Top Stories for the Week of Nov. 16 - 20, 2009

The mythical Google Phone is "no longer a myth, it's very real," says TechCrunch, in case you're keeping score. The supposedly Google-branded, Google-designed device could render days-old relics like the Droid phone instantly ancient. Of course, in this case very real means doesn't exactly exist yet, and this picture we have here is fantasy art on the level of H.R. Giger. Why would Google "infuriate its partners" who make phones that use Google's Android software , by competing against them?, asks Daring Fireball. "Maybe it thinks companies making Android phones so far are doing a crappy job," suggests Business Insider. Uh, maybe it won't compete because technically it won't be a phone, Crunch argues back: it could be a data-only VoIP thing, so you wouldn't have to sign up for phone service. You'd sign up for data service, and merely use it like a phone. "It's unclear how supportive the carriers would be of a data-only Google Phone considering it directly affects their primary business," notes Android Central. Unclear, indeed. Gizmodo said it best: "Right now, we don't know much of anything." (But we know we love you, Google Phone, and that may be all we need to know.)