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Doing what they love, the rest follows

Posted by Brian Axe, Group Product Manager, AdSense

As a past founder of a technology startup, I understand the elation of coming up with an idea that solves a real need, building a product, and seeing people use it to make their lives better. Even more satisfaction comes when you can do all of this and pay the bills too. As I mentioned in this article it brings a smile to my face to hear about entrepreneurs in the developing world who use AdSense to replace their day job with AdSense earnings -- simply by writing about what they know and love. The story says these people are on "Google's hidden payroll" -- I say let's not hide this opportunity any longer.

GIOVANNA VARGAS

Modelo trujillana. Ganó el concurso de Miss Playa La Libertad 2006. El 11 de Marzo, entre 30 candidatas, ganó el Miss Perú Playa 2006, en Asia de Lima. Fotos Giovanna Vargas: Koky Villanueva


GIOVANNA VARGAS

TechnoServe update: New program in Ghana

Posted by Nick Railston-Brown, Ghana Country Director, TechnoServe

The Google Foundation supports select organizations whose work addresses the challenge of global poverty in ways that are effective, sustainable, and scalable. From time to time we invite guest bloggers from grantee organizations to tell us about their work.

We’re pleased to report that TechnoServe and the Google Foundation are launching a national business plan competition this week in Ghana, called “Believe Begin Become.” It’s designed to help Ghanaian entrepreneurs develop skills, obtain seed or expansion capital and establish the networks that help transform their business ideas into successful enterprises. (Watch the video about the program.)

More and more, entrepreneurs are recognizing the value of gaining skills, tools and a strong business network, and we know from our experience in Latin America what this kind of competition can mean to entrepreneurs. The program helps establish a crucial business network that will carry on long after the competition ends.

Our Organizing Committee colleague Ishmael Yamson puts it this way: “There are many entrepreneurs out there with good ideas — but they need encouragement to translate those ideas into concrete activities. Believe Begin Become can help them to do that.”

Get in touch if you’d like to get involved.

Update: added link to Google Video at end of paragraph 1.

Hot Canadian Actress Grace Park

Grace Park was born on March 6, 1979, in Los Angeles, California. Her family moved to Vancouver in Canada when Grace Park was 22 months old. Grace considers herself to be a Canadian, while also recognizing her Korean heritage. She plays Sharon "Boomer" Valerii in Battlestar Galactica, as well as Shannon Ng in the Canadian television series teen soap Edgemont.

Grace Park graduated from Magee Secondary in 1992, holds a degree in psychology from the University of British Columbia and speaks English and Korean, along with some French and Cantonese. She is currently studying Spanish. As of 2005, Park lives in Vancouver with her husband, real estate developer Phil Kim.

Grace Park has managed to rack up an impressive list of credits, including "The Outer Limits," "Halloween 8," "Beyond Belief," "Dark Angel," "The Immortal," "Stargate SG-1" and "Romeo Must Die." She also has appeared in Maxim magazine, March 2005.

Kick this

Posted by Pedram Keyani, Software Engineer

What do you get when Google and Nike get together and brainstorm? A sneaker-shaped server? A great TV ad for web search? No, you get Joga.com, an online football community that combines Google technology with Nike's unique sports content and access to players. Joga brings people all over the world together to celebrate their shared passion for the game of football (for you Americans out there, by "football" I mean "soccer").

What can Joga.com members expect? Three words: content, community, and players.

Content – Create your own personalized page to add your favorite pictures, videos and blogs, and view what your fellow fans have added. Members can keep current with Friend Requests, Alerts, and Messages too.

Community - Joga users can create their own teams, find local fields, and play other Joga teams in their community.

Players - Gain exclusive access to profiles and information about Nike players.

What does it all mean? Well, Joga.com comes from "Joga Bonito," Portuguese for "play beautiful," a phrase that symbolizes both any football player's desire to embody the grace of the game and our goal to offer a community site that helps promotes the sheer fun, skill, sportsmanship and community spirit that make football truly the world's favorite game.

Whether we've succeeded, of course, will be up to all of you to determine. We look forward to seeing football-crazy people from around the world playing as beautifully as possible at Joga.com.

