If you’re a user of the Google Desktop product on the Windows platform, Google has good news for you. It’s finally added a Gmail gadget for the Desktop sidebar. Now you can see incoming e-mail without opening up Gmail in your browser.

I find Google Desktop to be very useful in Windows. The fact that a Gmail gadget hasn’t been available before now has been rather baffling. Thank goodness Google finally listened to the pleas of the masses and added one.

Google says:

“You’ll see that it covers the basics such as reading, searching, and sending messages. You can star messages, use the same keyboard shortcuts, and we didn’t forget about contact auto-complete. It doesn’t take up much space in your sidebar or desktop, and you can also resize it to show as few or as many messages as you’d like.”

Right now the Gmail gadget currently works with the latest release of Google Desktop for Windows. Support for Macs and Linux isn’t available yet. I haven’t have a chance to download it yet, but Google is excited that people check it out and provide some feedback.

Google on Wednesday released a new version of its Chrome browser, the third Chrome beta release.

Chrome users can expect an automatic update soon.

Version 0.3.154.9 fixes a security issue that allowed address spoofing in pop-up windows:

“The window’s address bar could be manipulated to show a different address than the actual origin of the content,”

– Mark Larson
Google Chrome program manager
Source: blog post

Version 0.3.154.9 also enables laptop touchpad scrolling, improves plug-in and proxy performance and reliability, fixes a PDF crash generated by closing a tab, and eliminates the storage of data from secure sites.

The updated Chrome also has benefited from some housekeeping and interface changes. The menu commands “New incognito window” and “New window” now always open new windows, privacy protected and normal, respectively. The spell checker now works on text input fields and allows users to add words to the spell check dictionary, and file downloading has been changed to make it more secure.

Chrome is currently a distant fourth in terms of market share. According to Net Applications, the global browser market-share breakdown, as of October 30, is as follows:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer (71.52%)
• Mozilla Firefox (19.46%)
• Apple Safari (6.65%)
• Google Chrome (0.78%)
• Opera (0.69%)

Chrome is currently available for Windows XP and Vista; Google plans to release a Mac version in the near future.

Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and Google CEO Eric Schmidt must have new plans to attack the competition, or they just like to fly really, really fast. Whatever the reason, they recently bought a fighter jet.

Today, The New York Times is reporting that a company controlled by the top three Googlers recently bought a Dornier Alpha Fighter Jet. The company, H211 LLC, is controlled by Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt, and it is responsible for managing a fleet of private aircraft for the three men.

The company already manages a Boeing 757, a Boeing 767, and two Gulfstream V’s. These four aircraft, plus the new fighter jet, all have landing rights at Moffett Field, which is a located near Google’s main offices.

According to a Google spokesperson, the Alpha Jet is being outfitted with scientific instruments for NASA missions, including instruments that the other planes could not carry.

The Times says that Google CEO Eric Schmidt is “an avid pilot.”

The Dornier Alpha Fighter Jet is made by Dornier in Germany and Dassault-Breguet of France.

Now that the news is finally out, we can sit back and take a longer look at what makes the Storm by Research In Motion a compelling handset. Here are five reasons why it should be a success.

1. The Camera

The Storm’s camera rates 3.2 megapixels. It also has autofocus, the ability to zoom, and a flash. These are all characteristics the iPhone lacks. Megapixels aren’t everything, but having software on the phone that allows the user to configure the phone’s settings is a bonus. It also records video at half-VGA resolution.

2. Rev. A

The Storm is not the first smartphone to have access to EV-DO Rev. A 3G speeds, but it is a really, really good thing. Why? The Storm is a BlackBerry email device. That means users will be sending emails from it. Some of those emails will have attachments (such as pix taken by that nice, 3.2MP camera). Rev. A allows for much faster wireless upload speeds compared to Rev. 0. I say hooray for Rev. A.

3. Euro 3G

The Storm not only has access to super fast 3G in the U.S., but in Europe as well. By including a 2100MHz HSPA radio, RIM has made the Storm the perfect business device for mobile professionals who find themselves on both sides of the pond. Whether in the U.S., or in Europe, you get the best 3G. Even if you’re not in Europe, but elsewhere in the world covered by GSM networks, you’ll still be able to roam.

