They were going to CHANGE EVERYTHING. Whoops. presenting five biggest technology disappointments of the past year. No, not Vista and the Kindle — you didn't expect anything there.

We heard a rumor that Google executive Marissa Mayer, scheduled to appear at a Churchill Club event tonight in Palo Alto, may be demonstrating a cell phone running Google's Android operating system — that is, the fabled Googlephone. We'll believe it when we see it — so by all means, if you're going, snap a photo and send it in.

Bug Labs, a startup making an open-source mobile gadget, is releasing its first "Bug" prototype next month. Founder Peter Semmelhack tells Silicon Alley Insider that the device can run any operating system, including Google's barely released Android OS — the project many mistook for the launch of a Googlephone. By Google's definition, any phone running Android is a Googlephone. So if you want to call the Bug a Googlephone? We're totally okay with that. (Photo by Silicon Alley Insider)

Responding to my call for developers working with Google's Android phone platform, retrogamer Jeff Katz emailed to say he's porting his game, RoTwist, to Android. Paul Scholz went one better and emailed us screenshots of his rotating menus, seen after the jump.

There is no Googlephone. I told you so. Again, and again, and again. But it's still sweet to hear it directly from a Googler's mouth, as in this clip above introduced by Sergey Brin.

"I don't know of a single developer who has had his/her hands on Android," says Valleywag honorary staffer Robert Scoble, referring to the open-source software development kit for Google's new phone platform. I don't know of any, either. That's odd, because ponytailed hackers usually make it a point to tell me about these things as a way to rub their snob status in the face of the hated, hated mainstream media. Sorry, where was I? Oh yeah: If you're actually working with Android code and aren't at Google, drop me a line.

WhatsOpen, the stealth startup behind the first known Googlephone app, is quietly admitting to people in the industry that it is using Google's Android OS for cell phones for its mobile app which tells users which nearby stores are open. As the wags at Gizmodo noted, the killer app for Android is figuring out where to get a beer at 3 a.m. Other than that, WhatsOpen's secretive founders are anxious to downplay their ties to Google. After Google billionaire Sergey Brin was spotted asking a WhatsOpen executive to keep his company under wraps, people widely expected a noiseless Google takeover.

For all you crybabies who complained that we quoted him out of context mwah mwah mwah, here's the long version of the short version of the wit and wisdom of John C. Dvorak. The guy impresses me, to be honest. He's made a career of pretending to have idiotic, badly-written contrarian opinions. He drives irony-challenged tech workers berserk. Their angry clicks turn Johnny the C's publishers a tidy profit. And like skunk-chasing dogs, the geekboys come back for more. After the jump, a Dvorak twofer: He tees off Apple and Google kooks in one post. Which I've edited, so you can get back to work.

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There's one thing in last Sunday's New York Times profile of Andy Rubin, the man responsible for Google's nonexistent Googlephone, that did not compute. Why isn't Rubin loaded? After all, he cofounded WebTV, which Microsoft bought in 1997 for $400 million. He should have raked in more than enough from that success to fund Android, the mobile-phone startup Google bought in 2005. Instead, Rubin had to hit up his friend and WebTV cofounder Steve Perlman for a $100,000 loan. Where did the money go? One insider sneers, "Too many ex-wives cleaned him out." Anyone know if that's all there is to the story? (Photo by Jim Wilson/The New York Times)

Remember WhatsOpen.com, the stealth search startup that piqued Google cofounder Sergey Brin's interest last month? Brin was so intrigued he told the founders to keep the company hush-hush. Now, however, a source has leaked screenshots of WhatsOpen's secret project. The company has a Web application which shows users nearby stores and their operating hours — "what's open." Click to viewBut I'm told by a source that WhatsOpen has also written the first wireless app for Google's new Android operating system. (You may know Android better as the software behind the still-mythical Googlephone.) Demo screenshots after the jump.

Do electric sheep dream of Androids? The announcement of Google's gadgetless phone alliance yesterday started the rumors flying: Journalists already have them! Scoble didn't get one! Well, true, he didn't. But the credible rumor is that the only lucky people who've got them are developers. Java developers. The most elitist, snotty kind of developers, Java coders are to the Valley what bisexual Green Party bicycle activists are to San Francisco. Which seems dumb, given how easy Java is compared to, say, C back before they put the plus-plus training wheels on it. Anyway, the point is that if you don't already have a Googlephone, you aren't going to get one.

Time has named Apple's iPhone its invention of the year. The iPhone is a big deal, but not for any of the reasons Time cites. The nonrelease of the Googlephone just highlights what Apple gets about consumers, and what Google doesn't. Apple knows how to design not just gadgets, but the businesses that go around them. And as a result, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple is worth more than Google within two years.

Now that we all understand that there will be no Googlephone, what are we to make of the laughable "industry initiative" Google has come up with in its place? The most notable thing about it is not who's in the Open Handset Alliance group, but who's out: Microsoft and Nokia. And why are they out? Because they already make cell-phone operating systems. Much has been made of the notion that Google will license its new cell-phone OS, Android, for free. And much has been made of the possibility that Google will introduce compelling new mobile apps. But will either promise amount to much?

Gizmodo editor Brian Lam and I had the following conversation on AIM this morning:

Google has announced a sweeping alliance with 33 companies in the wireless business — but no Googlephone:

You'll learn many things from the New York Times profile of Andy Rubin, the Google employee in charge of its secretive wireless project. That he has a retinal scanner on his front door, for example. Or that he almost struck a deal with telecom pioneer Craig McCaw before Google bought his latest startup, Android. What you won't learn? That Rubin actually has a Googlephone coming to the market. That, of course, is because there is no Googlephone

Ready for a Googlephone? Wait until Monday. A source in the wireless industry tells me that Google is already quietly briefing reporters, under embargo, on its mobile plans — and that an announcement could come as soon as next week. The first partner? T-Mobile. It makes perfect sense. In 2005, Google bought Android, a startup founded by Andy Rubin. Before Android, Rubin ran Danger Research, the designer of T-Mobile's Sidekick. But if you're all hopped up for a Google-designed piece of hardware, you'll be disappointed by the announcement, whenever it comes.

Here's the newsflash: Not only is Google not making its own cell phone, it's hoping other people will do most of the work of coming up with new software. Honestly, are you people dense? I don't know how many times I have to tell you this: Google is not coming out with a Googlephone. But the idea is clearly so entrancing that tech reporters keep returning to it, as in a new Wall Street Journal article. The short version: Google will announce plans that, instead of involving its own models of cell phones, will work with existing carriers and handset makers.

I've been saying it for ages: There is no Googlephone. Last week, at the Web 2.0 Summit conference, I finally got confirmation that Google's not getting into the cell-phone business. How? I overheard a rep from Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer, chatting up a vice president at Google. Now, I know this particular executive is utterly guileless; she wouldn't lie. And when the Foxconn rep tried to pitch her on getting a contract to make the Googlephone, she replied, flat-out, "We're not making a Googlephone."