Earlier this week, Google announced an update to its Google+ for Android app, bringing several new features and user interface tweaks to the social network app. The first change is the ability to start a Hangout from anywhere in the app.

We think you’ll find today’s app nicer to look at, but we’re also making it easier to use. Improvements include:

• A navigation ribbon that slides in and out, providing quick access to just about everything
• The ability to download photos directly from Google+, and turn them into wallpaper
• The chance to edit posts inline, in case you make any mistakes while on the go

The update is available for download from Google Play now.

Today, Google announced that it has launched in-app subscription support for any app available in the Google Play market. The feature allows developers to earn money when users sign up to receive either monthly or yearly content within the app itself.

All subscriptions are auto-renewing, for every app and game and every type of subscription product. Developers just set the price and billing interval and Google Play manages the purchase transactions for them, just as it does for other in-app products and app purchases.

According to a report from DigiTimes, Google will be officially launching its long-awaited and rumored tablet device sometime this July, with initial production yielding about 600,000 units. The report also claims that Google is developing the tablet alongside Asustek Computer's help, but the company has declined to comment on that matter.

Google's 7-inch tablet PC, which the company co-developed with Asustek computer, is set to start shipping in June with initial shipments to reach about 600,000 units. The machine will be officially released in the market in July, according to sources from the upstream supply chain. However, Asustek has declined to comment.

According to documents (PDF) released by a San Francisco jury today, Google has been found not guilty of infringing upon Oracle-controlled patents. The court has dismissed the jury in the case and removed Google of any wrong doing. Earlier this month, Google was found of infringing on Oracle's copyrighted material in Android OS, however. That trial is set to resume next Tuesday morning.

Today, Google announced the release of version 2.0 of its Google Search app for the iPhone. The new release brings a completely redesigned user interface to iOS users, something that iPad users saw late last year. The update brings heavy emphasis on performance and full-screen capabilities, specifically on picture searching.

• Complete redesign
• Major speed improvements
• Auto full screen: scroll down to hide controls, scroll up to reveal
• Beautiful full-screen image search
• Swipe away webpages to quickly return to search results
• Search within a webpage using the built-in text finder
• Easily switch between images, places, news, and more
• Fast access to Google apps like Gmail, Calendar, Docs and more all from one place

Google will be celebrating the 78th birthday of Robert Moog tomorrow, May 23, 2012, with a (pretty amazing) interactive Doodle on its homepage. Moog, who is best known for inventing the Moog synthesizer, has been named the "pioneer of electronic music" with his invention.

To celebrate the occasion, Google has created an interactive Moog synthesizer on its homepage where users can turn switches on and off, play sounds, and record their creations. The Doodle is currently live on the Google Australia homepage, and will be launching in the U.S. tomorrow.

According to new data released by StatCounter this morning, Google Chrome has surpassed Internet Explorer as the world's most popular web browser (in terms of usage), a spot Microsoft's browser has held every week of the year since 1998. IE has been on a steady decline over the past several years, with web browsers such as Chrome and Firefox taking up market share left behind.

According to the data, Chrome now holds a 32.76% market share worldwide, while Internet Explorer controls 31.94%. In a distant third is Mozilla Firefox at 25.47%.

YouTube announced as part of a birthday blog post today that over 72 hours of video is collectively uploaded to the website every minute.

According to a report from The Associated Press, the Chinese government has approved Google's proposed $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility, possibly opening the opportunity to close the deal that was initially announced in August of 2011 as early as next week. China was the last country that needed to approve the merger, with both the United States and European Commission approving the deal back in February.

Chinese regulators had one condition for the deal being approved: "That Google's Android operating system for mobile devices remain available to all at no cost for the next five years."

Today, Google unveiled further integration of Google+ into its email service Gmail. The first improvement coming deals with search in Gmail: searching for a person's name will now display any emails you've sent to them, their profile pictures, and the ability to start a conversation with them. In addition, Google is rolling out improved Circles integration, allowing users to see profile pictures and detailed search information when clicking on the pictures of their Google+ friends.