KARLA TARAZONA

Nuevas fotos de Karla Tarazona para Frenosa en calendario 2007. Nuevas fotos que resaltan su figura.





Modelo Peruana. Gracias a su exhuberante pechonalidad de talla 36b, protagoniza el papel de 'Cloe Castro' en la obra teatral dirigida por Alex Otiniano "Baño de Mujeres". Ver más fotos: Perumodelos.com

fotos Karla Tarazona

Cute Japanese Gravure Idol Noriko Sagara

Noriko Sagara was born March 3, 1982 in Tokyo, Japan. The 156cm cutie enjoys karoake, nail art and love sports such as gymnastics, swimming, skiing and scuba diving.

Noriko has appeared in several TV series from 1999, such as Touch, WISH, Night, Star TBS of Nighttime, HAMASHO, and other television programs. Her popularity as an actress/model propelled her into production of videos, dvds and photobooks.

And we're back

Posted by Jason Goldman, Blogger Product Manager

The Google Blog was unavailable for a short time tonight. We quickly learned from our initial investigation that there was no systemwide vulnerability for Blogger. We'll let you know more about what did happen once we finish looking into it.

Update: We've determined the cause of tonight's outage. The blog was mistakenly deleted by us (d'oh!) which allowed the blog address to be temporarily claimed by another user. This was not a hack, and nobody guessed our password. Our bad.

ROSA ELVIRA CARTAGENA

Rosa Elvira Cartagena, ex Miss Perú 1999. Nuevamente arma revuelo en Lima y esta vez con motivo del lanzamiento de su calendario titulado, “Enamorada”. Reside desde hace cuatro años en EE.UU., y no le ha ido nada mal porque trabaja como modelo en el programa Sábado Gigante, de Don Francisco y no le faltan contratos para hacer modelaje publicitario.

ROSA ELVIRA CARTAGENA

Lara Bingle is 'bloody' popular.

Aussie model/surfer Lara Bingle, who stars in Australia's "Where the bloody hell are you?" tourism campaign, has already been getting a whopping number of hits online.

Entering her name in the Google search engine brings up a staggering 17,600 mentions.

So far, the face of Tourism Australia had an incredible month. The 18-year old was caught up in an SMS scandal, then her advertising campaign was almost axed in the UK and currently pending review in the US and banned in Canada.

Earlier last week, Bingle was planning to sue a men's magazine over a racy set of pictures published without her consent.

Her management group is seeking legal advice about the prospect of court action against Zoo Weekly, which has Bingle on the front cover of its current edition as well as a five-page spread including a topless shot.

That's the price of being popular... I guess.

SILVANA ARIAS

Silvana Arias, acrtiz peruana, nacida en Lima. Su carrera ha experimentado un ascenso “meteórico”. Se hizo muy popular gracias a Susanita, el personaje que interpretaba en “María Emilia”, teleneovela peruana, y hoy es un valor en alza en Norteamérica. Tras el éxito que alcanzó en Miami con “Amor Descarado” y “Gata Salvaje”, la actriz se ha instalado a Los Ángeles, donde graba la telenovela “Passions”. Silvana Arias Sitio oficial.

Google Reader learns to share

Posted by Mihai Parparita, Software Engineer, Google Reader team

Mom always taught us to share and now we know why: it's fun. Google Reader, which keeps track of websites you like to read regularly, just added the ability to share what you like to read with your friends.

You can send a link to your starred items in Reader, and you can even put a clip on your blog with recent items from your reading list. For instance, I mark all of the interesting posts that I find as "linkblog." Then my friends can subscribe to my "linkblog" label -- even if they don't use Google Reader -- and visitors to my blog can see it in the sidebar.

Some other shared lists we've come across:

• List of Official Google Blogs (U.S. only)
• Jason's "hipsters" list
• Chris's recent activity
• Justin's "thought leaders" list

To get started with sharing, just click the "Share" link in Reader or see the help section.

Beautiful Model Kaila Yu

Kaila Yu, 24 moved to California with her parents at the tender age of three from Taipei, Taiwan. During her early upbringing, her native tongue was Mandarin, however, she quickly adjusted to the English language when she arrived to the United States. Her rapid assimilation into American culture allowed her to start school a year early.

