also be an external screen which provides “touch feedback” and lets users view media, music and messaging without needing to flip open the phone.

Today T-Mobile and HTC announced the unveiling of the T-Mobile Wing, available immediately through T-Mobile stores and online.

The Wing is the younger, thinner and improved version of the T-Mobile MDA which was launched in February of last year. It’s running Windows Mobile 6 Pro Edition taking advantage of the new application features from Microsoft, has a 2 megapixel camera, quad-band EDGE for data, Bluetooth, WiFi, a microSD memory expansion slot, QVGA 2.8 inch touchscreen display and a full QWERTY keyboard. The new mobile device also features Push email, myFaves, and the …