I have to admit, I was pretty suprised  when Google released its own web browser a few months back.

After all, it was really looking like they’d bitten off more than they could chew.

But, Google is the #1 web brand, and (it’s claimed) “the “best and the brightest” worked there, once, so…

I took a look, and wow… There were some shortcomings… There was no support for extensions, there were a lot of privacy concerns, and (surprise?)… It still had the Google “Beta” designation (it seems that everything from Google is in perpetual beta).

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I have to admit that I’m a “breaking tech news junkie,” and therefore, a major consumer of RSS feeds. My reader of choice is Google Reader, with which I spend a good hour each morning, along with my cup of coffee.

Late yesterday, Google released a face lift for my venerable friend, and after having spent some time with it, I have to admit that for the most part, I enjoy the changes.

Google billed the changes as improving on the appearance and performance of the previous version, and while appearance is subjective (I preferred the previous version), the improvements in performance and functionality are nice additions.

Read the complete announcement, including specifics of the changes, over in the Official Google Reader Blog.

Google announced yesterday that they’ve added video and audio chat to the Google Talk application.

It’s actually a pretty nifty addition to Google Talk (which is built-into GMail), allowing you to see (and speak with) clients, co-workers, and others using the Google Talk IM protocol.

Enabling video and audio chat requires that you install a very small plugin, which will add the capability to your browser.

However, Google doesn’t make it easy to find that plugin (at the time of this writing, the “How to guide” only mentions the need to download and install the plugin, but doesn’t tell you where to find it.

After a little digging-around, I found it here.

Currently, the plugin (and thus, the capability to video chat) is only available for Windows.

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According to Allison Burnett on the IEBlog, Microsoft is actively looking for new beta testers for the forthcoming Internet Explorer Version 8, beta 2 (not yet released).

If you’re not afraid to live dangerously, and are willing to commit time to the testing effort, microsoft wants to hear from you at IESO@microsoft.com.

Having been involved with a lot of testing myself over the years, I think I’d be hesitant to install something this intertwined with the operating system on my every day computers, but if you have one that doesn’t matter?….

May the force be with you.