Upon entering high school, she found it difficult to blend in with the more popular students. This harsh reality forced her to hang around with the alternative crowds instead. She found herself living a relatively tame lifestyle at this point in her life and decided to concentrate more on her schoolwork. Her interacting with the alternative crowds allowed her to tap into her wild side and she developed an appreciation for music groups such as Skid Row and Guns N' Roses.

Upon graduating from high school, Kaila was accepted to a University of California institution and aspired to become a plastic surgeon, like model Michelle Behennah. This dream quickly faded, and after about a year of university, she decided to pursue a career in modeling instead. Her motivation to do so came from a boyfriend that she met during her short-lived stint in university.

Kaila's decision to pursue a career in entertainment stemmed from her childhood dream to become a singer. She claims singing is her true passion in life, while acting is of great interest to her as well. Modeling was something that she just kind of fell into. If anything, a career in modeling has helped her along her way.

Her big break, so to speak, came in August of 2000 when she graced the pages of Play..boy magazine with a stunning pictorial. This type of exposure (in the most literal sense of the word) jump-started her career and enabled her to break into the film industry as well. She has been featured on Play..boy TV, The Man Show, MTV's House of Style, and was also involved in a couple of B-rated movies.

Kaila is currently enrolled in UCLA and is majoring in Asian-American studies. While university studies are not one of her favorite pastimes, she has vowed to finish her degree in order to have a backup plan.

She is intent on pursuing her dream of becoming a singer in the United States, while at the same time remains focused on furthering her career in modeling. In the meantime, she is working on various miscellaneous projects and has been busy modeling for swimsuit calendars. -askmen

Expanding girls' horizons

Posted by Ellen Spertus, Software Engineer & Associate Professor of Computer Science, Mills College

Recently I was one of several Googlers who volunteered at the Expanding Your Horizons in Science and Mathematics conference at Mills, where I also teach. This annual event provides career panels and hands-on workshops to encourage middle-school girls to keep studying science and mathematics as they enter high school. I led a workshop, "How to Build a Computer," in which the students learned binary arithmetic and built a half-adder.

I don't know who had more fun, the girls or the volunteers! Google is a sponsor of the national Expanding Your Horizons Network, whose workshops have reached over 625,000 girls.

Photo by Barton Friedland

BARBARA MORI

Barbara Mori es actriz y modelo , de origen Uruguayo , ha actuado en mas de 10 telenovelas a sus cortos 28 años. Actualmente es más conocida como Rubí internacionalmente, por la telenovela que protagonizó. Es una mujer seductora y apasionada cuando se propone. Barbara Mori Sitio Oficial

Barbara Mori

Mac Gmail Notifier update

Posted by Greg Miller, Software Engineer

It's high time for us to release a small update for our Gmail Notifier for Mac (OS X). We've added a few things of our own and got some ideas from users too. Some of the changes are:

• it's a universal binary, so it will run natively on PowerPC and Intel Macs;

• it will notify you when a new version is available and automatically upgrade itself; and...drum roll, please...

• it has new icons (we know it's what you've asked for!).

Also, as many of you know, the Gmail Notifier supports plug-ins, and one of our users wrote a cool plug-in called Gmail+Growl that displays visual Growl notifications when new mail arrives. Very cool and worth checking out. So download the Mac Gmail Notifier once again, and we'll take care of the rest.

DIANE LANE

Hace pocos días estaba viendo nuevamente la película "Infidelidad", me pareció una mujer, a pesar de su edad, bellísima y sensual. ¿Quiéres ver más fotos? Deléitate: SITIO OFICIAL


DIANE LANE

Pick of the Week: Delicious Model Michelle B

Pick of the week is Michelle B. This 22-year-old beauty is currently modelling in Hong Kong and originally from the USA. Her 34C-24-34 figure looks yummy!

STEPHANIE CAYO

Stephanie Cayo, guapísima acrtíz y modelo peruana. Tiene 18 añitos y promete un futuro en el mundo de la actuación. Más Fotos.


