GADGETS

Google Inc.’s announcement last year that it would give away software that could run cell phones was met by dizzy accolades from analysts who thought it would let the search engine company conquer the world of mobile advertising.

Today, a fruit of that announcement is set to drop: T-Mobile USA will reveal the first phone to use Android, Google’s software platform, at a New York news conference.

But a lot has happened in the world of cell phone software in the intervening year, and Google looks set for an uphill battle in trying to capture the desires of consumers and wireless carriers.

Research firm Strategy Analytics estimates that T-Mobile could sell 400,000 phones this year, giving Google about 4 percent of the U.S. market for “smart” phones.

The new phone, called the G1 according to T-Mobile’s invitation, is widely expected to be a design from HTC Corp. of Taiwan, which has made a name for itself by making smart phones that use Windows Mobile software. Based on previous Google demos of its software, it’s assumed that it will have a touch screen and a slide-out, full-alphabet keyboard.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week, citing unnamed sources, that the phone would sell for $199 and carry the Google brand. It’s likely that the phone will go on sale in a few weeks.

MUSIC ON MEMORY CARDS: Just as vinyl once gave way to compact discs as the main physical medium for music, could CDs be replaced by a fingernail-sized memory card?

Perhaps not entirely, but SanDisk Corp., four major record labels and retailers Best Buy Co. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. hope that albums sold on microSD memory cards will at least provide an additional stream of sales. The companies plan to sell memory cards loaded with music in the MP3 format, free of copy protections.

Called “slotMusic,” the new format is meant to address two intertwined trends. Most albums are still sold in a physical format — 449 million were sold on CDs in 2007, while 50 million were sold digitally, according to Nielsen SoundScan — yet CDs are decreasingly popular. Albums sold on CD dropped almost 19 percent last year.

Given this, the record labels are hoping slotMusic can be another physical revenue source — and one that is more versatile than CDs, given the kinds of gadgets people carry around these days. Many cell phones and multimedia players support microSD cards.