Week in review: Google talks

Google generated a lot of buzz this week with some of its products--and in many cases the search giant actually transmitted the discussion.

Google launched an instant-messaging program, Google Talk, that allows text chat and computer-to-computer voice connections, a move that highlights the search giant's increasing competition with Yahoo, Microsoft and America Online. Google's Web site provides a link to download Google Talk and stated that the software "enables you to call or send instant messages to your friends for free-?anytime, anywhere in the world."

Google's messaging program is linked to the company's Web-based e-mail program, Gmail, and both are in beta. Google Talk currently works only on Windows, according to Google's Web site. People need a microphone and a speaker to take advantage of the voice capabilities.

Message boards are teeming with tips and gripes, and scores of screenshots have gone up since Google released the beta of Talk. Across the Web, many consumers hailed the software's quick download time, which takes a few seconds over broadband and about three minutes over a typical modem, according to the Google Talk Web site. They also applauded its minimalism.

However, CNET News.com readers were mixed in response to the new release. "So Google has entered the IM space--woohoo," wrote reader Toby Barrick in News.com's TalkBack forum. "Where is the innovation that Google is famous for? Heck they don't even offer video from what I've seen."

But some applauded Google's move. "I won't deny that it's extremely Spartan in its appearance, but the presentation is textbook Google elegance," wrote Christopher Hall in TalkBack. "I'm not interested in emoticons, skins, and file transfer. I need this to communicate, not fancy up like a 12-year-old girl's Trapper Keeper."

Google also rolled out a beta version of its desktop software, adding features such as "Sidebar," which offers a personalized panel of information such as e-mail, stock quotes and news. The software also includes a scratch-pad style tool for taking notes and tools for searching one's desktop and Microsoft Outlook in-box. Called Desktop 2, the software can be downloaded for free from Google's Web site.

Both offerings, notably Sidebar, have the potential to lure away current Microsoft users, analysts said. But Google--in a technique perfected long ago by Microsoft--has made software developers an important target audience as well. As with nearly all its services, Google is supporting standards and providing hooks intended to let outside developers create add-on products.

Of course, the ever-widening array of Google products has some people wondering whether the company is out to create the rough equivalent of an operating system. Strictly speaking, Google's products are not a replacement OS, but the collection of Google products serve the same purpose, said analysts. Even products that run on Windows PCs, such as Google's Picasa photo-editing software, could tie back to Google's online services.

Intel's power play
The chip giant showed off road maps of its server, notebook and desktop chips for 2006 and 2007 at its Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, and the dominant theme revolves around reducing power consumption, a concept the company has espoused since the beginning of the decade.

Some of the future chips also reverse key technological decisions and design ideas behind the Pentium 4. Hyperthreading, one of the touted features of the Pentium 4, will not be part of a new round of chips coming in the second half of 2006, although later chips will likely include some form of threading.

Merom, a notebook chip coming in the second half of 2006, is expected to provide substantially more performance than current notebook chips. Toward the end of the decade, Intel will also come out with an ultra-low-power version of its chip for consumer electronics that consumes one-tenth of the power of chips like Merom.

The chip giant also outlined several advancements it hopes will improve the performance of next year's notebooks, including a technology that creates a deeper sleep state. The "Enhanced Intel Deeper Sleep" technology, a feature of the company's new chips, lowers a processor's voltage below the Deeper Sleep state found in Intel's current family of mobile chips.

The chipmaker said its upcoming Napa platform will include an improved graphics media accelerator, enhanced video playback capabilities, support for high-definition displays and Intel's High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection, or HDCP.

Intel is also getting behind the technology that allows the internal power wiring in a home to deliver broadband service. Along with Motorola and Cisco Systems, Intel has thrown its weight behind a group called the HomePlug Powerline Alliance, which develops standards and specifications for businesses and service providers offering broadband-over-power-line, or BPL, service into the home.

In addition, the group developed a new Implementers' Forum Board of Directors to get more industry involvement in developing and implementing standards. The group includes representatives from