STEPHANIE CAYO

Spring is the season for love (and data)

Posted by AC Narendran & Katie Jacobs Stanton, Google Finance team

Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote, "In the Spring, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." In the spring at Google, a geek's fancy turns to thoughts of ... charts and data. So to mark this vernal equinox, we introduce to you Google Finance.

It all started as a small project led by a few engineers in Bangalore and later joined by more engineers and finance enthusiasts in Mountain View and New York . We have different backgrounds, work in different time zones, and, at the start of this project, had never met in person. But we shared the same goal: to improve the search experience for financial information. We hope Google Finance lives up to that aim by offering a fresh perspective on company-related searches. To begin with, you no longer have to remember a ticker or mutual fund symbol. Just search for a company or mutual fund by name and you'll quickly see all the relevant information.

But perhaps Google Finance's most important innovations take place after you've found the company in question. You'll find interactive charts that enable you to zoom through different time periods, headlines mapped right on the charts and are based on Google News, which means you're seeing unbiased and relevant results from more than 4,500 English-language news sources. And you'll get insightful comments from bloggers about public and private companies, plus Discussion Groups moderated by enthusiastic community advocates, which should foster some quality exchanges about the companies you care about.

Google Finance is an early-stage beta product. We hope to expand and improve this service over time, and your feedback will be a big part of that. So do let us know what you think.

Sexiest in Asia: Zhang Zi Yi

China superstar/ Hollywood actress Zhang Ziyi is rated as the sexiest Asian women by Japan Pla y boy magazine.

Since the Memoirs of the Geisha, Zhang Ziyi popularity has been on the uptrend and it is no suprise that she is rated #1 in the list of 100 sexiest women in Asia.

The list is to be featured in April 2006 edition in Japan, in which Zhang Ziyi will grace cover as well.

Another notable mention is newsmaker of the year, Taiwan top supermodel Lin Zhi Ling. She managed to secure number 5 in the list.

KEYRA AGUSTINA

Keyra Agustina es la modelo más buscada, más votada y más deseada de Argentina y del mundo. es la mujer con el mejor trasero del planeta, según algunos comentarios recogidos de la web, incluso supera a la de lejos a la misma JLO. Usted tiene la Palabra Más fotos Keyra Agustina

Keyra Agustina

Beautiful Polish Izabella Scorupco

Izabella Dorota Scorupco was born on June 4, 1970. Scorupco is most famous as an actress who made an appearance as Bond girl Natalya Simonova in the 1995's GoldenEye.

Scorupco was born in Białystok, Poland to Lech and Magdalena. When she was only one year old her parents split up and Izabella came to live with her mother. In 1978 they moved to Bredäng in Stockholm, Sweden. She learned to speak Swedish and English during this time.

In 1989, she started modeling and was discovered by director Staffan Hildebrand. She landed a role in the movie Ingen kan älska som vi.

She was married to ice hockey player Mariusz Czerkawski and now married to American Jeffrey Raymond. Together they have a young son, Jacob (born July 24, 2003).

Judge tells DoJ "No" on search queries

Posted by Nicole Wong, Associate General Counsel

Google will not have to hand over any user's search queries to the government. That's what a federal judge ruled today when he decided to drastically limit a subpoena issued to Google by the Department of Justice. (You can read the entire ruling here and the government's original subpoena here.)

The government's original request demanded billions of URLs and two month's worth of users' search queries. Google resisted the subpoena, prompting the judge's order today. In addition to excluding search queries from the subpoena, Judge James Ware also required the government to limit its demand for URLs to 50,000. We will fully comply with the judge's order.

This is a clear victory for our users and for our company, and Judge Ware's decision regarding search queries is especially important. While privacy was not the most significant legal issue in this case (because the government wasn't asking for personally identifiable information), privacy was perhaps the most significant to our users. As we noted in our briefing to the court, we believe that if the government was permitted to require Google to hand over search queries, that could have undermined confidence that our users have in our ability to keep their information private. Because we resisted the subpoena, the Department of Justice will not receive any search queries and only a small fraction of the URLs it originally requested.

We will always be subject to government subpoenas, but the fact that the judge sent a clear message about privacy is reassuring. What his ruling means is that neither the government nor anyone else has carte blanche when demanding data from Internet companies. When a party resists an overbroad subpoena, our legal process can be an effective check on such demands and be a protector of our users.

