Google hints at making mobile telephone
Monday 14 December 2009
Latest in News
On Facebook
Life & Style blogs
Online House Hunter: Hard sell
How much would you reduce the price of your house by to achieve a sale? Our Online House Hunter look...
Not sick enough for hospital, not well enough to cope
Another day, another report concluding that “integration” is what will save a health and social care...
Gok’s Teens: The Naked Truth (if, by truth, you mean extreme simplification)
I stupidly thought we were getting somewhere and moving on from blaming all our weight-related probl...
The Internet on Saturday buzzed with renewed rumors of Google making its own smartphone, after the Internet powerhouse said it is internally dabbling with a mobile device.
Google workers are trying out a device that "combines innovative hardware from a partner with software that runs on Android to experiment with new mobile features and capabilities," vice president of product management Mario Queiroz said in a blog post.
Google is seeking feedback in a process it refers to as "dogfooding" in which innovations are tested internally before being offered to the public on the basis that employees should be willing to "eat our own dogfood."
"This holiday season, we are taking dogfooding to a new level," Queiroz wrote.
"Unfortunately, because dogfooding is a process exclusively for Google employees, we cannot share specific product details. We hope to share more after our dogfood diet."
The Android-based mobile devices are being shared with Google workers worldwide, according to Queiroz.
The blog post came a morning after Google workers evidently excited about getting "Google phones" exchanged comments on wildly popular microblogging service Twitter.
"ZOMG we had fireworks and we got the new Google phone," one Google worker said in a tweet. "It's beautiful."
ZOMG is texting slang that originated as a typo of an acronym for "Oh My God" but has come to be used when the phrase is meant a bit sarcastically or while stating the obvious, according to the online Urban Dictionary.
A growing number of US telecom carriers and manufacturers have been adopting Google's open-source Android software in bids to challenge the Apple iPhone and Blackberry from Research in Motion.
Technology industry tracker Gartner predicts that Android-based smartphones will capture 14 percent of the global market by the year 2012, as compared with a mere two percent today, according to a report in Computerworld.
- 1 The Ten Best Scotch Whiskies
- 2 The 10 best knife sets
- 3 The ten best Valentine's Day gifts for men
- 4 Lonely? Shy? Sad? Well now you're 'mentally ill', too
- 5 RIBA's latest exhibition charts the changing face of the British home
- 6 Cheese-only restaurant opens in London (just don't expect Cheddar)
- 7 EU drive to protect drug firms puts fight against Aids at risk
- 1 Charlotte Church stands alone as hacking victims settle
- 2 Isabelle Caro, the face of anorexia, dies at 28
- 3 Lightning kills an entire football team
- 4 I was born to be a killer. Every night I see the Devil in my dreams
- 5 Cambridge students' twin tragedy
- 6 Did Banksy's latest work bring misery to a homeless man?
- 7 Mona Lisa's 'twin sister' is discovered – 500 years late
- 8 Scottish town where green is beyond the pale
- 9 Night in the cells accidentally became two years in solitary
- 10 The ex-gay files: The bizarre world of gay-to-straight conversion
Free trial of new Independent iPad app
Get your daily dose of the best of British journalism, sponsored by American Airlines
Win a three-week coastal jaunt
Spend three weeks exploring every nook and cranny of gorgeous Atlantic Canada.
Amazing restaurant offers
Three glasses of free champagne and a special menu at 46 top London restaurants.
Latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
Day In a Page
Eat it don't tweet it: Do table manners still matter?
The 10 best knife sets
Once a Redgrave: Joely Richardson
First Night: In the Land of Blood and Honey

Comments