GPhone plans to be revealed on Monday

Google is set to announce its "big plans for wireless" on Monday, including more specifics on "alliances with various handset makers and cellphone operators."Sprint and T-Mobile are rumored to be the named as the initial partners. Verizon, however, has mysteriously disappeared from that list. What's more, the Journal is reporting that we won't be seeing these Google-powered phones until the middle of next year at the earliest.

As far as handset partners go,Taiwan's HTC as the most likely candidate.However, Wired's GADGET LAB points out this arrangement may be problematic, given HTC's close ties with Microsoft. Can the two companies share HTC and co-exist in the mobile ad space? Another question for Monday, apparently. Of course the other thing to pay attention to on Monday will be the actual business plans Google develops with carriers. If we're right about things, it could mean a variety of discounted (or maybe even free) plans compliments of a Google revenue share.

Google puts an end to illegal YouTube content?

Google claims to have a new system for identifying pirated video on YouTube as it gets uploaded, but the system puts the burden on movie studios and other content owners to provide YouTube copies of their content.Content owners provide the video to YouTube and specify whether they want to block anyone else from uploading copies of it. They can also ask YouTube to allow others to post it and put ads next to it or otherwise promote it on their sites. YouTube executives briefed reporters on the system Monday at YouTube's headquarters in California.

The automated YouTube video ID system looks at all video as it is uploaded and tries to match it with a database of visual abstractions of the copyrighted material that has been provided by content owners.If the system finds a match it will either block it, post it, or -- depending upon the policy specified by the content owner -- put ads on it, with the revenue being shared with the content owner.If the copyright owner wants pirated copies to be blocked and the system finds a match, the pirated video may be posted, but only for a few minutes and then the system will remove it.

The technology was developed in-house and YouTube executives say it is the first image-recognition technology implemented on any large scale. YouTube executives also dismissed notions that movie studios won't want to provide all their new productions to YouTube. They added that Time Warner, Disney and CBS -- three of the nine partners who have been testing the system -- are pleased with the system.A YouTube chief counsel would not comment on whether the company has shown the technology to Viacom, which filed a US$1 billion copyright lawsuit against YouTube in March.

Why did it take so long?

"Building a system like this is extremely complex," says David King, a YouTube product manager. "This is actually a project that Google had been working on for a number of years already and then when the (YouTube) acquisition went through we ramped it up as a priority. It literally has taken until now to get the technology right."

GPhone going to be released in a fortnight?

Google is apparently close to unveiling its phone platform within the next two weeks, but still has the considerable hurdle of convincing carriers to sign over some of the control of the phone itself.

While Google will provide many of the services which will come on the phone -- such as its search, Maps, YouTube, and Gmail services -- the platform on which those applications are built will be completely open, right down to the operating system itself. This is a dramatic shift from what is available currently. Most carriers and phone manufacturers lock most of the code down, making it relatively difficult to build new applications without either deals with the carriers or manufacturers themselves.


Only Microsoft offers anything close to what Google is going to do, through Windows Mobile. It took Apple some four months after it released the iPhone to finally agree to open up the device to third parties, and other manufacturers and carriers offer even more limited third-party support.