The gPhone Blog

A member "Madnezz" on the Mobile Burn Forums posted a Screenshot on the forums regarding some Survey he participated in a survey on the www.epic-surveys.com as the link shows up here :-



The Pic shown for gPhone therein was :-



He calls him a fool himself for not taking screenshots of the whole survey instead of that only one. According to him

i totally forgot to take a screen shot of the specs but they seemed decent, not mind blowing
had the usual in par of 3g/wifi etc, had a camera 2megapixal from what i recall, feel really stupid for now taking a screenshot of the specs not lol

Google makes relevant information and communication tools easily accessible wherever you are.
The Google Phone brings the power of the internet in your pocket, in a simple and intuitive device. It combines the traditional voice and SMS capabilities of phones with all the exciting Google services from the PC such as Search, Gmail, Maps, Blogger...
The Google Phone, designed by Samsung, is a very thin and stylish handset with a large screen and a QWERTY keypad so that it provides a real internet experience.
All these internet services will be available under a simple Internet monthly flat fee, comparable to PC Broadband products, giving you transparency and control over your mobile bill. Thanks to simple, relevant advertising, Google will even give you a 3 month discount on your mobile Internet monthly flat fee.

A blogger came up with a concept caller "The REAL GPhone.""..

It had become quite famous.. and got listed at many places like.. Techmeme


But when i went there to read it.. Unfortunately enough.. the post had been removed.. :(

Could not even get it on google cache.. I think this post had resulted into some controversy.. and Google using its powers got it removed from that site and even from its own cache.

But after 'wasting' some of my time going through here and there and 'googleling' for different keywords, I found what I was looking for.

Here it is :-
Quoted from Bruce MacVarish

Simeon Simeonov of Polaris Ventures offers inside scoop on the Google gPhone...

"Andy Rubin has a team of about 100 people at Google working on the Google Phone. So people have been paying attention. Andy was the founder of Danger and later Android, which he sold to Google in August of 2005. Andy is a systems guy and so it’s a good bet that he’s working on an OS for the famed Google Phone.

To help the cause, in July 2005 Google also acquired Reqwireless, a mobile applications company that has apparently played a role in developing the suite of Google mobile apps.

What is more or less unknown is that later in 2005, Google bought Skia. (That acquisition is not part of even the Wikipedia list of Google acquisitions and there is very little information about this on the Net.) Skia was founded by Mike Reed, a device software guru who’d built a very tight vector-based presentation engine. I looked the company as a potential investment in August 2005, a few months before Google got them. The demos I saw were pretty compelling given the early stage of the technology at the time and Mike certainly knew what he was doing."

And Charles Ying who downloaded the Skia code that Google open-sourced... and then saw Google remove the code... wonders what is the legal status of the Skia code he has now...

Last year, Google open sourced the Skia vector graphics engine and placed the code up on Google Code under an Apache license. I heard about it through the grapevine (not from Mike) and downloaded a copy to take a peek. Shortly thereafter, the code disappeared.

So a Google Phone leveraging a SVG / Flash-lite rendering engine optimized for Java on C++ that will be running Google Apps and VoIP (Gtalk or Skype?) with Google marketing the phone/services and carriers fulfulling behind the scenes for a slice of the revenue.

Quoted from

Both the Seattle PI and the Seattle Times have details about a group of technology companies -- including Microsoft and Google -- seeking permission from the US Federal Communications Commission to test a prototype device that uses "white space" radio spectrum freed up as TV stations go digital. Could it potentially be a way for these companies to offer mobile services without having to work with mobile carriers?


Microsoft is apparently building a prototype device to sense and make use of open radio spectrum. Google, along with Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Philips are part of the group asking the FCC to let the device be tested.

The companies have filed a letter with the FCC, which I've been unable to locate through the FCC site itself. If anyone finds a link, please add it to the comments. The Seattle PI story says that the FCC's Office Of Engineering & Technology asked for companies to submit prototypes for testing back in December. You'll find a bit more info from the FCC about that here (or here in PDF format)

Earlier this month, we reported on news that UK mobile providers have been looking to perhaps band together and lock out search companies. Over the past year, there have also been various reports of mobile providers concerned that content from people like Google or Microsoft burdens their systems without giving them revenue. It makes it easy to think that Microsoft and Google in particular might welcome a nice slice of radio waves to use for their own wireless devices.

On Jan 18th, 2007 Engadget showed the Google Switch.




This is what they said..

