Google Phone Emerges, Could Shake Up Market

The long-awaited Google phone is almost out of hiding and expected to be on the market next year. The big difference: Google will sell the phone, called Nexus One, on its own instead of going the usual route through a wireless carrier. Customers will have to buy their cell service separately. It will run, of course, on Google's own Android operating system. And though it will be manufactured by HTC Corp., Google has designed all the software and apps, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The company has begun giving the phone to employees for testing, though a Google blog post doesn't go into much detail or even acknowledge that this is, in fact, the Google phone. This is a two-pronged attack on the mobile industry, notes the Journal, with Google going after both the wireless carriers that sell phones and the companies that design them. TechCrunch links to photos here.
(More Google stories.)