Get Ready for the Googlephone

Google is spending hundreds of millions of dollars secretly developing a cell phone which offers Google search technology and other services, reports the London Independent. Prototype phones have been shown to several wireless carriers. The company is poised to bid on wireless spectrum licenses in the upcoming federal auction, which could be used to  become a mobile phone operator.

 "What our users and partners are telling us is that they want Google search and Google applications on mobile, and we are working hard to deliver that," a spokesman said. Prototyes that have been shown aren't as revolutionary as the iPhone, the Wall Street Journal reports. Cell phone ads are "twice as profitable" as other Web advertising, Google CEO Eric Schmidt noted recently. (More Google stories.)