The Wall Street Journal claims that Google Inc. is close to unveiling its long-rumored Google Phone, after months of speculation. As you might already know, in August the tech site Engadget reported that Google is working on a mobile device platform that will power Google’s branded phone. Engadget said that Google began to develop the "GPhone OS" after the very quiet 2005 acquisition of mobile software company Android, started by Danger cofounder and former-president / CEO Andy Rubin.

The WSJ claims that Google wants to make applications and services as accessible on cellphones as they are on the Internet. Google wants to launch advanced software and services which would make it easier for cellphone customers to get a variety of extra services on their phones, such as maps, social-networking features and video-sharing, the newspaper says.

The announcement is expected to come within two weeks and the Google-powered phones could hit the market by the middle of next year, provided that wireless carriers will allow Google services to run through their network. A couple of handset manufacturers are named as Google's potential early partners in the report, Taiwan's HTC Corp. and South Korea's LG Electronics Inc.

An industry executive familiar with the project told the New York Times earlier this month that for more than two years, a large group of engineers at Google has been working in secret on a mobile phone project, but it seems that at the core of Google’s phone efforts is the operating system for mobile phones that will be based on open-source Linux software.

“Google wants to extend its dominance of online advertising to the mobile Internet, a small market today, but one that is expected to grow rapidly. It 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 subsidized by advertising that appears on their screens,” wrote the New York Times at the time.

Last month Google announced the launch of AdSense for Mobile service, although the company has been in fact running mobile ads since mid-2006, through its auction-based AdWords program. Google is already offering mobile versions of Picasa Web Albums, Google Calendar, Google Search and Gmail. And with AdSense for Mobile it seems like all the pieces of the puzzle are coming together.