Gmail Mobile can be accessed from handsets offered by U.S. carriers including some from Nokia Corp., Motorola Inc., Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, BenQ Mobile GmbH & Co. OHG, Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd., LG Electronics Inc. and Toshiba Corp. The service is accessed from http://m.gmail.com and a full list of compatible phones can be found at http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=30596&topic=8303 .

Gmail can also be accessed via a conventional Web interface or an e-mail client.

On Thursday, the company also expanded its services for cell phone users in Japan with a localized version of the Google SMS service that is already offered in other countries. The Japanese service is accessed via cellular e-mail, not SMS, and users can run searches against Google's web, local or cellular Internet databases by sending a formatted message to g@google.jp. The service is free.

Reprinted with permission from IDG News Service