The last few days have seen Google's new operating system, Android, provide a sneak public appearance as we wait apprehensively for the expected launch announcement in New York on the 23rd September.

The delicious eyeful came at the Google Developer's Day conference, when Mike Jennings, one of Android's development team, showed off the system using a handset cleverly disguised with masking tape. More important, it seems, than the open source OS itself is which handset will be the first to use it, and attendees from The Times suggested it appears to be the HTC Dream - suspected for some time to be the launch unit for Google's new system.

The demonstration seems to have been rather impromptu, with Jennings furtively pocketing the phone when he was asked to make a call on it, saying, "I can't show it off any more, I'll be out of a job."

HTC is apparently expecting to shift between 600,000 and 700,000 Dream units before the end of the year; a figure some analysts are suggesting is a tad optimistic, though the interest gathering around these sneak previews definitely isn't doing it any harm.