Ayumi Hamasaki is Japan's most successful female singer!

Popular Japanese Singer Ayumi Hamasaki has become Japan's most successful female pop artist. With her 39th single, "Startin'/Born to Be..." making No.1 in the Oricon charts, she now has 26 chart toppers, one more than '80s diva Matsuda Seiko.

It's also her 14th No.1 single in a row, dating back to "Free & Easy" in 2002. She's also tops in overall single sales with almost 20 million, and in Top 10 singles with 37.

Ayu is currently in the middle of a nationwide arena tour that includes 30 shows in 14 cities

Courtside seats, without the court... or the seat

Posted by Qi Ke, Software Engineer

Starting today you can get up-to-the-minute sports scores and schedules using Google SMS on your mobile device. Just text message a school or team name to 46645 (GOOGL). "Why?" you ask? Because:

1. The big game is on tonight, and while your cable was cut 3 weeks ago, you've still got a recliner couch and a pair of battle-worn, nacho cheese-stained text messaging thumbs
2. Your newly purchased tickets make the nosebleeds feel like a fireside chat, and you lent your binoculars to your ornithologist cousin
3. You recently secured a new job, and you need to look like you're preoccupied with important business at all times
4. The love of your life dragged you to the ballet on game day, and made you leave your 60-inch liquid crystal TV at home
5. It's time for your family reunion (and the playoffs) again, and you don't have the heart to tell your relatives that you majored in basket... weaving
6. The restraining order filed against you by multiple sports professionals mandates that you find a way to "look but not touch"
7. When it comes to your personal sports soundtrack, you prefer the Crazy Frog to the National Anthem
8. You've developed an allergic reaction to commercial time-outs (or even commercials, for that matter)
9. It's triple over time, and your too-cute-to-say-no nephew wants pizza from a restaurant six blocks from the stadium
10. The BIG DANCE!
    

Stay in Ctrl Ctrl

Posted by Tomas Gunnarsson, Google Desktop Software Engineer

Three months ago, I came up with an idea that makes it easier for users to find what they're looking for: a search box in the middle of the desktop. It's very accessible -- all you have to do is press your Ctrl key twice. After some experimentation, people are telling us they like it and use it. That's why we're adding it to Google Desktop (coming out of beta today). Give the Quick Search Box a try. We hope you find it handy.

A new home for @Last Software

Posted by Jeff Martin, Product Marketing Manager

I was sitting at the breakfast table this morning, drinking a cup of coffee while I looked out at the snow. It was pretty much like any other winter morning, except — it wasn’t. When I went to sleep last night, I was employed by a small start-up called @Last Software. This morning, although I’m going to the same office, sitting at the same desk, and seeing the same people, I’m going to work as a Google employee. (Here’s the official announcement.)

As I sipped my coffee, I thought of a fellow I met on the last day of Macworld in January. It was six minutes before the end of the show when he walked into our booth. He had never seen SketchUp before. I started to give him a demo to give him an idea of what the software can do and how it works. Two or three minutes in, he interrupted me. “Can I buy a copy of SketchUp now?” I said sure. Then: “How about two?” No problem, I said.

It’s often like that. People see SketchUp and they love it. Now that we’re part of Google, how many of those ah-ha moments will happen every day? Already we’ve had hundreds of users create 3D content in SketchUp and place their models in Google Earth. (A free plug-in enables you to do this.) What will that virtual world look like when tens of thousands of users are doing the same?

Our little company was founded six years ago with the grand vision of bringing 3D to everyone; now that goal is truly within reach. No second cup of coffee for me — contemplating the possibilities is exciting enough.

Sketchup already has a plug in that allows you to export 3D models into Google Earth. If you've got Google Earth (you do, right?), then check out a few 3D examples (these are KMZ files):

Statue of Liberty
SketchUp headquarters
Google Mountain View campus

It costs $495, but we’d like everyone to have a SketchUp experience, so you can download a free 8-hour trial version here.

Cute Japanese Singer Shimomkawa Mikuni

Shimomkawa Mikuni is a Japanese singer who does a lot of work with the anime industry. She was born on 19 March 1980. This 155cm cutie is currently an interviewer on the show Anipara Ongaku LIVE.

