In an attempt to counter the success of Google's online office applications, Microsoft has just launched the beta of its new Office Live Workspace. The service allows users to share, collaborate and comment on Microsoft Office documents such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. However, unlike Google's service, Microsoft requires that users own a copy of Microsoft Office in order to use the service, and users who wish to make changes will have to open their copy of Office and then upload any alterations once complete. The service is compatible with both Office 2003 and 2007 - if you want to take a look you can sign up for free by visiting the Office Live website. Microsoft has also renamed the current Office Live service to Office Live Small Business.

Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, each worth an estimated $18.5 billion, have joined the ranks of the top 10 richest people in the U.S., according to Forbes magazine's list of the 400 most wealthy Americans. The 34-year-olds are tied for fifth place, behind Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who is worth $59 billion; investment mogul Warren Buffett at $52 billion; casino and hotel magnate Sheldon Adelson at $28 billion; and Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison at $26 billion.

Google Inc. is testing a new advertising format that it hopes will make people spend more time looking at ads online, and even embed them in their own Web sites. Called Gadget ads, the service has already been in testing with a small handful of clients. On Wednesday Google announced that it was widening the tests considerably, which means more of the ads will start appearing on Web sites. The format allows companies to build ads that include audio, video, games and live data feeds, and to spruce them up with the Flash and JavaScript programming languages. The ads wind up looking like small Web pages within a Web page, and people can save them to a blog or their iGoogle home page. The gadget ads run on Google's Adsense advertising network and are priced by number of clicks or number of impressions. Google didn't say when the testing period would end, but the it said Gadget ads will eventually be available in 20 languages and 100 countries.

A new satellite, dubbed WorldView I, is to be launched on Tuesday that will provide Google with sharper images for its Google Earth program. Together with the company's existing Quickbird satellite, Google will be able to collect 600,000 square kilometers of high-resolution imagery each day compared to only that amount previously each week.

On September 15, 1997 Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two 24 year-old Stanford University students, registered the domain name of google.com. The word is a variation of 'googol,' which refers to the number 10 to the power of 100, a term popularized by US mathematician Edward Kasner. Page and Brin incorporated Google one year later, on September 7, 1998, in a household garage in northern California. Soon after its launch this search engine has become the most popular Internet search engine in the world outside of China, Japan and Russia, handling more than 500 million visits a day. In 2006 Google bought YouTube, the largest and most popular video exchange website, and soon after bought DoubleClick, one of the Internet's most powerful ad services. Google also launched free e-mail - Gmail. Today Google shares are valued at 525 dollars, and Google has a stock market value worth of 164 billion dollars.

A few years ago, the $20 million USD X Prize kick-started a race into space. And now, the X Prize is going one step and $10 million USD further. The first private organization to land on the moon, travel 500 meters on the moon, take one gigabyte worth of video/pictures, and stream it back to Earth will win $30 million USD. Anyone can win, assuming that they are not working for any particular government. However, be advised, the cost of building such a craft and launching it is quite possibly much more than $30 million USD.

Anyone interested in visiting the techPowerUp! Forums user DaMulta at the moon base should enter the new space race here.

BMW and a few other automakers have already implemented a system where one could search for directions and directly upload them to their car. Mercedes recently decided it was high time to add this feature to it's lineup of vehicles. Anyone buying the '07 S-Class, CL-Class, and '08 C-Class vehicles equipped with the Multimedia Package and Navigation System will be able to use the service for no additional charge. What sets this service apart from the competition, however, is the ability for relatives/friends to upload a map (to their house, for example) while you are on the road. However, for the service to actually work, customers need to buy a subscription to the Mercedes' Tele Aid System, which is free the first year.

An interesting new Easter egg has been discovered in the latest version of Google Earth which offers users a nifty little free little flight simulator. By pressing Control+Alt+A (actually, for me it only worked by using Control+A, so try that if pressing all three keys doesn't work) you can open a flight sim dialogue which will let to choose between the F16 "Viper" aircraft or the SR22, and allow you to select where you would like to start from a number of global airports. You only have to use this shortcut once - after the first time you can simply go to the "Tools" menu and click on "Enter Flight Simulator..." to run it. Admittedly it isn't the best flight sim out there, but if you get a bit bored at work and would like something to do, this could give you a few hours of entertainment before the IT technicians find out. This will only work with version 4.2 (including the free version) of Google Earth. For a full list of controls, go here.

