Google Android: The G-Phone

The Google android is an open Handset alliance project. It has got the 'signature unlocking' tool.

Features include a built-in compass that allows people orientate maps as they use their phone to find out a restaurant or venue, and a customisable homepage that lets people bookmark their favourite web pages.

The device - which is unlocked by drawing a shape only the owner knows on a nine-square grid - will also include a magnifying tool, to make zooming in on web content easier on a small screen, and a mobile version of the game Pac Man.

Demonstrating the device at a developers' conference in San Francisco, Andy Rubin, who heads up the project at Google, declined to give a release date, but said that the first phones powered by Google's Android operating system will appear in the second half of the year.

Google will not manufacture any phone, but will help develop the software that handset manufacturers will install in their devices. Samsung, HTC, LG Electronics, and Motorola are among the companies that have said they will produce phones that run on Android.

The device on which Mr Rubin gave the demonstration (check out the video) had a touch-sensitive screen, but the software will work equally well on other devices, he said, including those with a so-called 'tracking ball', which has been used by BlackBerry.

Observers of the demonstration said the software feel that a resemblance to Apple's iPhone cant be ruled out, which is also a touchscreen device, and which allows owners to place icons linking to sites such as YouTube on the homepage.

Google s developers would create all kinds of applications that owners of Android phones will be able to download from the internet and install on their devices.

Android is what is known as an 'open-source' operating system, meaning that developers can access the code and create software that works with the device.

Google, which handles about 80 per cent of search queries in the UK, also hopes that by assisting in the production of a phone that will make it easier to use the web, it will tap a new source of revenue - advertisements that appear on web pages viewed on mobile phones.