Circles are also now supported in search and filters. Find messages from a specific circle by typing circle:[circle name] in the search box. You can also find mail from any of your circled contacts by searching with has:circle. You can refine your search even further with other criteria and create filters based on circles. This means you can now view all the unread emails from your ‘Friends’ circle or automatically star every message that comes from your ‘VIP’ circle.

Today, Google introduced a new feature to its search engine that is dubbed "Knowledge Graph." The technology takes user input as a whole, rather than separate words and strings like it has been in the past. Knowledge Graph will allow users to narrow their search results down to exactly what they're looking for, get a summary of information on the right-hand side of the page, and pick out small details related to search queries.

The Knowledge Graph enables you to search for things, people or places that Google knows about—landmarks, celebrities, cities, sports teams, buildings, geographical features, movies, celestial objects, works of art and more—and instantly get information that’s relevant to your query. This is a critical first step towards building the next generation of search, which taps into the collective intelligence of the web and understands the world a bit more like people do.

Google has already begun rolling out Knowledge Graph to users, and it will soon be available on mobile devices as well.

Today, Google released the first Stable version of Chrome 19 to the public, adding tab syncing across multiple devices when users are signed into Chrome with a Gmail account. When a user is signed in, all their open tabs appear under a new menu on the "New Tab" page in Chrome called "Other Devices."

The Stable version update will be rolled out to existing Chrome users over the coming days.

According to a report from Business Insider (based on a research note from Macquarie analyst Ben Schacter), Google is currently developing a Chrome Web Browser app for use on iOS devices. In fact, the app may already be submitted to Apple for review and could debut in the App Store as soon as the end of this quarter. No specific details about the app were given, however.

While third-party web browsers already exist on the App Store (an example include Opera), a majority of iOS users still use Safari because of the amount of system-level integration the app brings.

To celebrate Mother's Day, Google has placed a heart-warming animated Doodle on its homepage. The Doodle portrays the mom character as a "g" and her two children as two "o's" as a spin-off of the regular Google logo. The "o's" are animated and walk over to hug the "g" and the rest of the Google logo fades in.

Today, Google released version 2.0 of its Google+ app for iOS (App Store link), bringing with it a number of new features and a completely overhauled user interface. The company notes in its announcement of the update that the "+1" button will now float at the top of the screen to make it easier for use, and that the app sports "crisper fonts, larger profile pics and a friendlier homescreen." Users' streams will now have "overlays, gradients and other visual elements" to make it easier to read as well.

The update is available via the iOS App Store beginning today.

Today, Google updated the Google Maps for Android app (Google Play link) to version 6.7 and with it, brings integration with Google Offers, indoor walking directions, and business photos. Offers allows users to see any deals with businesses close to them, while indoor walking directions (available in the U.S. and Japan) show people around indoor locations. Google Business Photos are panoramic photos of retail stores for users.

With Google Business Photos you can explore panoramic photos of the inside of a business from the palm of your hand. Now you can get a feel for a restaurant or store inside as well as outside using Street View technologies. To access these 360-degree panoramic views, look for the “See Inside” section on the Place page of select businesses.

According to a report from The Associated Press, the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has issued the first license that makes it legal to operate in a Google self-driving car. The car, which uses a myriad of sensors and cameras to determine a path around other vehicles on the road, pedestrians, and road blocks, has been in testing on the roads of California around Google's Mountain View campus for more than a year now.

"It gets honked at more often because it's being safe," said Nevada DMV Director Bruce Breslow.

The Nevada law states, however, that there must be two people in the car at any given point in time. One person should be in the driver's seat and have the ability to override the computer if need by pressing on the brake or placing a hand on the steering wheel. The other should be monitoring the car's computer system that determines the path that the vehicle will be taking.

A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch that Google Play, formerly known as the Android Market, crossed 15 billion downloads a few weeks ago. The numbers come as a surprise since Google made no mention of the new number and last we officially heard was Google Play had 11 billion downloads.

