MEDIA GUARDIAN H/W 5

Google HQ in Mountain View, California. Photograph: Paul Sakuma/AP

Google opened a new front in its global media empire last night after finally confirming plans to enter the mobile phone industry.
The company is introducing a new mobile system called Android, which it hopes will bring internet access to the masses - and help it put more advertising directly on to customers' phones.
Google chief executive, Eric Schmidt, described Android as a toolkit which will encourage people to use the internet on their phones. At present, specialised engineering is required to get Google software on to handsets.
Increasing the amount of time people spend surfing the internet on their phones would also let Google harvest information and display advertisements direct to mobile phone users just as it does to people on their home computers, said Andy Rubin, the company's director of mobile.
"We currently put ads on phones via the web browser," he said. "Part of this is that it makes it so that there's really no difference between browsing on your phone or on a computer."
Android - which will start appearing on phones next year - has support from more than 30 companies, including networks such as T-Mobile and handset makers such as Motorola.
Some experts had previously speculated that Google was planning to manufacture its own mobile phones in a similar vein to iPod maker Apple, whose iPhone handset launches in the UK this Friday.
But Mr Schmidt said he only intended to offer new software for mobile phones - not the handsets themselves - bringing to an end months of intrigue surrounding the project, which is thought to have heavily involved staff from the company's British offices. "It's incredibly important to say this is not the announcement of the Google phone," he said.
Moving into the phone market could prove to be a money-spinner for the Californian company, allowing it to get a foothold in one of the world's fastest-growing industries.
Nokia, the market-leading mobile phone maker, sold more than 100m handsets alone in the last three months, while network operators such as Vodafone remain some of the largest companies around the globe.
The move underlines Google's expanding influence over people's lives as more information and money moves online.
The internet giant - which was founded by university room-mates Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998 - is now worth in excess of $225bn (£108bn), making it the fifth largest company in America. Thanks in large part to its ability to display advertising on its search engine pages, Google has built a multibillion dollar business and outpaced other internet giants including Microsoft, Yahoo! and AOL.

I chose this story because i use google for all my searches, they all start from Google. Google is becoming a monopoly by doing this, they are diversifying their reach by now making applications for phones, and soon making Google Mobiles like iPhone by Apple. Google is now carrying hegemonic ideologies, as we dont have any great choices left. Googles searches are defined and relative to the search unlike other search engines.
Every click on their site makes them money, every search makes them money, now adding this application on phones soon will make our lives easier as we just need to launch the application/program on the phone n off you go. Technology is changing, we as a market need to make choices but what if google takes over then searching will only be through google, we wont be a pluralist!!!!