A screenshot of the live plug-in Google released a Google Earth plug-in and API . This means you can now view Google Earth-based applications - with functionality defined by the developer of a site - in your browser. It's a bit of a bridge between the Google Maps browser-only application and the existing Google Earth desktop-only installation. I've tried this with Firefox and it works nice, though the download,

It seems a bunch of new functionality might be coming to the Google Docs spreadsheets application. By accessing one of Google's experimental sites )like the one where I found offline access would be coming to Google Docs ( I was able to get a sneaky look at some of this functionality, including the ability to record, edit and run macros, edit a shared spreadsheet in something called "List mode" and a few new functions for use in spreadsheet formulas.

Google boss Dr. Eric Schmidt talked to German FAZ . Here are some of the items Eric talked about )my emphasis; note from what it looked like, FAZ might have back-translated the interview from German, though I'm not sure( : The mobile web, in a discussion that circled around ads: "Yes, mobile will be a larger business than the [PC web] . But it will take a few years." Advertising in social networks: " MySpace did not monetize as well as we thought.

German Welt Online reports )translated(: <<The Californian search engine operator went to Hamburg in 2001. This was followed by offices in Düsseldorf, Frankfurt/ Main, and Munich with altogether 300 employees. Now Berlin will be the smallest branch at 150 square meters. Mainly, the new location will be housing Google's new chief lobbyist Annette Kroeber-Riel. Internal title: European Policy Counsel. Kroeber-Riel represents Google in industry associations like the Bitkom,

According to the descriptions on YouTube, the first video is a Google Street View car in Sevilla, Spain, and the second is one around Palm Springs, California, US. These cars from the Google fleet have a camera mounted on top to photograph the panorama views that are later added to Google Maps. It's like the first Googlebots spotted in the wild,

We are faced with a harmonized collectivity of consciousnesses to a sort of superconciousness. The earth not only becoming covered by myriads of grains of thought, but becoming enclosed in a single thinking envelope, a single unanimous reflection. - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin )1881-1955( «[French Jesuit scientist and philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin] believes that because human beings are self-reflective .

"Reflow is the process by which the geometry of the layout engine's formatting objects are computed," Doug T. explains. Above Mozilla reflow visualization shows how the browser calculates the geometry of the Google Japan homepage, and Doug has more visualizations at his blog. [Via Reddit .] [By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: How the Browser Sees Google | Comments ] [Advertisement] Google books at eBay : background info on Google, AdWords, AdSense, Blogger and more.

Haochi Chen stumbled upon what looks like it may be a prototype of an optimized Google result snippet for discussion threads. In a search for e.g. router vs modem , the top result from Computing.net was showing the text "Discussion forum: 3 posts - 2 authors - Dec 8, 2001" below the title link. In this case I can see 4 posts on the Computing.net page, but in other cases the count is correct.

Google has a new malware diagnosis tool; just append any domain - your domain or another site you want to check on - to the end of the URL "google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=", or paste a domain in the box below, and you will find an overview page listing potential problems like trojans or exploits )or the result may be telling you the site is OK(. As Ionut points out at his blog , Google.com too had problems in the past. But as Google.

FriendFeed )the social news streamer run by a team of by now seven ex-Google employees ( got a new tab on top to create rooms. A room is a public or private area for discussions circling around one topic, group or need. For instance, you could create an invite-only room for discussing a specific work project, adding some other FriendFeed members. Once the room is created via the Room tab and members are invited - the invite box auto-completes names,

It seems Google Docs has finally added a View menu which allows users to view their documents using the new fixed-width page layout or the standard full-width view. This layout was first spotted a couple of months ago when a screenshot was included in one of Google's presentations. Microsoft Office users will recognize this as being similar to the default "Print Layout" available in Word. However,

Over at Search Engine Land's Sphinn , people are discussing a search engine optimization tactic which tries to assemble backlink juice by posting a fake news article . Jonathan Crossfield wraps it up : "Online marketer Lyndon Antcliff recently helped a client achieve over 1500 inbound links in under a week with a story designed to grab attention." The article, titled "13 Year Old Steals Dad's Credit Card to Buy Hookers,

What was the internet? The internet and the world web was a computing system to transfer human information. Scientists have based its beginning to the years 1920 to 1940. What was electromail? Electromail was another transport protocol to transfer human information, but it was quickly discontinued as it caused misunderstandings due to lack of correctly representing emotions. What were world web sites?

YouTomb is a "research project by MIT Free Culture that tracks videos taken down from [Google-owned] YouTube for alleged copyright violation." [Via Google Operating System .] [By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: YouTomb Lists YouTube Removals | Comments ] [Advertisement] Google books at eBay : background info on Google, AdWords, AdSense, Blogger and more.

Today starting at 9:30am Californian time , Google will hold a press event in their Mountain View headquarters lasting until noon. Google announced they will give insights into search, with Google's R.J. Pittman, Carter Maslan, Johanna Wright, and Marissa Mayer speaking. I'm live-blogging from the webcast . [This post is being edited throughout the event.

After apparently two years in Taiwan, Google recently moved their office from Taipei 101 - one of the world's tallest skyscrapers - from floor 37 to... floor 73. Not the uncoolest building in the world. Above picture was added by Yenwen Feng on May 5th, and is from the opening or anniversary ceremony. The Taipei office is laid out in typical colorful Google style and includes ping pong and foosball tables.

The Google Lat Long blog points to several climate change information layers for Google Earth. One of these layers, titled "Climate Change in Our World," is by the Met Office UK and you can also make it show in Google Maps ; note that I created a copy of this layer to remove all font and background color definitions from the file, as they were causing problems in Google Maps.

Google China has launched a multitude of help efforts for people looking for information in relation to the disastrous May 12th earthquake centered in Sichuan province. Some days ago, the Google China homepage linked to a special Google Maps layer , as previously mentioned : Google China also shows a custom search engine , made for the purpose of looking for relatives )qin ren(.

A source is telling me that Gmail will get themes - custom layouts to personalize Google's web mail client. According to the source, the launch of this may happen within the next months. There will be 12 themes to pick from, according to this information, like a black-and-green "terminal" view, as well as a flowery view. Already, using third-party tools like Greasemonkey or custom user stylesheets, you are able to add skins to Gmail... but officially,

This is one of the weirder and more interesting logos to show on the Google homepage : in disco neon lights, Google celebrates the anniversary of the first laser. Wikipedia explains )footnotes removes, my emphasis(: <<A laser is an electronic-optical device that emits coherent light radiation. The term "laser" is an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation . )...( The first working laser was demonstrated on May 16,