Reports are beginning to dribble out that Google is very close to releasing an "official" Google phone based on Google's Android operating system. Other mobile phone makers have been playing catch up with Apple's iPhone for the past two years, with little success--anyone seen a Palm Pre lately?
But Google has so much money that the firm, like Microsoft in the old days, can just throw money at a project until they get it right. So Android and the Google phone might just finally give Apple a reason to work harder. It will be interesting to see what kind of deal Google comes up with--maybe the phones and mobile service will be free if you can tolerate watching a fifteen second ad every time you want to make a phone call? Or each text message will have a little pop-up ad attached to it the way that little ads pop up on YouTube now? In the future, will everything be free if you will subject yourself to watching piles of ads and giving away every shred of privacy to Google?
How about a Google car? It would be electric, of course, but you get it for free. But every time you start the car to go somewhere, you have to watch a 30 second commercial. And when you listen to the radio, Google inserts a voice ad every ten minutes. And the car comes with a Google GPS tracking device that logs everywhere you go and reports it back to the company. So when you drive to RiteAid to pick up some aspirin, your GoogleCar interrupts and says, "Really, you should go to CVS because aspirin there is on sale today."
Sound far-fetched? In 1994, when I told real estate agents that some day, houses would be bought and sold over the Internet, they said it would never happen.