Google will begin massive copyright filtering on Youtube, the company it now owns, in September.

Google lawyer Philip S. Beck described the system as a recognition technology that would rely on digital fingerprints that copyright holders would provide to YouTube to help filter out illegal uploads. Once the fingerprint is in the system, YouTube's software would be able to recognize and remove it within a minute or two.

Google says that it hopes that its new software would end the complaints - and litigation - from companies such as Viacom.

Google Inc. is expanding a test program that lets online advertisers buy ad space in newspapers, as the publishing industry struggles to offset business that has moved to the Internet. An initial test phase of Print Ads was launched by Google last November, linking about 100 advertisers with over 50 newspapers. Late Tuesday the Mountain View company stated that it will open the program to the "hundreds of thousands" of U.S. advertisers and agencies that use its online ad platform, AdWords. Newspaper publishers including Hearst Corp., The New York Times Co. and E.W. Scripps Co., have increased the number of daily newspapers involved in this project to 225.

A Chinese firm is suing the internet giant Google over its Chinese name, saying it is too much like its own name and is harming its business.
Google's Chinese subsidiary has transliterated its name to Guge.
Beijing Guge Science and Technology Ltd told Reuters news agency that people were constantly phoning its office trying to contact search engine Google.

Expanding it's effort to organize the world's information, Google announced it has bought GrandCentral Communications. Based out of California, GrandCentral Communications provides an innovative web-based voice communication platform that allows users to organize multiple phones under a single phone number. Acting as a virtual secretary the software can treat each incoming call differently. Voicemail can be read, listened to or forwarded and phone numbers can be marked as SPAM. This business move could indicate the integration of GoogleTalk and Gmail. GrandCentral Communications started in 2005 and is currently inviting a limited number of beta testers.

Internet search giant Google filed a 49 page document with the U.S. Justice Department and state attorney general charging that Microsoft's Windows Vista impairs the performance of "desktop search" programs that finds data stored on a computer's hard drive. Google believes that Microsoft is not complying with the 2002 antitrust ruling because "The search boxes built throughout Vista are hard-wired to Microsoft's own desktop search product, with no way for users to choose an alternate provider." Microsoft says it has already made more than a dozen changes to address regulators' concerns.

EMI Music - one of the world's leading global music companies, Google and YouTube, the leader in online video - today announced a landmark agreement which will give YouTube users unprecedented access to authorized videos and recordings from EMI Music artists, including those featured in user generated content.

"With this deal, all four of the world's major music companies are now official YouTube partners," said Chad Hurley, CEO and Co-founder of YouTube. "EMI is a proven leader in the emerging digital music landscape and one of the world's largest and most respected music companies. We're excited to add EMI Music's stellar roster of artists' content to our site and make it available to our community."

Google is adding an antivirus and anti-spam solution to its arsenal with the acquisition of GreenBorder Technologies Inc. Google did not comment on the story, but GreenBorder, a Mountain View, Calif. -based security company, posted a statement on its Web site, telling users that it has been bought by Google:

GreenBorder Technologies, Inc. has been acquired by Google, Inc. We will continue to support our existing customers through the end of their current subscriptions.

GreenBorder, which was founded in 2001, offers consumer and enterprise-level security products, protecting against viruses, spyware, and Trojans.

Google unveiled today a new Google.com search engine dubbed Universal Search. It might look like the old Google and nothing has changed, but new features have been added. Now Google search bar will include books, images, maps, news, videos, and web sites, and when you press "Google search" it will find all this in one result. In addition to Universal Search you will find an updated homepage design and several new navigation tabs that appear above the search results. Enough talking, just visit Google today and you'll see.

