Google just officially announced the Open Handset Alliance to create an open platform (to be called Android) for a Linux phone that can run mobile Google apps and others. The 34 partners include T-Mobile, Sprint Nextel, NTT Docomo, China Mobile, Telefonica, Telecom Italia, Motorola, Samsung, HTC, Qualcomm, and Intel. Here is the press release. Writes Andy Rubin, the man behind the Google Phone. :

Despite all of the very interesting speculation over the last few months, we’re not announcing a Gphone. However, we think what we are announcing — the Open Handset Alliance and Android — is more significant and ambitious than a single phone. In fact, through the joint efforts of the members of the Open Handset Alliance, we hope Android will be the foundation for many new phones and will create an entirely new mobile experience for users, with new applications and new capabilities we can’t imagine today

Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. It includes an operating system, user-interface and applications — all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation.

Reports started trickling out last week that Google is ready to announce its Gphone, or rather Gphones. It is more a reference design, than a single phone. Android-based phones will start to come out on the market in the latter half of 2008. One mobile startup CEO I know says he was contacted on Friday by Google and given the final go-ahead to port his app onto Android, which his company has not started to work on yet. The software development kit will be available on November 12.

Here is a video:

Google Spending Hundreds of Millions on Mobile
Reuters

Google Inc has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in its mobile google phone project and is currently courting U.S. and European mobile network operators, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

Recently Google had engaged Taiwan's High Tech Computer Corp to design a Linux software based mobile phone for launch in the first quarter of 2008 (US release).

Reportedly T-Mobile, owned by Deutsche Telekom, would likely be Google's U.S. partner with France Telecom's Orange selling the phones in other markets, perhaps including Australia.

Google had also approached the two biggest U.S. wireless services, AT&T Inc and Verizon Wireless, in recent months to ask them to sell mobile phones with Google service.

A person familiar with the situation told Reuters that talks between Verizon Wireless, owned by Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group Plc, and Google have ended without resulting in an agreement.

T-Mobile and Vodafone already incorporate Google search in their mobile Web service in Europe, while AT&T offers it as one of several Web search options.

Google said in an e-mailed response that it is "partnering with carriers, manufacturers, and content providers around the world," without giving further specific details.

It has said wireless was an increasingly important market but it has not announced plans to build a phone. It said last week that Sprint Nextel Corp would feature Google services on devices for a new wireless network the No. 3 U.S. mobile service is building.

Google has also developed prototype phones and talked over technical specifications with manufacturers including LG Electronics, The Wall Street Journal said.

Mobile advertising is still a relatively small market but advertisers and wireless experts expect this to change.

Google Gearing Up for Mobile Phone
T3

A new patent reveals Google's clever technology for predicting your needs.

Google is set to plunge headfirst into the mobile phone business later this year.

The search engine giant has filed a new patent describing an application that predicts what the user is searching for, or the words in a text message, depending on the user’s location, the time of day and his or her history of searching and messaging.

If you’re planning an evening out in town, the phone might predict that you are looking for a bar at 8pm and a pizza house at 11pm, based on your previous beer-drinking / pizza-munching search history. Once suitably lubricated and stuffed with food, you pull out your mobile – let’s call it the Google Phone – and it brings up a list of taxi companies to take you home.

We’ve already reported on Google’s possible entry into the mobile phone world, and this patent suggests the process is in full swing. Apple’s iPhone might have some tough opposition when it launches here in December/January.

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