Google shows off Android

The new handset, shown off by Google's Mike Jennings at Wembley Stadium, looked very much like the HTC Dream, but had its branding covered up. Jennings demonstrated Google maps, though there was no Street View data of London (if that feature will be available, it's very exciting). Jennings also spoke about carriers: "a lot of [them] are in a different mindset from Google."

As we saw at February's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the interface is fast and responsive but doesn't have the graphical polish of the iPhone's interface at present.

"The cool stuff is running your own apps!" said Jennings. "I spent two hours writing my own apps using a background thread and surface view to access the hardware buffer." He showed a virtually blank screen running 'the blue dot application' which was hooked in to the accelerometer in the device. There is also built-in GPS, as you'd expect.