ReadWriteWeb

If you're attending the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) this week and have an Android phone, you'll be able to use Google Maps to navigate inside the Las Vegas Convention Center. Select resorts and casinos on the Las Vegas strip are also covered, as is McCarran International Airport.

Google has also partnered with some Las Vegas-area Best Buy stores, so it can guide gadget-addled convention-goers straight to the cash register. Today's update also releases the floor plans of some of the first locations submitted to Google.

Google has "shipped the Google part" of Google+, and everything went better than expected. Today, Google launches Personal Results, Profiles in Search, and People and Pages, new features of its core search product that mark the real beginning of Google's social search era. Google search now has two modes: global and personalized. Personal search results show content from your Google+ network, and global search results appear as though you're logged out of Google+.

If you're like me, you've dreaded this day. Just last week, I wrote that Google+ was going to mess up the Internet by turning Web search into a popularity contest. But the new Google unveiled today leaves the user in control. "Search, plus Your World," Google has called it. It's two kinds of search, and they're separate. If you don't want Google+-flavored results, just switch to global mode. You can even turn off personalized search altogether.

Several of the largest Interent firms - including Google, Facebook and Twitter - are backing alternate legislation being proposed to the Stop Online Piracy and Protect IP Acts.

The OPEN act sponsored by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., would allow the International Trade Commission to order online ad networks and payment processors to sever ties withe foreign websites that are targeted by patent infringement claims.

SOPA, and its Senate counerpart, PIPA, on the other hand, would force search engines and websites to block links to sites that are listed as being "dedicated" to copyright infringement. SOPA has been widely endorsed by traditional media companies, but Web firms and free speech advocates have likened it to government-enforced censorship.

Google's monthly search improvement digest is a whopper this month, describing 30 highlighted changes to the way Google search works. This month, Google has started adding code names to make the changes easier to remember and follow.

The tweaks are a little bit scattered, affecting all different aspects of Google's search returns. Most of them affect the actual presentation of results. A couple affect the way results are ranked. There are two new kinds of results for entertainment-related searches. And there are a few back-end improvements and adjustments affecting site administrators.

My main man Steve Myers over at Poynter has broken down the outcome of a brand new phenomenon in the coverage of elections. Google's U.S. elections portal, launched just ahead of the Iowa Caucuses on January 3, provided more useful data about the caucus results than the Associated Press did. According to the veterans with whom Myers spoke, it was quite an upset. The speed and portability, not to mention the $0.00 price tag, of Google's data made an impression on the news outlets covering the caucus.

Myers points to WNYC's coverage as a superb example of the advantages gained by incorporating Google tools into original coverage. There's no question that Google has built a useful platform for news organizations on top of its existing core services. Myers wonders whether Google could even compete directly with the AP for the lucrative business of reporting election returns, and his sources believe it could, if its leaders wanted to. But I think there's even more going on with these Google election initiatives. It looks to me like Google is searching for ways to disrupt the whole election news business.

Among a handful of patents transferred last December 31 from IBM's portfolio to that of Google, as first discovered by Bill Slawski of SEO By the Sea, is a system for processing text compiled by users of social networks, and ascertaining their common interests. We've already seen the rise of tools such as Radian6 for ascertaining social net users' individual interests; this new technology, which received a U.S. patent only one year ago, would judge what concepts they share with one another.

The goal of this technology, as IBM originally stated, is to literally to filter out irrelevant links to articles that may not pertain to users' search intentions. What we don't know yet is whether Google intends to use this technology, or simply keep others from using it first.

Google updated the Google Translate iOS app today adding iPad support. It's the same set of features as the iPhone version, but the iPad is a great place for a free translator. Technophiles are reading more on tablets lately, and a free Google Translate app is a boon for a more literate, global wired society.

Google Translate has been available on the iPhone since the mobile Web version launched in 2008. The native app released last year added the voice-to-text feature as well as the spoken translations from Google's voice synthesizer. As one should expect, the translations are never perfect, but they're great for getting the gist.

Microsoft announced enhancements to its Bing Maps, including a change to the algorithm that allows the service to process directions requests twice as fast and help drivers avoid traffic.

Those changes, along with a newly-awarded patent for a feature that allows Bing Maps to route pedestrians away from unsafe neighborhoods, suggest Mcirosoft is driving to surpass Google Maps, which has dominated the space since surpassing MapQuest in site traffic and queries in 2008.

A spokesperson for European Commission Vice President Joaquin Almunia confirmed to ReadWriteWeb this afternoon from Brussels that the Commission has yet to come to a decision over whether to issue a Statement of Objections to Google, specifically with respect to an official investigation into whether the company weights search results - especially searches for commercial products - against certain sites, including online retailers.

The confirmation comes after a Bloomberg News report this morning appeared to indicate the EC had yet to reach a decision about an investigation concerning whether Google makes arbitrary choices with regard to which sites receive higher-ordered results in Google News. As Comm. Almunia's spokesperson tells RWW, his statement was actually in response to something else entirely: specifically, a question submitted by another commissioner into whether, over a two-year period, the Commission has obtained evidence showing Google actively demotes specific retailers.

Google Chrome released a new beta version today that takes the insurgent browser's instant and predictive features even further. The Instant Pages feature that pre-loads Web pages in the background as you search has been expanded to the omnibox, Chrome's combination address and search bar. If you're typing in a site you visit all the time, and the address auto-completes, Chrome will begin pre-rendering the page, reducing load time.

The new beta also improves Chrome's security against malware attacks. The Chrome team reports that malware attacks exploiting user-initiated processes are on the rise. The browser can now analyze executable files - such as ".exe" and ".msi" files - that you downloaded yourself. Chrome will warn users to delete suspicious files.