Google testing home grown Android device

Web giant Google has confirmed the existence of a home grown Android-based device that is being tested within the company.

Rumours of a Google-branded device (the gPhone) have been circulating for years now, even before the introduction of Android and this latest revelation does little to confirm or deny the existence of such a device.

In a blog posting, Mario Queiroz, vice president of product management at Google’s mobile division, said Google employees worldwide are testing “a device that combines innovative hardware from a partner with software that runs on Android”.

Queiroz said that the aim of the project is to establish a mobile lab, “to experiment with new mobile features and capabilities”, which actually makes it sound more like a software testing platform for Google’s in house Android-based developments and less like a bit of Google-branded hardware that might make its way into consumer hands.

At the same time images have been cropping up on the web of a device some are claiming to be the Google phone, attributing to it the name ‘Nexus One’. Again however, this is just likely to be just a prototype of a future commercial device that will run the latest flavour of Android.