Google Postpones Indefinitely Shipments of Nexus Q Home Media Streamer
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The giant search, Web services and media device provider alerted via email customers who had pre-ordered the $299 device that it is holding off shipments "while we work on making it even better."
Google's Nexus Q, the futuristic-looking, globe-shaped media streaming device that the company introduced June 27 along with the Nexus 7 tablet, is not shipping on the schedule the company originally planned. In fact, the ship schedule has been postponed indefinitely. Nexus Q units were supposed to start moving to customers two weeks ago.
The giant search, Web services and media device provider alerted via email customers who had pre-ordered the $299 device that it is holding off shipments "while we work on making it even better.
Nexus Q (pictured below right at Google I/O launch event June 27) offers users access to TV shows, movies, magazines and other content through Google Play, the companys online media store. The official name is the Nexus Q, but Google personnel just called it the Q.
The globelike, cloud-based device streams photos, audio and video from Googles cloud (and Google+) into any room in a home. In fact, guests at a Q-equipped home visiting for a party can take over control of the Q and change the music and/or movieshould the host not object.
Once it is indoctrinated into the Google cloud, the Q can be moved around to various locations in the house as needed. The company said it put a lot of time and effort into the R&D to come up with the globelike form factor. Instructions (queued-up videos, photos, music) for the Q can be handled by the new Jelly Bean 4.1-powered Nexus 7.
The device can be controlled by an Android smartphone or tablet, but the content is not streamed through those devices, but from the cloud through the Nexus Q to the home entertainment system. Around the equator, if you will, of the ball is a tiny LED band that pulses along with the music being played. 
Chris Preimesberger was named Editor-in-Chief of Features & Analysis at eWEEK in November 2011. Previously he served eWEEK as Senior Writer, covering a range of IT sectors that include data center systems, cloud computing, storage, virtualization, green IT, e-discovery and IT governance. His blog, Storage Station, is considered a go-to information source. Chris won a national Folio Award for magazine writing in November 2011 for a cover story on Salesforce.com and CEO-founder Marc Benioff, and he has served as a judge for the SIIA Codie Awards since 2005. In previous IT journalism, Chris was a founding editor of both IT Manager's Journal and DevX.com and was managing editor of Software Development magazine. His diverse resume also includes: sportswriter for the Los Angeles Daily News, covering NCAA and NBA basketball, television critic for the Palo Alto Times Tribune, and Sports Information Director at Stanford University. He has served as a correspondent for The Associated Press, covering Stanford and NCAA tournament basketball, since 1983. He has covered a number of major events, including the 1984 Democratic National Convention, a Presidential press conference at the White House in 1993, the Emmy Awards (three times), two Rose Bowls, the Fiesta Bowl, several NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments, a Formula One Grand Prix auto race, a heavyweight boxing championship bout (Ali vs. Spinks, 1978), and the 1985 Super Bowl. A 1975 graduate of Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., Chris has won more than a dozen regional and national awards for his work. He and his wife, Rebecca, have four children and reside in Redwood City, Calif.Follow on Twitter: editingwhiz
