Google Working on a Mobile Phone?

An anonymous reader writes "Are the boys from Mountain View planning a move into mobile hardware? silicon.com has been encouraging analysts to dissect rumours that the search giant has designs on building a mobile. It says 'If Google were to get into the device game, it would be more likely to concentrate on the wi-fi side of things — perhaps a single-mode VoIP phone optimised for Google services such as Gmail.'"

Comments

Yes, it's going to involve two cans...

[Anonymous Coward]

how will it work? They'll be attached. They'll call it G-string voice transmission technology and patent it.

Re:VOIP phone?

[aslate]

"What I want is a mobile device about the size of a credit card and as thick as a CD jewel case. You unfold it two or four times (depending on how much screen real estate you need ATM), and rubber keys magically inflate to give it some tactile feedback goodness."

Where do you plan on keeping the electronics and battery!? Or is it "Magic powered" and needs a recharge from a magician every 12 hours?

Re:Pure Data Phone

[DJ Paradox]

I'm imagining a phone optimized for ALL the Google apps. Think Google Earth with built GPS receiver in the phone! Think Google Mail and Calendar all integrated with your phone - online storage and low bandwidth front end, etc, etc. Think Google Youtube with the ability to send an MMS to upload movies you've shot with your Google phone.

Wicked! I'll take two!

Re:Phone book...

[daeg]

Future /. search queries:

[+bjs -herpes +catholic type:girl_______]

Your search did not match any users.

[+cheapdate -herpes type:girl___________]

Your search did not match any users.

[type:girl______________________________]

Your search did not match any users. Did you mean type:guy?

Why would Google do this?

[91degrees]

Google is a web service company. Branching out into electrnics makes no sense. I could imagine them banching into mobile services, and maybe even partnering with an exisiting company to make a specialised handset, but making a mobile phone? It doesn't mnake sense.

Re:Why would Google do this?

[hey!]

Google is a web service company.

Is it? It wasn't so long ago, after all, that it was a search engine company.

One of the interesting things about Google is the options that its enormous technology assets give it. Google maps and Google mail are in a sense a side effect of Google's technological capability of handling massive amounts of data and requests for that data.

One mysterious thing they have been doing is buying/leasing lots of dark fiber. Dark fiber is capacity that was added when long distance cables were laid, because the marginal cost of adding capacity was negligible compared to the cost of running the cable. 97% of the fiber in the US is "dark".

Possibly a web services company might by some dark fiber to link its data centers together, but reports are that Google is investing as much as 1.25 billion dollars. That's a lot of dough to spend on something you don't have explicit plans to use.

Cringley thinks they are preparing for the time in the not too distant future that video brings the Internet to its knees, in which case they will step in and offer a solution -- for a price. Given the YouTube acquisition, it seems plausible that they're thinking in that direction.

But one thing that is clear is that while they are not a communications company like Sprint is today, they are at least keeping the option to do something that involves moving tons of data around. If they do, those companies already in the business aren't going to be happy. If they were preparing an entry into wireless services -- well, that's a market that's begging to be shook up. If you've ever used TCP/IP over a cell phone, and needed to call support, you'll know that wireless companies are really ambivalent about it. They don't want to become pushers of commodity bandwidth.

Maybe Google is contemplating an end run around the net neutrality debate. Wireless companies are the poster children for the evils of non-net-neutrality. If the move towards wireless skews the market toward the current wireless providers, the Internet will be balkanized into a bunch of minimally connected proprietary AOLs. This would be bad for Google, which mostly makes it money off of people accessing data held by third parties. On the theory that the best defense is a good offense, the best time to react to that is now when they have the cash.

News?

[tom17]

I don't see why this is news. Google has been working on my mobile phone for years!