Her credits include performing the theme songs to the Full Metal Panic! anime

Mars attracts

Posted by Chikai Ohazama, Google Earth team

We here on Earth have long held a fascination with the planet Mars. From Percival Lowell's sketches of its surface, to the countless books and movies that revolve around it, we've spent millenia studying and day-dreaming about our nearest neighbor in the solar system.

In that tradition, NASA researchers Noel Gorelick and Michael Weiss-Malik from Arizona State University worked with us to combine Google Maps technology with some of the most detailed scientific maps of Mars ever made.

In commemoration of Lowell's birthday, we're pleased to bring you Google Mars. Explore the red planet in three different ways: an elevation map shows color-coded peaks and valleys, a visible-imagery map shows what your eyes would actually see, and an infrared-imagery map shows the detail your eyes would miss.

We hope you enjoy your trip to Mars.

No Love for Japanese Actress Ryoko Yonekura

The tabloid newspapers have been reporting recently that the latest big couple, as they say in Japan, — namely, budding kabuki actor Ebizo Ichikawa, 28, and actress Ryoko Yonekura, 30 - have broken up.

There were indications however, that their relationship already ended months ago. A friend of Ichikawa recalls seeing him carelessly throwing a cell phone strap, which had been a gift from Yonekura, into a trashcan. "I was surprised because it was made of gold and looked really expensive."

According to an acquaintance, the relationship ended soon after Golden Week in May when Yonekura could no longer tolerate Ichikawa's obsessive attitude. "Don't go to that store" and "Who are you hanging out with?" were some of Ichikawa's frequently asked questions, said the friend.

However, it seems that they were not able to completely free themselves from each other. Even after the breakup, the two were seen together in public at restaurants on various occasions, and also at the funeral of Yonekura's father in November.

Currrently, Yonekura's acting career is on the rise and nothing, not even a love relationship, will hold her back. She was highly praised for her lead in the TV drama "Kurokawa-no-Techo" in 2004. "I am 'married' to my work," she often says to show how much she is determined and willing to devote herself to her career.

She has just finished filming a new TV drama, Kemonomichi.

Weekend Babe: Supermodel Denise Keller

Weekend babe is none other than the popular MTV Asia VJ, Denise Keller! Have a splashing weekend!

Pug-speak

Posted by Nickey, Canine Division

Unlike some others, I may be a small dog, but size is just a state of mind: My Google job is as important as anyone else's. After my morning nap at the office, I go out on hall monitor duty. This involves watching everyone who walks by our cube and getting some nice massages from passers-by. Some of the Googlers even know my language. For example, Jonathan Rosenberg is fluent in Pug, and loves to converse with me whenever we run into each other. And I get to play with plenty of dogs here: labs, doxies, tollers, and even some fellow pugs. Then there are occasional runs to the nearby Shoreline Dog Park.
Between the two, Google is my favorite place to be. Just as Google engineers get 20% of their time for their own projects, I have mine: at least a day a week I'm the resident court jester. It's not very hard to entertain Googlers -- everyone seems to get a kick out of me. If I had a nickel for every time someone laughed or smiled at me, I'd be running the company. And then I'd put bins of biscuits in each Google mini-kitchen.

Hot Internet Cover Girl Tila Nguyen

Tila Nguyen was born in Singapore, on October 24, 1981, and is of Vietnamese heritage. Better known as Tila Tequila or simply Tila, she is most noticable by her appearances in automotive import magazines and films, as well as her impact on the MySpace community. She currently resides in Los Angeles.

Tila's modeling work launched her into television, and she appeared on the Play boy Channel, MTV and as a contestant on VH1's reality series, Surviving Nugent. Her increasing exposure has made Tila all the more adamant about invading the airwaves. She has plans to produce an album featuring her unique mix of glam rock and electronica that she sometimes performs at small venues across the country. The enterprising model also plans to launch a fashion line in the summer of 2005, and currently manages a group of models called the Feisty Felines.

Writely so

Posted by Jen Mazzon, Google Writely Team

For the last five months, I've been part of a Silicon Valley startup called Upstartle, which makes Writely, a collaborative word processor that runs in a web browser. Well, as of Monday, I'm happy to say that I, and the rest of the Writely team, are now part of Google.

