Google Sets Sights On Cell Phone Market

The Skinny: "GPhone" Is An Operating System Using Open-Source Software

(CBS)  The Skinny is Keach Hagey's take on the top news of the day and the best of the Internet.

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Google wants a place in your pocket.

The search giant's ambitions for the cell phone market have been obvious - if not exactly clear - ever since it successfully lobbied the Federal Communications Commission this summer to impose rules keeping part of wireless spectrum open to any handset and software application in its coming auction.

This morning the New York Times attempts to take a peek into the Googleplex, where a team of developers has been working on the so-called "GPhone" for two years, to see just what game Google is planning to play on this newly leveled playing field.

Hardly anybody wants to talk on the record for this story, but a few blindly attributed facts emerged. Google hopes to persuade wireless carriers and mobile phone makers to offer phones based on its software, according to people briefed on the project. The cost of those phones may be partly subsized by advertising that appears on their screens.

The company is expected to unveil the fruits of its mobile efforts later this year, with phones based on its technology available next year. It won't be as sexy-looking as the iPhone, experts say, but it will be a turn-on for the hardcore geeks out there. The operating system will be based on open-source Linux software, an anonymous exec leaked.

If this is true, Microsoft, whose mobile operating system has been available for years, ought to be quaking it its sneakers.

"The essential point is that Google's strategy is to lead the creation of an open-source competitor to Windows Mobile," the executive said. "They will put it in the open-source world and take the economics out of the Windows Mobile business."

Mobile carriers ought to be worried, too. So far, most U.S. carriers have chosen to shun the major search engines for now, opting to promote their own search engines and ad systems. Google's lobbying means that even if it doesn't bid for part of the wireless spectrum in the upcoming auction (and some at the company say that it might), phones based on Google's software would be able to take advantage of it.

Skepticism abounds about Google's ability to pull off its cell phone coup, but as one consultant put it, "No one wants to be the last carrier to endorse Google."

Forty Years After His Death, Che's Bigger Than Ever

Forty years after he was executed in a Bolivian schoolhouse, Che Guevara is more popular than ever - and not just as a fashion accessory.

The Los Angeles Times reports that, as sympathizers from around the globe make the trek to Bolivia this week to mark the 40th anniversary of the capture and killing Guevara, many are taking note that the revolution the leftist militant icon fought for has in many ways come to pass in Latin America.

"Today, the ideological legacy of this peripatetic militant may loom larger than ever in Latin America, abetted by the election of a 'Pink Tide' of leftist governments from Nicaragua to Argentina," the paper reports. "Socialism is in, the Cubans are on the march, and Che is the defiant embodiment of it all."

Cuban doctors and petro-dollars from Hugo Chavez' Venezuela are the new arsenal in a nonviolent insurrection that Guevara, committed to armed struggle could have never envisioned.

"Finally, Che's dream is coming true," said former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Casteñeda, a Che biographer who casts him more as wayward fanatic than inspired visionary. "Cuba's export of revolution is finally succeeding in many countries in Latin America, thanks to Chavez and oil."

Other critics say Che was also a prolific executioner, dogmatic totalitarian and co-designer of the Cuban police state and indoctrination apparatus.

But he's never been a bigger star. These days he's framed as a kind of secular saint, major draw for tourists and soon-to-be Hollywood cash cow. Director Steven Soderbergh is filming a new biopic starring Che look-alike Benicio Del Torro.

Taser This: Bush-Bashing Student Editor Keeps His Job

In some ways, you really would have thought the YouTube video of police tasering a University of Florida student during a John Kerry speech would have spoken for itself. Short of that, there were the students' immortal words as he was being laid flat: "Don't tase me, bro!"

But the incident inspired some controversial commentary from student journalists at Colorado State University, who ran a four-word editorial featuring a four-letter word. (Taser This…F*** Bush") There was an outcry from campus Republican, a fleeing of advertisers and calls that the paper's editor, David McSwane be fired.

Today the New York Times reports on another headline from Friday's Rocky Mountain Collegian that raised eyebrows: "Collegian Editor Will Keep His Job."

The independent review board that oversees the paper decided to admonish, but not terminate, McSwane. The board determined that McSwane violated the paper's code of ethics, which prohibits "profane and vulgar words" in opinion writing, but said the editorial was an expression of opinion protected by the First Amendment.

Taser that, bro.

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[hissteps4u]

There is no doubt that Vulgarity in speech has been around for a very long time. As we play out this issue the fact remains that Vulgarity while part and partial of our speech at times should not be or forced upon us by the Media or those who''s idea is to deliberately defame others by using such colorful language under the guise of Freedom of Speech. We all know that different words can and should be chosen to make a point and the only real use of the vulgarity is to stir emotions and provoke needlessly the wrath of others. Shame on the folks who let him keep his Job and they had better punish accordingly if he breaks the rules again as an editor.