The New York Times (among many, I'm sure) is reporting Google's "plunge" into the wireless world. Google, the Times says, is

leading a broad industry alliance to transform mobile phones into powerful mobile computers that could accelerate the convergence of computing and communications.

The Times points out:

Users would have the ability to load up their phones with new features and third-party programs. "Today the Internet experience on hand-held devices is not optimized," said Peter Chou, chief executive of HTC, one of the largest makers of smartphones. "The whole idea is to optimize the Internet experience."�

Of course, that's the same thing we've been saying for a couple years about phones and tablets, from the perspective of the tablet/internet end.

And, interestingly to us tableteering types, Google's Andy Rubin gives as an example of the incredible new things that will be available, "[T]he company's StreetView feature of Google Maps could easily be coupled -- mashed up, in technology speak -- with another service listing the current geographical location of friends."

Let me point out that Thoughtfix was there first. And since we have the pieces in place with the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet's GPS capability, this application awaits only a developer to realize it and not new hardware utilizing Google's new software.

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Added later: Here's the AP take on this news, as reported in the Washington Post.