Yup, Google has done it again. This time they have purchased Aardvark, a site that uses artificial intelligence to find the right person to answer a person’s question. I’ve posted a few times on This Mobile Life about how great Aardvark is as a social question answering service. I still use it and still love it! Hopefully this will only make the service better (and perhaps we’ll see an Android widget for it).

(via Technology Review)

The past few years have brought Augmented Reality to the forefront of mobile life. With apps such as Layar and Wikitude leading the way, it would only make sense for even more things to fall in line behind what our cellphones and webcams can already do. Keiichi Matsuda has put together what he thinks the Augmented New World would look like and, I hate to say it but, I can see the future like this and it’s scary.

Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop

After playing with the HTC Eris I’ve only come to one conclusion, but you will have to read through to the end to see what that is.

Out of the Box
You can read my initial reactions here but straight out of the box I love how small the Eris is and how well it fit in my hand.

It’s really fast; there was some initial lag when I first started it up, especially when moving through the home screens, but over all this phone is just as fast as the Droid.

Play Time
You have all read the specs so I’m not going to bore you with the details that you’ve seen all over the web already. Playing with the Eris was fun and the Sense UI made it a joy to engage with the device. The lack of hardware keyboard will put some off but if you aren’t planning on typing much then this droid is the one you are looking for.

Since it isn’t running Android 2.0 there are some things that aren’t on this device that Verizon has advertised are on the Droid, namely Google Navigation, a slower browsing experience, and the older Marketplace. Of course an over-the-air (OTA) upgrade to Android 2.0 is rumored to be hitting the HTC Hero and HTC Eris in the near future so that could all change.

There’s not much more about this phone to say, it’s a great little phone — it is fast, reliable, and Verizon’s 3G makes it the best non-hardware keyboard phone the carrier has out. If you don’t like the bulk of the Droid or don’t need a hardware keyboard then definitely go check this little beauty out today. (Currently, for a limited time Verizon is selling the HTC Eris for $99.99 with a NEW 2-year agreement, $199.99 for existing customers.)

New reviews will be slow coming over the next few months as we are doing a site overhaul for the new year. Keep watch to see how things change around here.

Skyfire, the BEST mobile browser available (IMHO), has finally relinquished that dreaded Beta tag and has gone to version 1.0. Unfortunately there is no way to directly update Skyfire if you already have it installed on your phone, visit get.skyfire.com to download the latest release directly to your phone.

Alex Albrecht has released his first iPhone app — iLick! It’s a simple app and, although $0.99, I find it worth the download. It’s a funny app for a buck and brought a smile to my face on a dreary Friday evening. You can buy the app on the iTunes App Store.

[Image from cleanmyphone.com]

Kotaku picked up on a mod for the Blackberry that turns your boring device into a Pip-Boy 3000 from Fallout 3. The mod looks pretty good and actually works!

Pip-Berry 3000 [via Kotaku]

According to Jaunted.com, select airports in Texas are “experimenting with checking in passengers via QR code, or those curious black-and-white nouveau barcodes.” [via Jaunted]

Edit: You can read about I-nigma Reader, a free QR Code reader for Windows Mobile, here.

I was just curious today what Google says is the most popular mobile OS so I did a search on Google Trends. As you can see below, the iPhone’s popularity has risen at an amazing rate since the iPhone’s price dropped, while Palm’s popularity has dropped steadily each year. Of course, both Android and Windows Mobile’s popularity has been increasing very slowly, but Windows Mobile seems to be leveling off.

From everyone at This Mobile Life, we wish you a happy and mobile new year!