Compared to Apple's App Store, Google is far behind but rapidly catching up. Apple says that their store has over 25 billion downloads. In terms of number of applications Google is also catching up fast, Google Play has about 500,000 apps while Apple has 600,000.

According to a report from Reuters, a jury ruled today that Google has infringed upon some of the copyrighted content owned by Oracle regarding the Java programming language. The ruling comes as part of a high-profile lawsuit filed by Oracle that claims Google illegally used Java code in its Android mobile operating system.

The jury, however, was unable to decide whether Google had fair use of the copyrighted content. Google lawyers are moving toward a mistrial at this time, according to the report.

Oracle, which initially filed the lawsuit back in 2010, is seeking roughly $1 billion in damages from Google.

According to a report from Bloomberg, the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is preparing to slap Google with a fine totaling more than $10 million as a result of the Web giant's recent breaching of Apple Safari's cookie system. Google was caught inserting certain cookies into Safari on iOS devices that circumvented privacy restrictions and tracked users' activity on the Internet.

At this time, no official fine has been given.

That’s why I’m sharing today that the SketchUp team and technology will be leaving Google to join Trimble. We’ll be better able to focus on our core communities: modelers who have been with us from the beginning, as well as future SketchUppers who have yet to discover our products. Designers, builders and makers of things have always been the heart and soul of SketchUp. With Trimble’s commitment to invest in our growth, we’ll be able to innovate and develop new features better than ever before.

Earlier today, a new easter egg was discovered on Google search results, one that deals with Blizzard's Starcraft video game series. To begin the easter egg, you type in "zerg rush" (without the quotes) into Google, and watch the show as red and yellow circles begin to drop from the top of the screen and literally "destroy" search results on the page. Clicking on one of the circles will destroy them immediately as well.

Thoughts on this?

According to a blog post, Google Translate, the service that allows people to simply type in text and translate it into a wide variety of different languages, is used by 200 million users every month. Translate will soon be celebrating its sixth (6) birthday and has been rolling out languages available for translating for several years now. In addition, Google revealed that 92% of the traffic coming to Translate is outside of the United States.

Today we have more than 200 million monthly active users on translate.google.com (and even more in other places where you can use Translate, such as Chrome, mobile apps, YouTube, etc.). People also seem eager to access Google Translate on the go (the language barrier is never more acute than when you’re traveling)—we’ve seen our mobile traffic more than quadruple year over year. And our users are truly global: more than 92 percent of our traffic comes from outside the United States.

According to data released by analytics company Pingdom, Google Chrome 18 is the world's most popular Web browser, sporting a 25.6% market share. In a distant second place is Firefox 11 with 15.8% market share, followed by Internet Explorer 9 and 8 with 15.7% and 14.6% market shares, respectively. When all Internet Explorer versions are combined, Microsoft continues to hold the world's most popular browser title.

In North America, Internet Explorer 9 holds the crown as the most popular browser with 21.2% market share, closely followed by Chrome 18 with 20.2%.

When you visited Google today, you make have noticed something quite peculiar on the homepage of the world's most popular search engine - a giant zipper is running down the page. If you drag the zipper down using a mouse, the page "unzips" to reveal search results for Gideon Sundback, who was born on April 24, 1880. Sundback is best known for his work on developing the modern zipper. The normal Google logo has also been slightly remodeled to give a more retro look behind the zipper as well.

Alongside the announcement of Google Drive, Google also revealed today that it is upping the storage limits for both Gmail and Docs users to 10 GB and 5 GB, respectively. Prior to today, Gmail users had 7.5 GB of space to use before they needed to purchase extra storage plans.

Also as a reminder, purchasing any of the Google Drive extra storage plans (minimum 25 GB) will result in an increase to Gmail storage space of 25 GB as well.

Google Drive offers users with 5 GB of free cloud storage space for their files, which can be accessed from a wide variety of platforms including the Web and mobile devices.

