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Google just launched Google Buzz, the company's new social networking service which will be tightly integrated with Gmail. There can be little doubt that Google Buzz looks a lot like FriendFeed, the social aggregation service that was acquired by Facebook in August 2009. Today, FriendFeed's developers are Facebook employees and aren't likely to continue to improve the service in any meaningful way, while the active user community on FriendFeed continues to shrink rapidly. Given the similarities between the two services, we can't help but wonder if Google Buzz will be able to succeed where FriendFeed couldn't.

Google rolled out a social stream service today called Buzz. It looks on the surface like Facebook, FriendFeed and other stream reading and writing services. It will compete with Facebook and Twitter. Under the covers, though, this major product was built by a team of people taking a radical new approach to online publishing: Buzz is all about open, standardized user data.

Google Buzz data can be syndicated out to other services using the standard data formats called Atom, Activity Streams, MediaRSS and PubSubHubbub. That couldn't be more different from Facebook. Google has taken open data standards to battle against a marketplace of competitors that are closed and proprietary to varying degrees. This is a very big deal.

This morning, Google is announcing some exciting new features for two of its most popular applications.

Team Red, as we affectionately call ourselves, is present at the Googleplex in Mountain View, and we'll be live blogging the event, giving you, dear reader, a fascinating play-by-play. Stay tuned for updates!

Additional on-the-fly research and images from RWW journalist Frederic Lardinois.

Last month, Google received high praise from human rights supporters after threatening to exit the Chinese search market, claiming it was no longer comfortable with censoring search results per government demands. But here it is a month later and Google has made no move to withdrawal its Chinese search operations, with censored results still appearing on Google's Chinese portal, Google.cn. In addition, the company may now be investing in a Chinese digital media company, as well. According to unconfirmed reports, the Internet giant is said to be a member of a Disney-led consortium looking to invest in a Chinese media and advertising company called Bus Online.

As soon as this week, Google might be rolling out a "Twitter-killer" feature for Gmail users, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

Gmail users can currently broadcast status messages via the Google Talk feature. The main difference between the current offering and the new feature is that status messages aren't available in a timeline format. With the new "Twitter clone," they will be.

If our attempts at getting such simple information as bus schedules or account balances from automated voice recognition systems are any indication, then we imagine Google has a lot of work to do in its latest endeavor - real-time, spoken-language translation.

Ah, the sea. The big blue. From sharks to shipwrecks, from the perfectly formed pipes of Hawaii's waves to the dark and chilly depths of the deepest sea trenches, it's one of Earth's most fascinating habitats - one that people love watching and exploring.

Tonight, Google is bringing Internet-bound ocean lovers a new portal to the amazing biological and topographical diversity that lies beneath the waves. If you're into underwater environments and you're down with Google Earth,

When Google launched the Nexus One Android phone a few weeks ago, support for multitouch gestures like pinch-to-zoom was mysteriously missing from the phone's feature set in the United States. Starting today, however, Google will begin to ship an over-the-air software update to all Nexus One phones in the U.S. that will enable multitouch pinch-and-zoom functionality in the browser, gallery and maps application. Until now, Nexus One owners had to resort to a hack to enable multitouch on their phones.

Back in April 2009, Google introduced Google Search, a little-known feature in Gmail labs that allows users to search Google without ever leaving the Gmail interface. Today, Google announced that it is improving this feature with a number of useful new functions. Google Search in Gmail can now access most of the more advanced features of Google Search, including dictionary definitions, spelling corrections, calculations, weather and local search. In addition, Google is now also highlighting these new features through an additional button in the Gmail toolbar.

Officially, Google won't confirm any solid plans to release a tablet device when their new netbook-ready operating system, Chrome OS, debuts later this year. However, documentation appearing recently on the Chromium project website, the home of the open source code on top of which Chrome is built, shows that a tablet PC is a form factor the Internet giant is definitely considering. Assuming such a device was ever to launch, it would pit Google's vision for the future of mobile computing up against that of Apple's iPad, the highly-anticipated multi-touch tablet launched late last month to mixed reviews.

