Google giving away ten GALAXY Nexus phones starting Saturday at 9am Pacific time

Starting Saturday at 9am Pacific time, Google is giving away copies of the Samsung GALAXY Nexus. The contest is open to those who follow @googlenexus and include @googlenexus in the body of posts that answer tricky questions. The contest is open in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, South Korea, United Kingdom, the United States and the District of Columbia. One phone will be won each day for a period of ten days and you can have one entry for each contestant per day.

If you don't have a Twitter account, you can take place in the contest by following Android in your circles on Google+. We would imagine that this could be like the contest that Radio Shack did for the HTC EVO 4G using their Twitter account back in September. Radio Shack's contest took place in one day with one phone won each hour for 9 hours. Expect questions about just about anything from math to physics to sports trivia, etc.

As an interesting side note, the 10th and last day of the contest is November 21st which has been rumored-along with November 17th-as being the expected launch date for the Samsung GALAXY Nexus on Verizon.

Samsung GALAXY Nexus officially announced in Canada by Bell Canada

The first carrier in the land of moose and syrup to introduce the Samsung GALAXY Nexus is Bell Canada. The carrier will be launching the handset, the first Android smartphone to be powered by Android 4.0, sometime next month. Bell Canada will have exclusivity for a period of time before other Canadian mobile operators start offering the phone.

While U.S. smartphone fanatics have been playing the brand new guessing game, "When will Verizon launch the Samsung GALAXY Nexus". we could see Big Red rollout this pure Google phone as early as this Thursday. We do know that those lucky blokes in the U.K. have already confirmed an November 17th launch of the Ice Cream Sandwich flavored phone with a Stateside launch to follow. After that, it is Canada's turn.

What has everyone so pumped about the Samsung GALAXY Nexus? Well, it could be the 4.65 Super AMOLED curved glass display with 720p resolution. Perhaps it is the dual-core 1.2GHz TI OMAP 4460 processor, the 1GB of RAM or the 32GB of built in storage. Looking for a microSD slot? You won't find one here. What you will find is a 5MP camera with AF and LED flash, shooting videos at 1080p. If there is some bad news to this announcement, it is that the version coming to Bell is the HSPA+ version, not the LTE model. But at least you might save yourself some battery life by staying off the LTE expressway while you download data at rates as high as 21Mbps.

You can register your email address to receive notifications from Bell about the launch of the Samsung GALAXY Nexus by heading to the sourcelink.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus uses some type of "fortified glass", after all

After Corning, the makers of the reinforced Gorilla Glass found in many smartphones and tablets, tweeted that the Galaxy Nexus is not using their product in its screen package, Samsung replied that the first Android ICS handset utilizes another kind of "fortified glass".

The company didn't specify which type, but there are alternatives out there to Corning's creation, which are not as public and advertised, but perform just as well.

Asahi's Dragontrail glass, for example, touts similar features, like being able to withstand 60 kilos on just 1mm thickness without shattering into pieces.

We don't know exactly what kind of "fortified glass" Samsung is using for the Galaxy Nexus, but are fairly certain it won't break in tiny pieces with normal usage, and should survive the occasional drop on the carpet, otherwise it wouldn't have passed the QA tests each new product undegoes.

Samsung Nexus Prime launch on 19 October

As you can see from the image, Google has erected its latest statue, Google Ice Cream Sandwich. Why? Because it has finally completed work on the latest Android operating system, Ice Cream Sandwich.

Not only has it erected that bizarre statue in its grounds, the company has also confirmed the date of the official launch, just over a week after the original scheduled date. The new date, according to All Things Digital, is 19 October, with the location being Hong Kong, which also hosts the AsiaD conference at the same time. Both Android chief Andy Rubin and a top Samsung executive are slated to speak at AsiaD.

While no specific details have been given, leading to initial scepticism of the launch, the event invite does show the Ice Cream Sandwich logo, as well as the logos of Samsung and Google, so not a lot of doubt over what is launching in truth. If it doesn't show, there will be a lot of frustration. Especially if anyone has flown in just for the announcement.

When the event does kick off at 3am UK time (so get the coffee in), we'll finally get to see the Samsung Nexus Prime in its full glory, not just a snapshot image. Be interesting to see the new OS in action too, over both smartphones and tablets. But it will also be interesting to hear when the Nexus Prime will be available and which devices will be able to cope with the upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich. If you are planning on upgrading to an Android phone, perhaps you'll want to hold back until after next Wednesday.