4. Enterprise Integration

RIM’s bread and butter never tasted so good. The Storm is a BlackBerry. Your corporate email will be a snap to wade through and retrieve. The new user interface makes it easy to tap the message you want to open, rather than using the trackball or scrollwheel to find it.

The Storm also syncs to Outlook, so your calendar and contacts are all included. You’ll also be able to edit Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents right from your smartphone — something the iPhone can’t do. Oh yeah, and the Storm will support Java applications.

5. Cut-and-Paste

You’ll be able to cut information (phone numbers, URLs, email addresses, etc.) from one application and paste it somewhere else. This is something that all BlackBerries can already do, but for that capability to show up on this touch device is welcome indeed. Eat that, Apple iPhone.

Every so often Google adds something new to Google Labs, where it tests non final versions of software that may or may not become a standard feature.

The latest is called Mail Goggles — a play on “beer goggles” — that just might save your tail when it comes to e-mail.

Everyone has probably done it. Late at night, clouded by fatigue, you send an e-mail to someone that you later wish you could recall.

Heaven forbid you send an e-mail after consuming a few alcoholic beverages. That’s a recipe for disaster, and one that is all too easy to serve up given the proliferation of smartphones with mobile e-mail capabilities.

You surely remember the term “beer goggles” from when you were in college. You know, the more you drink, the more attractive you are likely to find someone of the opposite sex (even if they aren’t).

When you were on the prowl, you probably had a wingman or other friend who served as a filter to prevent you from making a mistake when you were wearing your beer goggles.

It’s in the spirit of protecting us from our inner e-mail demons that Google engineers brewed up Mail Goggles. Think of Mail Goggles as your new, electronic wingman.

According to The Official Gmail Blog:

“When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you’re really sure you want to send that late night Friday e-mail. And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you’re in the right state of mind?

By default, Mail Goggles is only active late night on the weekend, as that is the time you’re most likely to need it. Once enabled, you can adjust when it’s active in the General settings.”

Some people will either love this feature or hate it. For me, I love it. Not that I’m out on the prowl these days and need a wingman

In a blog post on The Official Google Blog, Google’s chief Internet evangelist lays out some thoughts on how the Internet will transform over the coming years. Essentially, he says that the Internet is a software artifact, and software provides for an endless frontier of possibilities.

“The Internet of the future will be suffused with software, information, data archives, and populated with devices, appliances, and people who are interacting with and through this rich fabric. The Internet of the future will be suffused with software, information, data archives, and populated with devices, appliances, and people who are interacting with and through this rich fabric.”

Source: Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist at Google.

He has some interesting thoughts about how the Internet will be used in the future — and what will be connected to it. It will not be restrained to just computers. I found Cert’s comments about how mobile devices will interact with the Internet most interesting.

He writes:

In the next decade, around 70% of the human population will have fixed or mobile access to the Internet at increasingly high speeds, up to gigabits per second. We can reliably expect that mobile devices will become a major component of the Internet, as will appliances and sensors of all kinds. Many of the things on the Internet, whether mobile or fixed, will know where they are, both geographically and logically. As you enter a hotel room, your mobile will be told its precise location including room number. When you turn your laptop on, it will learn this information as well–either from the mobile or from the room itself. It will be normal for devices, when activated, to discover what other devices are in the neighborhood, so your mobile will discover that it has a high resolution display available in what was once called a television set. If you wish, your mobile will remember where you have been and will keep track of RFID-labeled objects such as your briefcase, car keys and glasses. “Where are my glasses?” you will ask. “You were last within RFID reach of them while in the living room,” your mobile or laptop will say.

RFID tags have some shrinking to do before they’ll fit onto a set of keys or eyeglasses. There’s also a lot more at play than just the Internet in this scenario. Wireless technologies, such as Bluetooth and GPS, will be required. The important aspect is that they will all interact to share and retrieve information seamlessly.

This is already beginning to happen today.