Color us skeptics on this one, but we've got a tipster claiming to have the scoop on Google Switch. This version of the mythical Googlephone is said to be the result of a collaboration with Samsung -- not Alpha Networks or HTC. Of course, it's a button-less touchscreen device as is the rage these days only this time with GPS built-in for pinpoint navigation around Google Maps. What's pictured in that all too familiar blur (Photoshopped?) is the phone's contact program said to be an extended version of Gtalk combining Gmail, text and instant messaging. According to our tipster, the device doesn't have any on-board storage. That's right, all your applications are served up over the network with new apps "attached" to your account via a web interface. So what is it... the real deal or engorged fanboy fantasy? Check the gallery below for biggie pics suitable for dissection.

On 14 November 2006, Google CEO said that Mobile phones should be free and should be monetized by ads.

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt sees a future where mobile phones are free to consumers who accept watching targeted forms of advertising.

Schmidt said as mobile phones become more like handheld computers, and consumers spend as much as eight to 10 hours per day talking, texting and using the web on these devices, advertising becomes a viable form of subsidy.

Schmidt told Reuters: "Your mobile phone should be free. It just makes sense that subsidies should increase [as mobile ads proliferate]."

He was speaking following a speech on the theme of business at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.

The Guardian reported that Google had tied up with Orange. This tie-up and its consequinces were very nicely explained here as follows.

The future for Orange could soon be Google in your pocket from The Observer talks about Google and mobile phone operator Orange apparently discussing the creation of a Google branded phone. I can't feel there might be a bit of hype here leaking from the Orange side. Google has a very tight partnership with Orange competitor T-Mobile in the UK. Google's preloaded on all those phones as a search default, plastered in T-Mobile brochures and so on. One quote especially makes me dubious:
A source close to the talks told The Observer: 'Google are software experts and are doing some amazing work compressing data so that the mobile user gets a much better experience. They don't know so much about mobiles, but they are eager to learn from Orange's years of experience.'

No, Google's only been doing things for mobile phones since at least 2001, when they set up the mobile search and page squeezing service many people think is a new thing. Yep, they don't know so much about mobiles. Thank goodness Orange can come in to educate them.

I'd say Orange has had great success in taking generic phones from people like HTC and redubbing them with the Orange brand (until recently, I was a proud Orange SPV C500 owner, so I'm well familiar with Orange).

Frankly, either my Verizon XV6700 or my T-Mobile MDA Vario II make it easy to surf the web and search with Google (or other providers). So I don't see a Google-Orange partnership as somehow being a big revolution to improve the experience as described:
But it would have built-in Google software which would dramatically improve on the slow and cumbersome experience of surfing the web from a mobile handset.

We'll see, of course. I could be wide of the mark, but I would think it's more likely that Google is looking to do perhaps a deeper deal with Orange that T-Mobile, perhaps by loading up phones with existing Google mobile apps. That's not quite a revolution, though it would be a boost to Google in the mobile space. Heck, maybe they'll even consider better support for the Windows Mobile devices they pretty much ignore.

News came on January 3, 2006 that Google got the CDMA patent??? shocking!!! was that it had applied for it in January 2006.

News from Alexadria, Virginia (home of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office) today that Google has been awarded a new patent in the wireless arena. It's far from search related but we still thought it was worth a mention since it's Google is a company many of you watch closely (understatement). From the way the patent reads (I'm far from an expert), it seems that Google has developed technology to make more data accessible at faster speeds on CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) systems.

Could licensing this technology to various wireless providers be a new revenue stream for Google?

Title: Baseband direct sequence spread spectrum transceiver
Application Filed: January 26, 2001
Application Awarded: January 3, 2006

Abstract:
A baseband direct sequence spread spectrum CDMA transceiver. The data signal is modulated with a Hadamard function having pseudorandomly scrambled rows. This data signal is then broadcast baseband, absent a carrier, by a relatively short, mismatched antenna. The baseband signal is spread out across the DC to 30 MHz spectrum. A low noise, high gainbandwidth product amplifier boosts the baseband RF signal. A correlator/servo system is used to actively cancel the transmit signal from the received signal. Consequently, the same antenna can be used to receive incoming baseband RF signals as well as transmit baseband RF signals, thereby providing full duplex operation.

From the Background of Invention:
The advantages of CDMA carry over into high-speed wireless digital access. Increasingly, wireless digital applications are being used to access digital data (e.g., the Internet, intranet, multimedia, business data, etc.) at high speeds. With high speed wireless access, mobile users can obtain instant access to the Internet, business data (e.g., stock market quotes, sales reports, inventory information, price checks, customer data, emails, pages, etc.), and other real time data (e.g., traffic updates, weather information, sports news, etc.). The goal is to provide cellular handsets, personal digital assistants, portable communications devices, etc. the ability to transmit and receive digital data as well as make conventional telephone calls. The trend is towards ever faster mobile data speeds to meet customer demands. With greater data speeds, it is possible to provide even more data to more users. Recent CDMA based standards such as IS-95 and 3G are proposing increased data rates and capabilities.