The Wall Street Journal reports that handsets featuring Google's Android have been delayed to the fourth quarter, and some partners can't even make that date. This isn't really news, as Google already said the launch will come in the fourth quarter (and not earlier).

The only real information is that the Google partners which can't make the fourth quarter deadline are named. They are, according to WSJ, Sprint Nextel and China Mobile, but the latter still has some slim chances for a 2008 launch. T-Mobile is apparently the only carrier which will most likely launch the Android-powered gadgets this year.

Delays are allegedly also brought about by Google's continuous tweaks on their operating system, which trigger a wave of modifications for developers. China Mobile had some difficulties translating Android into Chinese, encountering problems with the Chinese characters, WSJ claims.

Earlier this month, Google denied a report by thestreet.com that its Android phones are to be delayed to next year. Google said in a statement at the time that it is on track with developing the revolutionary mobile OS and its partners plan to ship Android phones in the fourth quarter this year.

Android is based on the Linux operating system and was first announced on 5 November 2007, and is the result of the collaboration between Google and companies like HTC, Intel, Motorola, T-Mobile, NVIDIA and Qualcomm, all working on developing open standards for mobile devices. Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications.

The Android platform features an application framework enabling reuse and replacement of components, a Dalvik virtual machine optimized for mobile devices, optimized graphics powered by a custom 2D graphics library; 3D graphics based on the OpenGL ES 1.0 specification (hardware acceleration optional), media support for common audio, video, and still image formats (MPEG4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR, JPG, PNG, GIF) and few other things like Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, and WiFi (hardware dependent) and camera, GPS, compass, and accelerometer (hardware dependent).