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Today, a special event is scheduled to take place at Google‘s headquarters in California. If the rumourmill is to be believed, Google may be unveiling its own Android-based phone which goes by the name Nexus One.

Some of the specifications that are available indicate that  the hardware is manufactured by HTC and that the operating system is the brand-new version 2.1, also known by its codename Flan.

Version 2.1 of Android seems to speed certain operations up a bit, though it’s likely the 1GHz Snapdragon processor has something to do with that. The device has both 512MB available for its ROM and its RAM and features a 480×800 touchscreen and a 5MP camera in addition to the now standard network connectivity hardware. A MicroSD card slot is provided for additional storage. The device is extremely sleek – see the full specifications here.

The Nexus One is for sale on Google‘s web store – unfortunately, the device is presently not for sale to South African residents.

I’ve had the pleasure of using an International Edition Amazon Kindle for a bit over a week now. Yes, there’s a writeup coming soon, but in the meantime the obvious gadget envy that occurs immediately after the packaging of a purchased device has been torn open has already begun: Barnes & Noble is selling the Nook. Everyone is waiting for the Apple Slate or Tablet or whatever that’ll be called. And now, some pictures of a very attractive Android device have surfaced. This Android is named Alex and is described in more detail on the MaximumPC site.

The images on that site show a slim device with an e-ink top screen and full colour bottom screen.

The controls in the bottom part of the screen are for easy navigation through content displayed in the larger top screen. Otherwise, the colour display shows photos, videos and is able to run applications in a touch-screen environment. There’s a 3G modem and wireless LAN adapter to grab content, whilst the screen is able to display 3fps animation. That’s certainly a cut above the Kindle which takes about 2 seconds to refresh its screen. Web browsing will be possible on this device. The good news is that Alex could be on sale within the next two months and will add to the frenzy that has become the electronic reader market.