After losing out to Google in a bidding war to buy online advertising company DoubleClick, Microsoft could be about to acquire Yahoo!, a site best known for its search capabilities. The deal is being reported to be worth as much as $50 billion, and would allow Microsoft a stronger market position to compete with Google in the growing business of online searching. Earlier this week Yahoo! announced that it would be buying a further 80% share in advertising firm Right Media for a sum of $680 million, leaving it in full control of the company, a move which probably increased Microsoft's interest in such a deal. Yahoo!'s shares rose to $32.25 from $28.18 after news of this merger, which could change the face of online searching over the coming years - and may have a significant impact on free online email services considering that Microsoft is in control of MSN Hotmail.

Millward Brown, one of the leading UK-based research companies, today said that the "Google" is now the world's most valuable brand. The firm's name is now valued at about twice the amount of IBM, three times Disney or five times Yahoo. Google has risen to the top of this year's ranking, taking the number one spot with a brand value of $66,434 million. This was followed by General Electric ($61,880 million), Microsoft ($54,951 million) and Coca-Cola ($44,134 million).

We reported 8 days ago that Google is going to buy Doubleclick for $3.1 billion USD. However, this move is causing a lot of worry. The FTC is going to investigate whether this move is really legal. The reason is quite simple: search engines are gaining too much power. And while we're not looking at anything like "Skynet" from the Terminator movies, we may be looking at Google being able to gain too much information about people, what they do, and how they spend their money and free time. Doubleclick claims that their methods of collecting information are non-invasive, and would not let Google (or themselves) be able to track down users and/or truly invade their privacy.

It seems as if Google's software, designed to compete with automated map-makers such as MapQuest, still has one or two kinks that need to be worked out. While Google Maps is absolutely wonderful when telling you how to drive in either the USA or Europe, it seems not to be so good at telling you how to drive from the USA to Europe. The screenshot I attached explains the theoretical situation of me driving from (an area very close to) my house to W1zzard's (the man who started techPowerUp!). I'm not sure I can handle the extremely difficult task of swimming 3,462 miles to get into France.Special thanks to 'Spud107' for bringing this bug to my attention.

Google Inc. announced today a definitive agreement to acquire DoubleClick Inc., a global leader in digital marketing technology and services, for $3.1 billion in cash from San Francisco-based private equity firm Hellman & Friedman along with JMI Equity and management. The acquisition will combine DoubleClick's expertise in ad management technology for media buyers and sellers with Google's leading advertising platform and publisher monetization services.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced the launch of Google TiSP (BETA) , a free in-home wireless broadband service that delivers online connectivity via users' plumbing systems. The Toilet Internet Service Provider (TiSP) project is a self-installed, ad-supported online service that will be offered entirely free to any consumer with a WiFi-capable PC and a toilet connected to a local municipal sewage system.If you'd like to learn how to install TiSP, please read the instructions here.

LG Electronics (LG), and Google today announced a global collaboration to pre-install Google's services on millions of LG mobile phones. Mobile users around the world will now be able to easily search for information, find locations, update blogs and manage email while on the move.

Google is rumored to have put into effect a timeline for giving more storage space to Gmail accounts. Gmail account sizes have slowly been increasing over time, and this is the most recent timeline to that increase.

• 2800MB: Already reached
• 2835MB: In 18.22 days
• 2980MB: In 384 days
• 3125MB: In 749 days
• 3270MB: In 1114 days
• 3415MB: In 1479 days
• 3560MB: In 1845 days

Please remember to take this timetable with a grain of salt, as my source does not site their, well, source.

Steve Balmer, a CEO of Microsoft, has some choice words to say about Google. In a speech addressed to Stanford University yesterday, Balmer calls Google's growth plans "insane", and claims that Google is merely a "one-trick pony" that only focuses on making searching easier. The Inquirer says that Mr.Balmer needs to be careful with stones in his "big glass house", and wants to remind everyone what IBM considered Microsoft just a decade or two ago. IBM considered Microsoft a "pretty humble bunch", that only focused on clients and servers. Even today, you could still argue that Microsoft still "only" focuses on clients and servers.