Following months of rumors, Google today officially unveiled its own cloud storage service, which is dubbed "Google Drive." Google Drive will give users 5 GB of storage space for free, allowing them to store any files they'd like on the cloud and access them on a wide variety of platforms, including:

• Windows and Mac OS X
• Android
• iOS app coming soon
• Web

• Create and collaborate. Google Docs is built right into Google Drive, so you can work with others in real time on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Once you choose to share content with others, you can add and reply to comments on anything (PDF, image, video file, etc.) and receive notifications when other people comment on shared items.
• Store everything safely and access it anywhere (especially while on the go). All your stuff is just... there. You can access your stuff from anywhere—on the web, in your home, at the office, while running errands and from all of your devices. You can install Drive on your Mac or PC and can download the Drive app to your Android phone or tablet. We’re also working hard on a Drive app for your iOS devices. And regardless of platform, blind users can access Drive with a screen reader.
• Search everything. Search by keyword and filter by file type, owner and more. Drive can even recognize text in scanned documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. Let’s say you upload a scanned image of an old newspaper clipping. You can search for a word from the text of the actual article. We also use image recognition so that if you drag and drop photos from your Grand Canyon trip into Drive, you can later search for [grand canyon] and photos of its gorges should pop up. This technology is still in its early stages, and we expect it to get better over time.

Other storage option plans include:

• 25GB for $2.49/month
• 100GB for $4.99/month
• 1TB for $49.99/month

Google Drive has also been integrated directly into several Google products, including Google+. Gmail integration will be coming soon.

Friday, Google announced its next set of planned product shutdowns as an attempt to centralize its offering and combine certain services. Over the past year, Google has slowly been shutting down a number of products, most notable of which are Google Buzz, Google Wave, and Picnik.

This set of closings includes Google Sync for the BlackBerry platform, Google Related, and Google Flu Vaccine Finder. In addition, the web giant will be making a number of changes to its API offering to developers, including deprecating some and changing other policies.

A full description of all services being axed is below:

• We are making a number of API changes, adopting a one-year deprecation policy for certain APIs and removing the deprecation policy for others. Additionally, we are retiring some old APIs with limited usage. We have also updated the deprecation policy for all APIs to be much clearer and more concise. Please see the Developers Blog for more information.
• Google Flu Vaccine Finder was a maps mash-up that showed nearby vaccination places across the United States, built by a small 20 percent team during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic when there was a dire need for fast and accurate data on flu vaccination locations. Google Flu Vaccine Finder is now retired, but we’re pleased to pass the baton to the experienced team atHealthMap as they launch HealthMap Flu Vaccine Finder.
• Google Related is an experimental browsing assistant launched to help people find interesting and useful information while they browse the web. The product isn’t experiencing the kind of adoption we’d like, and while we still believe in the value provided to our users, we’ll be retiring the existing product over the next few weeks, so the Related team can focus on creating more magic moments across other Google products.
• Beginning June 1, 2012, we’re ending our support for Google Sync for BlackBerry. If you already have the app installed, you’ll still be able to use it; however it will not be available for download after June 1. If you currently use Google Sync for BlackBerry, we encourage you to switch to BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) or the Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Servergoing forward. These alternatives offer a better overall experience, as you can sync your email messages, calendar and contacts through a single service.
• We’re shutting down the mobile web app for Google Talk. For mobile users who want to continue using Google Talk, we recommend using the native Google Talk app on Android or any XMPP-compliant apps on other mobile platforms.
• One Pass, our payment platform for online news publishers, has been shut down. We are working with existing partners to make the transition from One Pass to other platforms, including Google Consumer Surveys. While One Pass is going away, we will continue working with publishers to build new tools.
• We're redirecting the old Patent Search homepage to google.com to make sure everyone is getting the best possible experience for their patent searches. Over the past few months, we've been making updates and improvements to the Patent Search functionality on google.com—not only are you able to search the same set of U.S. patents with the same advanced search options, the new experience loads twice as fast as the old Patent Search homepage, contributes to a unified search experience across Google, and sports Google Doodles as well. The team looks forward to including patents from other countries soon, and will be rolling out additional features to Patent Search on google.com in the future.
• We launched a WINE-based version of Picasa for Linux in 2006 as a Google Labs project. As we continue to enhance Picasa, it has become difficult to maintain parity on the Linux version. So today, we’re deprecating Picasa for Linux and will not be maintaining it moving forward. Users who have downloaded and installed older versions of Picasa for Linux can continue to use them, though we won’t be making any further updates.
• Starting today, the Picasa Web Albums Uploader for Mac and Picasa Web Albums Plugin for iPhoto will no longer be available for download. People can continue to use the uploader and plugin if they are installed. However, we’ll no longer maintain these tools. We strongly encourage people to download Picasa 3.9 for Mac, which includes upload and iPhoto import features.

