Stefan Mileschin

Google has decided to delay the launch of its orb shaped Nexus Q.

The Q was supposed to be a cross between a streaming video box and an audio amplifier. It was Google's first end-to-end hardware project.

Google had released the hardware to reviewers who did not like it much. The general theme of the reviews was that the Q lacked usability and features. For $300 the reviewers expected it to run things like Netflix and there were better media players out there.

It seems that Google realised that it had a lemon on its hands and did not want to taint its hardware image so soon after entering the market.

Wired said that the Q was supposed to go on sale this month, but Google penned a letter to customers who had pre-ordered saying it wanted to add more features and functions.

It offered a "preview version" of the streaming device for free instead. We guess it has a few of them sitting around in store-rooms where they will have to be scrapped after the new one comes out.

The tragic part of the story is that the Nexus Q was pushed as proof that hardware could be made in the US and was part of the trend towards "reshoring" manufacturing operations.

http://news.techeye.net/hardware/goo...b-shaped-lemon