Anyone out there still think Google isn't building some sort of mobile phone?

Those curious about Google's moves into the wireless space have discovered Google has applied for a patent that will enable users to make purchases at stores through their mobile phones. 

The service, cutely called GPay, allows users to send text messages to authenticate payments, debit the purchaser's account and credit the seller's account.

Google engineer Ramy Dodin filed the patent application in 2006, but it was officially made public by the USPTO last Thursday. Lovely timing after all of the GPhone speculation!

A Google spokesperson told me, "We file patent applications on a variety of ideas that our employees come up with. Some of those ideas later mature into real products or services, some don't. Prospective product announcements should not necessarily be inferred from our patent applications."

Yeah, right!

The news comes amid renewed speculation that Google is working with hardware and software vendors to create a mobile phone platform, and months after Google pledged $4.6 billion on the 700MHz wireless spectrum.

This confluence of moves can leave no doubt about Google's ambitions to boost its online advertising sales by luring broader audiences through wireless products and services.

Does anyone doubt Google's mobile aspirations now? This is exciting. With GPay, Google will presumably try to take up the fight PayPal and others have tackled in trying to create ways for consumers to pay for goods via mobile phones.

We've been reading, writing and talking about this for years, but the idea just hasn't taken off in the United States. Some bloggers are pointing to similar payment systems from Globe Telecom and Smart Communications in the Philippines, but these vendors likely lack the marketing clout to make these services take off. If PayPal couldn't do it with eBay's support, why should they be able to?

If anyone can get people to start doing something en masse, it's Google, no? There's something scarily 1984ish about that, but it may well be true. We've already seen the company's influence on search, and the buzz it created by encroaching on Microsoft's territory with Google Apps.

I expect to see some significant moves on the wireless front from Google within the next year. In the meantime, I'll watch as Google puts the pieces of that mobile strategy puzzle in place.