Google and the Associated Press haven't exactly been on good terms for the last few months. Due to fundamental disagreements over copyright and payments between the companies, Google stopped hosting AP content on its site in December after the existing contract between the AP and Google expired. Yahoo, however, is a step ahead of Google and just announced a new deal with the AP. The details about the contract between Yahoo and the AP weren't disclosed, but chances are that Yahoo agreed to pay higher licensing fees in return for the right to host AP stories on its properties.

A group of 15 authors and publishers and two organizations in India have filed a formal objection to the Google Books Settlement.

The Indian Reprographic Rights Organisation and the Federation of Indian Publishers and these 15 individuals join a panoply of international entities who have objected to Google's ambitious and controversial plan to scan as many books as possible throughout the world. Though the search and Web app giant's scheme would create a vast online library, it may also infringe on the rights of content creators and has created a lengthy international legal battle.

Google just made it a little bit easier to call ahead for reservations or to order a pizza for pick-up while you're on the go. In addition to its recent addition of location-based search suggestions, Google has added the ability for businesses to include a clickable phone number in their listings, making it even easier to use the search engine on your smartphone.

Google just announced that its Apps Script scripting language is now open to all users of the Google Apps Standard Edition. Until now, Apps Script, which allows users to create scripts that automate common tasks in Google Docs, was only available to paying Google Apps Premier and Education Edition users. Every Google Apps user can now, for example, create scripts that automatically import stock prices into a spreadsheet, convert foreign currency based on today's exchange rate or email team members when their task status is updated.

Google has just launched a new program aimed at improving security for its new Web browser, Google Chrome. Developers who find a bug in either Chrome or Chromium, the open source codebase used as the testing grounds for Chrome, will receive anywhere from $500 to $1,337 for reporting the issue. The amount of the reward will vary depending on the severity of the security hole discovered, says Google. Those bugs deemed "particularly severe or particularly clever" will receive the higher amount.

Today, Google, along with a group of DNS and content providers, including Neustar/UltraDNS, published a proposal to extend the DNS (domain name server) protocol. DNS is the system that translates URLs for humans (e.g., ReadWriteWeb.com) into numeric IP addresses used by all computers for online communication.

To be perfectly explicit, Google is proposing "to allow Authoritative Nameservers to return varying replies based upon the network address of the client that initiated the query rather than of the client's Recursive Resolver." If that made no sense to you, read on for a plain-English discussion of the issue at hand and what it means for users.

A week ago, the cat was let out of the bag: Apple and Microsoft were in talks over replacing Google with Bing, and have been for weeks, as the default search engine on the iPhone. Immediately, there were questions over the implications of this move, both for the companies involved and the users.

Today, online advertising network Chitika has released some numbers that show just how big of a move this could be for all parties involved.

Do you want to take control of your Android phone? By "rooting" your device, a process similar to jailbreaking an iPhone, you can install custom ROMs (images), which add stability and speed improvements to Google's mobile operating system, as well as install new features developed by the hacker community themselves. The procedure involves running commands that enable total access to the device. For non-developer types, hacks like these sound scary, but by following the instructions below, you can take control of your Android phone in only a matter of minutes. The end result is a truly open device which you can modify to your heart's content.

Google just announced an interesting update to Google Reader. Google's online feed reader now allows you to track changes on any page - even those that don't feature an RSS feed. Google will create its own custom feeds for these sites and update the feed whenever it notices a change. Google Reader will display a short snippet of the page changes in the RSS feed.

Google just released a new stable version of Chrome for Windows PCs that includes two of the most frequently requested features: extensions and bookmark sync. This change won't affect those users who are already using these features through Chrome's beta or developer preview channel. Windows users who are using the stable version of Chrome, however, will finally be able to use extensions and sync bookmarks between multiple machines.