The other night, I was talking to my husband about how nervous I was to be starting work there. Truth be told, we've all been pretty overwhelmed for the past few weeks. What could our little team possibly do that's innovative enough? And he said, "Hello? You already did it!" It's true -- everyone told us it was crazy to try and give people a way to access their documents from anywhere -- not to mention share documents instantly, or collaborate online within their browsers. But that's exactly what we did. And since we launched the Writely beta in August 2005, many thousands of people have registered, and all of them came through word of mouth (and blog).

To be clear, Writely is still in beta, and it's far from perfect. Upholding our great user experience means everything to us, so we're not accepting new registrations until we've moved Writely to Google's software architecture. If you're interested in giving us a try, we hope you'll get on the waitlist so we can let you know when you'll be able to try out Writely.

Update: Lane’s Gifts v. Google

Posted by Nicole Wong, Associate General Counsel

You may remember that last February, Google was sued in Arkansas over what is commonly called click fraud. We’re very near a resolution in that case, so we thought we’d offer an update.

We’ve been discussing the case with the plaintiffs for some time and have recently come to an agreement with them which we believe is a good outcome for everyone involved. As a result, Google and the plaintiffs are going to ask the judge to approve the settlement, which would resolve the case.

Until the settlement is approved by the judge, it is not final. And the details are confidential, but will become public when it is formally filed for the judge’s consideration. However, we can share the major pieces of our proposed agreement.

Google currently allows advertisers to apply for reimbursement for clicks they believe are invalid. They can do this for clicks that happen during the 60 days prior to notifying Google. Under the agreement with the plaintiffs, we are going to open up that window for all advertisers, regardless of when the questionable clicks occurred. For all eligible invalid clicks, we will offer credits which can be used to purchase new advertising with Google. We do not know how many will apply and receive credits, but under the agreement, the total amount of credits, plus attorneys fees, will not exceed $90 million.

This agreement covers all advertisers who claim to have been charged but not reimbursed for invalid clicks dating from 2002 when we launched our “cost per click” advertising program through the date the settlement is approved by the judge.

For the finance folks out there wondering how we’ll account for this, we can say that the attorneys’ fees (which will be determined by the judge) will be charged as an expense, most likely in the first quarter, once the amount is determined. The credits will be recorded as a reduction to revenue in periods in which they are redeemed.

We have said for some time that we believe we manage the problem of invalid clicks very well. We have a large team of expert engineers and analysts devoted to it. By far, most invalid clicks are caught by our automatic filters and discarded *before* they reach an advertiser’s bill. And for the clicks that are not caught in advance, advertisers can notify Google and ask for reimbursement. We investigate those clicks, and if we determine they were invalid, we reimburse advertisers for them. We will continue to do that, and believe that this settlement is further proof of our willingness to work together with advertisers to reimburse invalid clicks.

You can find more information on invalid clicks and how we manage them here or here.

Update: Added second link to more information.

A real find

Posted by Ben Bunnell, Google Book Search team

As a librarian and a Googler, I love the "Find it in a library" links we've added to many -- but not yet all -- of the titles in Google Book Search. While we work on getting these links rolled out for the rest of the books, at least one user has taken matters into his own hands: "Superpatron" Edward Vielmetti has written a Greasemonkey script for Firefox that enables him to see which books are available at his local library.

Since Google Book Search is all about helping you discover and locate books you never knew existed, it's especially gratifying to see people like Ed embracing and extending this mission.

Beautiful Malaysian TV Hostess/ Model Hannah Sarah Tan

Malaysian beauty Hannah Sarah Tan hogged into limelight when she first took part in the 2002 Miss Global Petite World Finals. She walked away with as the 2nd Runner Up and ever since there was no looking back.

A graduate in the stream of computer science from University of Lincolnshire in Britain, Hannah has two more music diplomas added to her profile. She is not just the owner of stunning beauty but a lady with great potential that she can explore in her near future.

Already a famous face in the Malaysian nation as one of the top notch model and celebrity, she has done ads with Hong Kong Star Karen Mok and for the print media advertisements like Pantene, Vanessa Diamonds and Versace Makeup.