The past several days have been filled with rumors regarding "Google Drive," a long-awaited and heavily rumored cloud service from Google that would essentially allow users to place their files onto the cloud, and access them from any Internet connected device. Recent rumors claim that the service could be launching as soon as next week, and offer users with 5 GB of free storage space.

Today, Mashable posted a picture it obtained from a person in Brazil who was present at a keynote being given by a Google employee. The report says that the employee accessed his presentation from Google Drive, as seen by the highlighted "Drive" text in the Google toolbar. The Drive text resides in between "Calendar" and "Sites" on the Google Bar, and it should be noted that this is in the same area where the current "Documents" link is. This has led to speculation that Google will be removing Docs as a separate service and integrating it into Drive, but it should be noted that the URL seen in the picture taken still points to a docs.google.com address.

“Some friends and I were watching a seminar with a Google employee called João Itaqui (Google Enterprise director in Brazil) here at Universidade Feevale (Feevale University) in Novo Hamburgo, RS — Brazil when we noticed he had an option called “Drive” in his Google toolbar.” says Moschetta. “I think he, as a senior employee, has early access to Google Drive before public announcement or release.”

We'll keep you posted with any further developments.

Over the past hour or so, frustrated Gmail users have gone to Twitter to reveal what appears to be widespread Gmail outages. Users attempting to access their Gmail account(s) are seeing "Temporary Error (500)" messages, and are asked to try logging in again later. Google has revealed via the Apps Status Dashboard that it is currently "investigating reports of an issue with Google Mail," but didn't give specific details.

We'll keep you posted as more information comes in.

UPDATE: Google has provided an update via the Apps Status Dashboard, stating that this issue is affecting less than 2% of Gmail users. In addition, service is already being restored to those users, and will continue over the next several hours.

According to several reports over the past 24 hours, Google's long-awaited cloud storage service will be launching sometime in the middle of next week. The service, dubbed "Google Drive," will give users 5 GB of free storage space in the cloud, and presumably offer more space for a fee. Drive will certainly be a direct competitor to Dropbox, which only offers 2 GB of free space to users.

It's unclear at this time, however, how Google Drive will integrate into Mac OS X and Windows. It is expected to be in the form of "desktop folders," which is easier to integrate on Windows than on OS X.

Google Drive is expected to launch on Tuesday of next week at http://drive.google.com.

Sprint announced earlier today that the Samsung Galaxy Nexus 4G LTE smartphone will be launching on its network on April 22, 2012. The phone, which will cost $199.99 with a new two-year contract, can be pre-ordered from Sprint's website beginning today.

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus has the following features:

• 1.2 GHz dual-core processor
• 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED
• Android OS 4.0 (a.k.a. "Ice Cream Sandwich")
• 5-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera
• Google Wallet support

Today, Google reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2012, announcing a revenue of $10.65 billion, beating analyst expectations by a wide margin. As far as profit goes, Google reported a solid $8.14 billion in that category, right in target with previous expectations.

In addition, the web giant also unveiled plans to create a non-voting capital stock that will essentially create a 2-for-1 split. The new stock, class C, will also be traded under a separate ticker on NASDAQ.

