Google announced today that they are closing the Nexus One web store, six month after it was first launched and one day after the announcement of Second Quarter 2010 financial results. Nexus One web store seems to failed to live up to Google’s expectations.

Google officially launched Nexus One back on January 5, 2010 at a price of $529 without a plan or contract, or a subsidized $179 when purchased with a T-Mobile two year contract.

It was first introduced as a “Superphone” with Android 2.2, 5.0 megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash and digital zoom, GPS receiver, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, and 802.11b/g  WiFi capabilities, in addition to a 3.5 inches multitouch-capable touchscreen and a 1 GHz Qualcomm  QSD 8250 Snapdragon ARM processor.

Nexus One will continue to be available sold by partners in Europe, Korea, and possibly other markets in the future, and Customer support will still be available for current Nexus One customers.

The good news however is for Android developers, since Google will be offering the Nexus One through a partner for sale to registered developers.  Visit the Android Market Publisher site and log into your developer account to purchase a Nexus One.

Loïc, the guy behind the French Android portal Point GPhone, announced today his first Android game : Soccer. As its name indicate it’s a soccer game where you have to shoot free kick and compete against the best football teams in the world in different levels of increasing difficulty.

Once all levels unlocked, you will have access to a time attack mode that allows you to measure yourself against players from all over the world through an online leaderboard (the competition is fierce!).

The game is played in landscape mode, you will have to switch your phone yourself when the game begin anyway. Also I’m not sure why the release date is just after the Worldcup 2010 ?! A free soccer game might get noticed better during the event, and without a vuvuzela. Anyway Soccer is free and you can get it from Android Market.

Google have just announced App Inventor, a new tool in Google Labs that makes it easy for anyone – programmers and non-programmers, professionals and students – to create mobile applications for Android-powered devices.

App inventor will not only make Application development for Android easier, but it will even change the way people use their mobile phones. We have previously mentioned that Google Android is targeting developers, and today we are discovering that it’s trying to make application development easier even for non-programmers.

No other mobile platform will be able to compete with Google on this side. The only negative point for Android remain the differences/incompatibilities between versions, especially that we started already talking about Android 3 – Gingerbread.

From App inventor website :

To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer. App Inventor requires NO programming knowledge. This is because instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify the app’s behavior.

An online development environment will definitely make a revolution for the Android platform, even if you will say that applications will be limited in features compared to advanced programming capabilities.

With App Inventor you can create location-aware applications, for example to help you remember where you parked your car, an app that shows the location of your friends or colleagues at a concert or conference, or your own custom tour app of your school, workplace, or a museum. Or simply apps that use the phone features of an Android phone such texting, camera, sensors, … etc. But if you are more familiar with webservices you will be able even to interact with your favorite websites such Amazon and Twitter… etc.

App Inventor  gallery already include apps such :

DROIDMuni : displays schedules for the San Francisco transit system. After the user selects from one of the transits lines and choosing a direction and particular stop, the application will display the lines next arrival times. Once the user has retrieved the desired arrival times, they are able to set up to four favorites which are saved and stored based on their unique e-mail address. Using the DroidMuni remind feature, the user can set a reminder to be notified when a bus is a specified number of minutes away.

ParkIt : allows users to locate their car on their Android phone. After clicking the “Park It” button, the app stores the users car’s location until the “Find It” Button is clicked. The “Find It” button displays the user’s current location, and the user’s car’s location using latitude and longitude. When the user clicks “Show On Map”, GoogleMaps is activated, and the route to the car is displayed.

Drum Kit : allows the user to hit seven different parts of a full, labeled drum kit and hear each drum’s respective sound. This app allows the user not only to learn more about the drums (i.e. the names and sounds of the drums), but also to have fun and create their own beat.

Super Hero Game : a fantastic Quiz game that tests the users true Super Hero Knowledge. Each screen shows a different character from a superhero world and asks a question pertaining to that picture. The user types in the answer and clicks submit. The program responds with a RIGHT or WRONG and the user is prompted to go on to the next question. The question will change as well as the picture. If the user wants to quit at any time they can GIVE UP and the program closes.

Where’s Speedo : allows a user and a users friends or family find each other. The app detects the user’s location and sends it to the users friends or family using the app. The app allows the user to view the location of another user on a map. It also allows the user to set how often the app sends his/her location.

I think we should expect more amazing apps from this magical inventor ! Behind the app inventor a research work conducted in MIT including the Open Blocks Java library used by the blocks editor, Open Blocks visual programming which is closely related to the Scratch programming language, and Kawa Language Framework and Kawa’s dialect of the Scheme programming language used to translates the visual blocks language for implementation on Android.

App inventor is still invitation only, and you can complete this form to get an invitation when available.

irontec have just launched an open source project to bring PHP to Android platform. PHP for Android project (PFA) aims to make PHP development in Android not only possible but also feasable providing tools and documentation. The project already have an APK which provides PHP support to Android Scripting Environment (ASE). To get started you can follow the screencast below :

APK and source code both available at http://phpforandroid.net. Minimum requirement to get PHP for Android running is Android 1.5 phone or emulator. There is even an unofficial ASE build with PHP 5.3 support included. Now Rasmus can get an Android phone and start scripting on mobile.