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Dec. 14, 2009

An official Google blog post on Dec. 12 about a mobile handset being tested by a few Google employees renewed some speculation that the search giant might soon brand and sell a cell phone under the Google name.

So is this for real? Citing people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal put a name to the phone – the Nexus One, made by HTC.

The new wireless handset will be sold directly to consumers rather than through a mobile carrier, according to the WSJ.

The posting on Google's blog two days ago came after employees sent tweets about their devices the day before. “At Google, we are constantly experimenting with new products and technologies, and often ask employees to test such products for quick feedback and suggestions for improvements in a process we call dogfooding,” said Mario Queiroz, Google vice president of Product Management.

Queiroz explained that Google recently came up with the concept of a mobile lab, which is a device that combines hardware from a partner – the post did not name the hardware partner – with software that runs on its own Android operating system.

So some Google employees are testing the new technology and will help improve it going forward.

During the past 2 days, some sites posted pictures of the new device, said to look like the HTC Passion and running a Snapdragon CPU.

“Unfortunately, because dogfooding is a process exclusively for Google employees, we cannot share specific product details at this time,” Queiroz added, although he did provide a hint that more official information will come after the holidays.

However, we were told that Google employees aren’t supposed to be talking to the public about the details of new products or services being developed by their employer. They certainly had no problem tweeting about how great the new phone is...

Could this spell trouble for some of them? We don't know for now, but you would think that some officials at Google aren't too happy with this.

And those same employees also apparently had no problem showing it off. Not surprisingly, photos such as the one above are starting to hit the Internet.

Cory O’Brien, a San Francisco-based blogger, got his hands on one yesterday and tweeted out a picture. He also notes that, “Google Phone = iPhone + a little extra screen and a scroll wheel. Great touch screen, and Android.”

The Nexus One does look very similar to the HTC Passion. You’ll also notice that there’s a key difference: It’s not HTC-branded at all. Instead for now you will only see an 'X' across such as depicted in the photo.

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Source: Google.