On Nov. 5, 2007, Google announced the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of dozens of
technology and mobile
telephone companies, including Intel
Corporation, Motorola,
Inc., NVIDIA
Corporation, Texas
Instruments Incorporated, LG
Electronics, Inc., Samsung Electronics, Sprint Nextel Corporation, and T-Mobile
(Deutsche Telekom). The consortium was created in order to develop and promote
Android, a free open-sourceoperating
system based on Linux. The first phone to feature the new operating system was
the T-Mobile G1, released on Oct. 22, 2008. Android-based phones require the
latest third-generation (3G) wireless networks in order to take full advantage
of all the system's “smartphone” features, such as one-touch Google searches,
Google Docs, Google Earth, and Google Street View.
In January 2010 Google broke into the mobile handset market
with the Nexus One. Nicknamed the “Google Phone” and
widely perceived to be a direct competitor to the iPhone, the Nexus One debuted
to mostly positive reviews. Using the latest version of the Android operating
system and boasting a vibrant 480 × 800-pixel screen, it was aesthetically
pleasing, and its voice-to-text messaging system signaled a leap in
voice-recognition software. However, its lack of native support for
multi-touch—a typing and navigation feature pioneered by Apple that allowed
users more flexibility in interacting with touchscreens—was seen as a drawback
when compared with other handsets in its class.
On Dec. 13, 2007, Google announced that it was getting into
the online encyclopaedia business with Knol. In the company's self-proclaimed
definition, a knol is a unit of knowledge. The Knol Web site was opened to the
general public on July 23, 2008. Like Wikipedia, an open-sourceencyclopaedia, Knol is open to the general public; but
unlike Wikipedia, participation in Knol requires a confirmation of
identity before any articles or edits are allowed at the Knol Web site. Google
bans pornographic, violent, and discriminatory articles.
In exchange for giving up their anonymity, authors have an
opportunity to allow ads from Google's AdSense on their Knol Web pages. By
sharing with its authors any ad revenue generated by “page views” of their
articles, Google hopes to induce submissions by professionals and highly
qualified individuals. Authors may choose to allow edits by specific
collaborators or open up their articles for editing by the entire Knol
community. In addition, Knol operates as a free market, with no limit to the
number of articles on the same subject. Google expects that well-written and
maintained articles will rise to the top through user ratings. While Google
does not edit or officially endorse any Knol article, its administration does
choose a few articles to highlight on the Knol home page each day.
In 2007 Google acquired GrandCentral, a start-up
subscription service that offered the promise of “one telephone number to rule
them all”—a single number that users could give out to family, friends, and
business contacts, together with a system for creating rules to determine which
of their telephones (work, home, mobile) would be rung according to the
incoming caller's identity (as determined by telephone caller ID or the
recipient's address book). In addition, subscribers could call the system to
retrieve voice
mail. On March 12, 2009, Google
relaunchedGrandCentral as Google Voice, a free telecommunications service
(initially open only to existing GrandCentral subscribers) that added a text
messaging system and the ability to make VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) calls for free between any Internet
service providers (ISP) located within the United
States. Google Voice could also be used for making international calls, though
that service was not free.
In addition to challenging traditional business models for
long-distance telephone service, Google Voice competed with Skype, another free VoIP service. However, Skype customers needed
a computer or a special telephone connected to a computer in order to make any
calls, and only domestic calls to other Skype customers were free.
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