My Nexus One Google Smart/Super Phone keeps freaking me out.

Sunday, I entered an address into the map feature to get directions to somewhere in Painesville. A few  G3+wifi+1 Gh+HD moments later... bingo. Turn by turn - map with arrows - click on the stick figure and you have streetview photo panoramas that are amazing. Click another button and BETA - Google Navigation - a lady says "Drive 1000 feet to Euclid and turn right."

Did I mention everything about this phone is voice recognition empowered - damn good voice recognition. If it wanted, it seems, it could pick-up and translate to digital every word it hears... with remarkable accuracy. Use it for dictation.

Did you read that - it hears YOUR words and makes them text - a phone that makes everything text... from Google... the search-engine people. Text = Google. They love text. This is a text creation machine. Google is a text commercialization machine.

And Google is now an image and video creation, distribution, datawarehousing and commercialization machine.

And Google talks back.

I couldn't get the Google Lady to speak, when I wanted her to - I couldn't get her to tell me the next step.

I closed the Beta Navigation feature and just looked at the online directions and map - I knew where I was going, and that I wouldn't get lost with this phone. I checked email, looked at a few more websites, and shut-down the phone and headed to my meeting.

As I got outside to the car, damn if that Google Lady didn't say "Drive 1000 feet to Euclid and turn right" again, from my pocket, from the phone I thought I turned off.

I turned "on" and unlocked the phone and there was my map... and my Navigator was sitting in the passenger seat. She directed me every step of the way.

She also would have gotten me a ticket, for illegal left turn at Euclid and Superior (Beta), if I hadn't used my own mind and paid attention.

Of course, no matter how lost I may get, she will get me back on track - she is tracking me to the feet.

Besides the ticket-challenge, she did a beautiful job guiding me to Painesville... and kept me company along the way.

They should have a chatty version, for boring drives... "Slow down, you're speeding... little hard on the brakes, aren't you... have you been drinking..."!

Dial 911... "help... my master is driving drunk"?

Interesting potentials.

I didn't plan to buy a GPS device, when I bought my Nexus One, but that is what I got as a bonus, and it is nice to have with me if I need it. That's worth over $100 to many people.

And some people pay good money for a voice to text dictation capability... did I just "save" another $100 on an electronic device I don't ever need to buy?!?!

My kids love watching videos on it... do I not need a DVD/LCD in the car, saving $100s, should I want that?

The Nexus One is in fact like an electronic Swiss Army Knife.

In the few days since I activated my Nexus One, I've felt less need to carry my laptop or professional video and still cameras, as this device adequately addresses my everyday on-the-road needs. Most of the time, I don't need more than the 5 megapixel still photo capability, and the high quality video of the Nexus One, and the 32 GB SD card storage (can always carry a spare).

The cost for comparable digital still and video capabilities would be $100s... and everybody wants that.

Being open source, the Nexus One also offers a new world of free information services and applications at your fingertips - this device is designed to save and make people money, not cost money.

But do I really want Google translating my every word into data, and storing that... selling ads on that - tracking my every movement... connecting all that to my web activity... knowing if I speed. It feels creepy...

Except, with the Nexus One you may choose to live in 1984, or turn all that off. The Nexus One is open technology, open carrier, and open source - you may choose your carrier, and even prepay for service as you go, and easily turn off all wireless communications and tracking, and be as safe with a phone as you are with a Linux computer.

Unless you believe in spirits, and then anything is possible.

When I turned on my Nexus One tonight, before writing this, it had decided to take me directly to "The Eternal Home of Ed Hauser, on REALNEO".

I think Ed and the Google Lady are trying to tell me something.

He loved multimedia, freedom, and being open source.