A Google in Your Pocket?

Elsewhere in this issue we mention Google-watching as a trend for 2010.

Mobile analysts and the mobile press are detecting strong suggestions that Google will come out with a Google-branded phone, perhaps as soon as the next six months. Manufacturers are already building Google's Android platform into phones like the Motorola Droid for Verizon Wireless and getting decent reviews. But tech blog Techcrunch reports some “well-sourced rumors” that the Google phone is on its way.

• Why care? Because Google might be the one company with enough brand recognition to turn out a real iPhone killer. And the prospect of what an undeniably creative software company could build into a phone if it didn't have to make compromises could be pretty interesting to see — and pretty challenging to Apple's current status as the mobile market maker.