Google | featured news

Google Shopping Express, which launched Thursday, is a local delivery service the company hopes will make it possible for shoppers to get the items they order online a few hours later, and at a low cost. It’s not quite, "click and hear a knock on your door with the products," but that is where Google is going. The kicker is consumers have to live in the San Francisco Bay Area to participate in the program. Google is testing the program there to figure out what same-day delivery entails, and costs, before rolling it out in other markets. For San Francisco shoppers participating in the limited-time program, same-day delivery is free.

Introducing the note pad Google Keep, a combination Web site and app for Android phones. Wait, that sounds like Evernote.

Sweden's language watchdog has accused Google of trying to control the Swedish language in a dispute over the definition of the colloquial term "ungoogleable. The Swedish version of the word — "ogooglebar" — made the Language Council of Sweden's 2012 list of words that aren't in the Swedish dictionary but have entered common parlance. The council defined it as something "that cannot be found on the Web with a search engine."

Using Google’s enormous Ngram database, researchers at three British universities tracked the use of “mood” words over the 20th century.

After having its hand slapped for information collection and exposure mishaps -- from Buzz to, most recently, Wi-Spy -- Google is wary of running afoul of regulators over privacy mistakes. Liz Gannes at AllThingsD reports that company sources tell her this fear was part of the reason for the company's unpopular decision to pull the plug on Google Reader: [T]he shutdown wasn’t just a matter of company culture and bigger priorities, sources said.

Google Glass, the tech giant's Internet-connected headset, isn't on the market yet. But that hasn't stopped one lawmaker from trying to keep the eyewear off the highways in his state.

Just in case you’re not convinced yet that 2013 is the year of the smart watch, a new report says that Google is developing one of its own to compete against Samsung’s confirmed device and Apple’s rumored iWatch. According to the Financial Times, Google’s Motorola Mobility unit is working on a wearable connected companion for Android smartphone.

When it comes to internet users, China is all now, but India is going to be bigger in the long run, said Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman.

The search giant says it inadvertently removed Digg, in its entirety, from its search engine... Digg, which bears little to no resemblance to the site it once was, is still alive and kicking as a curated collection of top news stories from around the Web -- just not in Google's world. If you queried Google for Digg links earlier this morning, you found that the search giant had no recollection that Digg ever existed. Seriously. As Martin MacDonald, an online marketing specialist, observed in a blog post, Digg disappeared altogether from Google's index.

Google Drive, the search giant’s cloud-based storage service for documents and other files, experienced a “service disruption” this morning according to the company’s status page. Google Inc. issued an update shortly after 11 a.m., indicating a problem “affecting a significant subset of users” who were unable to access Google Drive.