Searching With Your Google Phone

Posted on October 8, 2008 by Barry Welford

If it is Google, it must be search

If it carries the Google label, then undoubtedly search will be involved. Marc Vanlerberghe, Google’s Product Marketing Director, has been explaining how Google is integrating search into Android and the T-mobile G1 phone and it’s already impressive. There is also a Google video that goes into more details. (Tip of the hat to SearchEngineWatch)

What becomes more exciting is when you mate up search fully with speech technology, which cannot be far down the road.

For a glimpse of what is coming, see the Google video where human language technology experts at Google, Franz Josef Och and Mike Cohen discuss their exciting research in machine translation and speech technology with Alfred Spector, Google VP of Research and Special Initiatives. GOOG-411 was just the tip of the iceberg. (Tip of the hat – Google Operating System)

Technorati Tags: Alfred Spector, Franz Och, Google Phone, machine translation, Mike Cohen, mobile Web, speech technology

G1, Gphone, Tphone – what will you call your Google phone?

Posted on September 23, 2008 by Barry Welford

Finally the cat is out of the bag, so to speak. Or as Reuters informs us, T-Mobile USA introduces Google-powered phone.

T-Mobile USA, a Deutsche Telekom AG unit, will sell the first phone powered by Google Inc’s Android operating system under the brand name T-Mobile G1, said its partner Amazon.com Inc on Tuesday. The phone, made by Taiwan’s HTC Corp <2498.TW>, is seen as Google’s answer to Apple Inc’s iPhone and is the Web search leader’s biggest push yet in the cell phone market. The G1 phone has a touch-sensitive screen, a computer-like keyboard, Wi-Fi connections and includes most Google applications and services, including Google Maps with StreetView, Gmail and YouTube. The new phone will feature Android Market, where customers can find and download applications to expand and personalize their phone.

The Google phone certainly looks very attractive. However they should have listened to Marty Weintraub. His advice is to Think SEO Before You Name Your New Company! So T-Mobile USA comes up with the name, .. wait for it, .. dah-dah, T-Mobile G1. It’s hardly catchy.

It would appear that Google has decided not to go with a branding strategy here. We will be seeing Google powered phones with all manner of names. For a company that has just released Google Chrome, which encourages us all to search for the name with its Omnisearch box, it is somewhat paradoxical.

Technorati Tags: Android, G1, Google Chrome, Google Phone, Gphone, iPhone, T-Mobile

Canada’s Mobile Web, Once More Behind The Rogers Ball

Posted on November 5, 2007 by Barry Welford

Will Canada lose out on Google phones too?

The big news today is that Google will not have a Gphone but hopes to provide open-source software that will power cell phones around the world. That’s very exciting but apparently Canada is not included.

Google will offer free software to anyone who wants it under the relaxed terms of an open-source license, which will allow developers to view the source code for that software. “Today’s announcement is more ambitious than any single ‘Google Phone’ that the press has been speculating about,” Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said in a statement. “Our vision is that the powerful platform we’re unveiling will power thousands of different phone models.” This will all happen under an umbrella group called the Open Handset Alliance.

Eight carriers have agreed to ship handsets based on the Google platform: Sprint and T-Mobile U.S.A. in the United States, NTT DoCoMo and KDDI in Japan, T-Mobile International in 10 European countries and the United Kingdom, China Mobile, Telefonica in Spain and Telecom Italia.

The list of the supporters of the Open Handset Alliance includes most of her the movers and shakers in the industry: Aplix, Ascender Corporation, Audience, Broadcom, China Mobile, eBay, Esmertec, Google, HTC, Intel, KDDI, Living Image, LG, Marvell, Motorola, NMS Communications, Noser, NTT DoCoMo, Nuance, Nvidia, PacketVideo, Qualcomm, Samsung, SiRF, SkyPop, SONiVOX, Sprint Nextel, Synaptics, TAT – The Astonishing Tribe, Telecom Italia, Telef?nica, Texas Instruments, T-Mobile, Wind River

One perhaps not surprising non-participant is AT&T, the sole U.S. carrier to offer the Apple iPhone. Since Rogers is associated with AT&T in the iPhone and Rogers has been extremely tardy in supporting the Mobile Web, there are no obvious signs that Google Phones will be here any time soon. It would seem to be a glorious opportunity for one of the Rogers competitors to take an end run around Rogers and offer such Google phones. How else will Canada ever develop any strength on the Mobile Web?

Technorati Tags: Google Phone, Rogers

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Searching With Your Google Phone

G1, Gphone, Tphone – what will you call your Google phone?

Canada’s Mobile Web, Once More Behind The Rogers Ball