A smart young model with talents oozing out from within her, she is a TV Host, a model, a singer and also a finance consultant.

Google News Israel

Posted by Marisa Bauer, Google News team

We're launching Google News in Hebrew! Google News Israel aggregates articles across Hebrew-language newspapers and presents them side by side so you can read what all of them are saying in one view. It's been fun and challenging to create this edition, having to accommodate text that reads right to left, and adjusting our algorithms to work with a whole new set of papers. It's also a pleasure to be launching Google News for a whole new audience, and we look forward to bringing it to even more people around the world. Meanwhile, with the recent opening of our Israeli office, we look forward to offering many more products to our friends there.

Tiara Lestari's fight against conservative crackdown

The famous Indonesian centrefold model is leading the charge against her homeland's conservative crackdown.

As the push to ban exposing flesh and a host of other changes gains momentum, Tiara Lestari has become an unlikely activist against the changes, which could see tourists forced to cover-up on the beaches.

The 25-year-old is almost unknown in her Indonesian homeland, despite a portfolio of racy international magazine covers for Play boy, Penthse and FHM under her belt. She is returning home to stage a photo exhibition in Bali next month called "From Sensual to Elegance" in a bid to launch herself back in to South-East Asia's biggest market.

But as Lestari strives to re-mould her centrefold status, she is trying to steer clear of the debate in a bid to avoid provoking fundamentalists.

"I don't know what will happen if the bill becomes law," she said.

"I must believe that the best and the brightest minds in Indonesia will continue their debate to form a law that protects its children from the danger of pornography while protecting the rights of its citizens to speak and exercise their creative wisdom without fear of censorship or prosecution."

Pick of the week: Popular Japanese Idol Reon Kadena

This beautiful Japanese Idol needs no introduction... Reon Kadena is the pick of the week! Beautiful Newsmakers previously featured Reon as Girl of the month. Urgh... I love her lips!

Robots and writers and Googlers, oh my!

Posted by Jon Steinback, Product Marketing Manager, Google Video

One of the great things about working at Google is, well, not always working at Google. Is launch planning stressing you out? Are you obsessing about bugs? Can't find your favorite obscure beverage at the mini-kitchen? Every day, and usually more than once a day, the Googleplex offers talks that serve as excellent (and educational) distractions from the daily grind. These talks can help us learn more about the things we're doing, or help stoke our interest in something new.

Now, with Google Video, we finally have the opportunity to share many of these "from the Googleplex" presentations with the world. They include our Authors@Google talks (don't miss "How to survive a robot uprising" author Daniel Wilson) and the regular engEDU tech talks. Grab coffee and get comfy for this one on "Scalable Learning and Inference in Hierarchical Models of the Neocortex," for example.

Of course, you can access them all on your own schedule. And if you want to see them in person, feel free to check out our recruiting video.

Malaysian TV Host / Actress Cheryl Samad

Cheryl Samad’s youth belies a wealth of experience, stretching all the way back to her appearance in a TV commercial for an ice-cream commercial at the tender age of 4.

An accomplished presenter, the 25 year-old cut her teeth as a VJ on music programs MTV No Limits and MTV Pulse, before moving on to acting, securing lead roles on dramas like Astana Idaman and Table for Two.

She is currently best known as a host on the popular Malaysian Idol, as well as lending her bubbly and energetic style to 8TV's reality program Nescafe Kickstart.

The littlest Mini

Posted by Kevin Gough, Enterprise Team

The Google Mini search appliance continues to proliferate for different customer segments. The newest and least expensive Mini is geared towards people who need to search up to 50,000 documents on their websites or corporate networks. Does that include you? Read more here.

Sexiest woman in showbiz: Jessica Alba

Jessica Alba has been voted the sexiest woman in showbiz. The olive-skinned beauty - who shot to fame in TV show Dark Angel took the top slot in the Play boy magazine poll.

The poll said: "Her performances in last year's Sin City and Into The Blue made it all too clear: This little angel is all grown up!" Second place went to My Name Is Earl star Jaime Pressly, while sexy Jenny McCarthy came third.