“Google had another great quarter with revenues up 24% year on year,” said Larry Page, CEO of Google.  “We also saw tremendous momentum from the big bets we’ve made in products like Android, Chrome and YouTube. We are still at the very early stages of what technology can do to improve people’s lives and we have enormous opportunities ahead.  It is a very exciting time to be at Google.”

Today, Google announced the rollout of a completely redesigned and overhauled version of its social network, Google+, which will soon be approaching its first birthday. Changes on the new version of Google+ include:

• Dynamic navigation on the left that allows dragging of apps up and down
• Improvements to photos, videos
• Improvements to conversation views, threads, and activity viewing
• More importance on the "Hangouts" feature, which allows for group video chatting

At this time, it's unclear when this feature will be integrated into the stable version of Chrome.

Today's Google Doodle, a special logo on the homepage of Google, celebrates the 182nd birthday of Eadweard J. Muybridge, who is accredited as being the father of motion photography. The Doodle will animate upon clicking the play button, and using motion photography, will display a person riding on a horse as if it would be a video. Certain tiles of pictures are colored using the same red, blue, green, and yellow colors found in Google's normal logo.

Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page sat down for an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek yesterday, and addressed the topic of Apple and late Steve Jobs's very public hatred of the Android OS mobile platform. Page stated that the hatred is/was all "for show," and was only created by Apple to "rally" its employees.

Page states:

Google has unveiled a new project that it has begun working on, dubbed "Project Glasses." It has begun asking for people's feedback on what they want to see in heads up display glasses, which is something similar to the things found in old science-fiction movies. The company has revealed that the glasses run a version of Android OS, and will be for sale sometime later this year for the cost of a smartphone.

PocketNow has posted an image of what it claims to be promotional materials for the long-rumored and long-expected Google-branded Nexus Tablet. The image lines up with previous rumors about the tablet: a 7-inch display, microSD card slot, SD card slot, and micro HDMI port. The photo, however, seems to have been rendered before Google's massive rebranding of the Android Market to Google Play.

In addition, the tablet pictured above is running Android OS 4.0 (a.k.a. "Ice Cream Sandwich") with a relatively base user interface. This further supports that this is indeed a Google-branded tablet.

An announcement could be coming from the web giant as soon as late June.

Following nearly two years of adjusting and discussing a lawsuit, the Oracle versus Google case will finally be going to trial on April 16, according to ZDNet. Oracle claims that Google has stolen Java code in its Android OS platform, and if this is proven to be true, Oracle could be expecting a pretty hefty check from Google.

Last week, Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal asked both parties to give settlement talks another chance, with a decision required by April 9. Even though they had another week, it must have been clear that a settlement just isn’t in the cards.

Google did propose an offer that included a cut of Android’s revenue stream through 2018, which was a stipulation for damages if (and only if) Oracle prevails on patent infringement.

Grewal — the same judge who presided over similarly failed settlement talks last fall — issued a memo on Monday explained that “the parties have reached an irreconcilable impasse in their settlement discussions with the undersigned,” and that “no further conferences shall be convened.”

Today, analytics company Net Applications released statistical data for mobile operating system usage in the month of March, revealing a pretty interesting turn of events: both iOS and Android lost some market share, while Research in Motion's BlackBerry platform actually gained a little.

iOS' market share dipped down to 59.87% in March from the 60.59% it controlled in February. Android OS from 19.02% to 18.66% in the same time frame as well. On the other hand, BlackBerry OS went from 2.15% in February to 2.21% in March. While it's still far off from iOS and Android (and it was a very small gain), any gain certainly helps the struggling Research in Motion.

As we move closer to the rumored launch of Google's online file storage system, leaks and further information are beginning to pop up daily. The service, which will be dubbed "Google Drive" according to reports, will give users 5 GB of free storage space in the cloud, according to a document obtained by TalkAndroid. It was previously rumored that Google would be giving customers only 1 GB of space.

In addition, the image confirms previous rumors that stated the service will be accessible from a variety of Internet-connected devices, including computers, smartphones, and tablets.

At this time, the service is expected to be announced sometime in the next three weeks.

