"The Milky Way Playground", by Jennifer Ahn

You like that picture don’t you?  It’s a pretty cool interpretation of the Google logo isn’t it?

Would you be amazed if I told you a 4th Grader painted that picture?  Well, be amazed because that’s the truth.

Nine-year-old Jennifer Ahn painted that picture and entered it into a contest called Doodle 4 Google.  More than 33,000 other people entered.  Jennifer is now one of 40 finalists.  Pretty cool, right?

As a finalist, Jennifer has already won a trip to New York to hang out at Google’s offices and meet all kinds of artists and cartoonists and what not.  They’ll probably have lunch or something, too.  Maybe sit around in some beanbag chairs.

If Jennifer wins the Doodle 4 Google contest she’ll bank an $15,000 scholarship.  Her school, Shakerag Elementary in Johns Creek, will score a $25,000 technology grant.

Oh yeah, her doodle will appear on the front of the Google homepage for a day, too.  That’s pretty awesome.

So, go check out Doodle 4 Google and vote for Jennifer.

CUPERTINO, Calif. (AP) - Google CEO Eric Schmidt has resigned from Apple's board of directors.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs said Schmidt would have had to recuse himself from large portions of the company's board meetings. That's because Google Inc. is entering more of Apple's core businesses, the Cupertino, Calif.-based computer and gadget maker said.

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At the end of the report, during the Q&A between Matt and the reporter, there are indications that Google Voice will be available nationwide today.

I went to the Google Voice website and logged in with my Google account. It still says “Coming Soon”. Maybe later this afternoon?

***UPDATE***

I just posted an article on 11Alive.com about all of this. Check it out:

Public Launch of Google Voice on the Horizon?
(11ALIVE) — News reports are indicating that Google Voice, a revolutionary product from the search engine giant, may launch publicly very soon, if not today.

One of their latest products, Google Latitude is pretty awesome.  But, I’ve been having a hard time finding a real application for the service, other than creeping myself out a little bit.

Google Latitude works with your cell phone’s GPS.  It has the ability to constantly ping your exact location and display for your friends to see.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-Oq-9enE-k

The only people who can view your location, are those people you allow to see it.  This works very similar to somebody’s online status in Google Talk or AOL Instant Messenger.

I have a handful of Latitude buddies and it is kind of cool to see where everybody is, especially if they’re nearby.  But, I haven’t had a meet-up at a coffee shop because I discovered somebody was close by.

I can see the practicality of Google Latitude for parents to easily track their children’s location, or for family members to track each other down in an emergency situation.  But, other than that, I think the product is mostly a novelty in it’s current execution.

I guess I wasn’t too far off base, because it seems even the folks at Google see Latitude as a bit of a novelty right now:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0GA73O_9O4

Obviously Google sees a lot of value in providing location-based search, and I see the value in it, too.  When I search for “sushi restaurant”, odds are I’m most interested in the results that are closest to my current location.

Make your own at Google.com/LatitudeStunt!

Plus, there is a lot of value in hacking your own version of the Google Latitude Stunt.  Check out my version, “Chris is Hot“.

You can also make your own.

Now, here’s what I think would be awesome:

What if we made a game out of this.  We could assemble groups of people to create Latitude messages across large geographic areas.  I think it would be a lot of fun!

Who’s with me?

David came across an website called Let Me Google That For You.  It’s a snarky answer to all of those questions people e-mail him about.  Ironically, Pogue’s e-mailers are expending a lot of effort to e-mail him and wait when the answers to those questions are often just a click away using a Google search.

We get a lot of those kinds of e-mails at work (in my role as Commuter Dude, I get a lot of questions, too).

When you go to the website, you type in your search, just as you would on Google.  Then, the site will give you a web address that you can forward to the person with the easily answered question.  When they click the link, a short video plays that demonstrates how Google works, and then displays the search results provided by Google.

Here’s an example, searching my name, Chris Sweigart.