Google Phone

So it turns out that the rumours are probably true and that Google are making a mobile operating system to power mobile phones. No big surprises there – I already use their GMail and Google Maps application on my Nokia N95, whilst catching up with my RSS feed reading through the (mobile) web-based version of Google Reader. I’m pleased to see that the probable manufacturer for such a device would be HTC, maker of the SPV range of mobile phones that go under the Orange brand in the UK.

So actually, I’ve already pretty much got a ‘Google phone’. What I’m more interested in is the Linux-based mobile phones on the horizon. OpenMoko, for example, is a touchscreen phone with an open platform which has generated so much interest that they’re actually sold out before the phones go on sale.

Potentially even bigger news, however, is Ubuntu Mobile, which promises to let you install Ubuntu on your mobile phone instead of whatever’s on there by default. Much in the same way, in fact, as you can should replace Windows with Linux. We live in interesting times (but not in the spurious? Chinese sense…)