In the past, Google has been known for playing one or two April Fool's Day jokes on the Internet, and this year doesn't appear to be any different. To celebrate the April 1 holiday, Google has launched an 8-bit version of Google Maps that has been designed for viewing on Nintendo NES devices.

With Google Maps 8-bit, you can do all the things you already do on regular Google Maps. Search for famous landmarks and sites around the world. Take an epic journey with 8-bit Street View. Get detailed directions to avoid dangerous paths, and battle your way through a world of powerful monsters and mystic treasures.

In the past, Google has been known for playing one or two April Fool's Day jokes on the Internet, and this year doesn't appear to be any different. To celebrate the April 1 holiday, Google has launched "The YouTube Collection," which allows people to order popular videos on YouTube in DVD form. Of course, it's not a real thing though.

Clicking the "Order Now" button will bring you through the normal steps of ordering a product (and allows you to choose what topic of videos you'd like). Once you get to the final screen, Google lays down the "Happy April Fool's" and gives you a whopping $200,000 check for the videos.

Let us know if you find any other April Fool's Day jokes around the Internet.

Yesterday, Google posted a video to YouTube of an experiment is conduced with the self-driving cards - placing a blind man in the driver's seat and seeing how the experience goes.

We announced our self-driving car project in 2010 to make driving safer, more enjoyable, and more efficient. Having safely completed over 200,000 miles of computer-led driving, we wanted to share one of our favorite moments. Here's Steve, who joined us for a special drive on a carefully programmed route to experience being behind the wheel in a whole new way. We organized this test as a technical experiment, but we think it's also a promising look at what autonomous technology may one day deliver if rigorous technology and safety standards can be met.

It's truly remarkable to see how far the project has come already, and thinking about the possible future uses of these self-driving cars.

Google announced via the official Android Google+ account today that it has begun pushing out the Android OS 4.0.4 software update to the Nexus S, Xoom Wi-Fi tablet, and Samsung Galaxy Nexus. The update, which will also be available to other devices in the coming weeks, will be the first update to Android OS 4.0 (a.k.a. "Ice Cream Sandwich") for a number of handsets. It will also contain bug fixes for existing Ice Cream Sandwich users.

Bug fixes included in Android OS 4.0.4:

• Stability improvements
• Better camera performance
• Smoother screen rotation
• Improved phone number recognition
• More

I am told the big day is sometime during the first week of April 2012. Google, of course is not talking. A spokesperson sent me the boilerplate — we don’t comment on rumors or speculation.

The Gigaom author reiterates and uses the word "might" since multiple stories in the past, dating as far back as 2006, have failed to come through. However, the person seems to be very confident this time with "well placed sources."

The report says that Google will offer 1 GB of free storage with an option to buy more. Dropbox, the current online storage leader, offers 2 GB free storage with many options to acquire more. Google is also said to release a local client along with APIs for third party applications.

According to a report from analytics company StatCounter, Google Chrome became the world's most popular web browser for the first time - for one day - on March 18, 2012. Chrome was number one in India, Russia, and Brazil this past Sunday, pushing it ahead of competitors to take the number one spot for a brief amount of time. Chrome edged out Internet Explorer with a 32.7% market share and 32.5%, respectively.

Things returned to normal on Monday, however, with Chrome taking 30% of the market and Internet Explorer regaining the crown with 35%.

Today, March 17, is St. Patrick's Day across the world and to celebrate the holiday, Google has unveiled a new Doodle for its homepage. The Doodle is inspired by the Book of Kells, a Gospel manuscript that is over 1,000 years old. It is currently housed at the Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.

Your thoughts?

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, over the next few months, Google will be rolling out a new feature to its web search product that will allow users to type questions directly into the search box and receive direct answers in return. The technology, dubbed "semantic search," would, in theory, allow users of Google to ask any question and receive a relevant response. For example, someone could ask the search engine for information about Lake Tahoe, and returned will be information about it.

This information will appear above normal search result links. Google has reportedly been building a database that will allow for this technology to work for the past two years. While some Google searches already do this, it's expected that even more info will be accessible.