A new showdown begins?

Ars Technica uncovered another piece of the gPhone puzzle yesterday with news of a Google patent application conceptually titled "Gpay."

The service allows users to make payments by sending a text message through their mobile phone.

What sets the patent apart is that the system is independent of any platform, such as the UK's just-introduced PayForIt service.

Instead, the mobile could potentially handle any kind of transaction - "whether via auction, between persons, or between a person and a business," writes Ars Technica. In this regard, Gpay may be positioned as the PayPal of mobile phones.

Google's mobile strategy appears to be focused on software, while leaving the rest to the mobile industry. It is in talks with major telecoms in Europe, the US and India, and there are rumors it will leave the work of building the phone to phone manufacturers.