Google has proved to be an interesting company. Its original Internet business is still blooming and brings Google real money. But it seems that the company wants more, as new areas of interest still appear on the tech market. The mobile phone industry is maybe the most important example of a new domain that has represented a major attraction for Google. And in summer the Internet started all of a sudden (or maybe not) to whisper one of the strangest rumors ever: the web sites and blogs were all rumoring about the gPhone, Google’s mobile phone, a possible response to Apple’s iPhone and all the other smart phones.

Still, the time passed and few days ago, the gPhone myth was destroyed, as Google announced it is currently developing the Android Open Source Platform for mobile phones alongside other 33 members of the Open Handset Alliance. Google has eyed a real opportunity within the mobile telephony increasingly popular area and it has already started the work. The company, however, hasn’t hesitated to eventually make its plans public, although since last week everybody has started to talk about Android. So, as already expected, today Google has officially announced its Android initiative. The Android web site has also gone live today.

According to the webs site, Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications.

It features an application framework enabling reuse and replacement of components, a Dalvik virtual machine optimized for mobile devices, optimized graphics powered by a custom 2D graphics library; 3D graphics based on the OpenGL ES 1.0 specification (hardware acceleration optional), media support for common audio, video, and still image formats (MPEG4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR, JPG, PNG, GIF) and few other things like Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, and WiFi (hardware dependent) and camera, GPS, compass, and accelerometer (hardware dependent)

Although this web site does not represent a real attraction for the end users, it is however quite important for the programmers. Still, the users have never been forgotten and Google has also released a video in which we can all see the Android browser, Google Maps (including Street View), an instant messaging client and others, so that we could get a glimpse of how all these features work together.

So, at first sight Android seems to be somehow familiar to us, as it looks like a somewhat less polished edition of Apple’s iPhone interface. But Android is currently in development and in the end it could get even smarter that the iPhone.

And what’s more important than anything is that Android has and will always have a major advantage comparing to the iPhone: it is an open platform.

So let’s wait and see how Android will change the mobile world. If it’s gonna!