Good news for all those Skype users who got a G1 Android phone over the holidays. Skype just rolled out a beta version of Skype Lite, a free Java-based app available via the Android Market, that brings Skype's free voice-over-IP (VOIP) calling capabilities to the new phone.

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Major investors in Clearwire, the new firm that plans to build the first nationwide high-speed 4G wireless broadband network, are feeling the pain of the economic downturn, big time.

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Maybe Microsoft's Steve Ballmer was really serious when he said Microsoft intended to truly compete with Google in the search arena. As the Wall St.

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The bad economy is hitting every company, and Google is no exception. It's seen its stock price fall from a high of more than $700 per share in October 2007 to just $322.01 per share yesterday. And not only did it forgo its traditional $1,000 holiday cash bonus (employees settled for a G1 phone instead), but it's also cut back on employee perks like free meals.

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A new Forrester report detailed by ReadWriteWeb contains some interesting data for enterprises considering cloud-based applications. The first finding, that cloud-based e-mail is always cheaper than on-premises solutions for smaller companies with fewer than 15,000 users, may not be that much of a head-turner.

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Google announced that a beta version of its online photo-editing and sharing software, Picasa, is finally available for Mac OSX and is making its debut at this week's Macworld show.

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Hot on the heels of Venture Beat's port of Android to an Asus EEEPC, Engadget reports that "some HP loving Canadians" at Netbooknews.de have done the same thing, this time on an HP Mini-Note 2133.

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Site owners who sign up for Google's AdSense program decide to trust Google and its ability to target ads contextually, based on keywords and general site content. In this way, sites devoted to analyzing the mobile phone industry, for example, don't end up with a lot of ads for mobile homes. The idea is to match the site with the ads to generate more clicks, and revenue.

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Once again, the idea of Android running on netbooks is starting to gain traction in the blogger community.

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Looks like Google is taking its promises seriously in the new year. It confirmed to Android developers that it will indeed be supporting paid applications within the Android Market in Q1 2009. Until now, the Android Market supported only free applications, which gave it a good jumpstart. But the advent of paid apps, which will probably be more feature-rich, is good news for users and developers alike.

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As 2008 comes to a close, the bloggers of Google Subnet put aside the champagne (for just a minute) to look ahead to 2009 and what it may bring for all things Google. Here are our top five predictions for Google in the coming year.

1. Android: No bang, no whimper

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Where there's a will, there's a lawsuit. MacWorld reports that Cygnus Systems, a small networking company in Indiana, has filed suit against Google, Apple and Microsoft claiming that all three firms infringe on its recently awarded patent for graphical, thumbnail-type previews.

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You may have been following Google all year long, but do you think you know as much about the company as it does about you? Google's privacy policies aside, we've pulled together a 10-question quiz to test your Google expertise and inside knowledge. Try it and see if you're truly a Google expert or just another wannabe. (Warning: If you have to Google an answer, you receive automatic wannabe status.)

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Well, 2008 was a banner year for all things Google. The company handily staved off the competition, not only in search advertising (where it consistently outranked Yahoo and Microsoft), but also in the search engine realm itself (Cuil anyone?). Plus, 2008 was the year that Google tipped its hand in terms of the mobile search market. Not only did it launch the Android OS via the Open Handset Alliance, but it saw its first fruits, the HTC/T-Mobile G1 phone.

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Or so says CNET's Chris Soghoian. Turns out Google censored a political ad Soghoian tried to run via AdSense because it used "AT&T" in the text, violating Google's policy on trademarks. And while Google's policy is clearly stated, the rule effectively squelches any ad-based attempt to hold corporations (and politicians) accountable to the public.

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Just in time for the holidays, Visa released its first application for Google's Android OS. With the application, users of Visa's Chase credit cards can use their Android-based G1 mobile phone to receive near real-time updates on purchases, set fraud alerts, receive discounts and find nearby stores and ATMs.

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When it comes to browsers, password security is simply not their strong suit, and that's especially true for Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari. While every top browser today--including IE 7, Opera 9.62, Firefox 3.04, Safari 3.2 and Google's Chrome--do a poor job of protecting user passwords, Chrome and Safari are the worst, according to recent tests conducted by Chapin Information services.

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It looks like Google has won the first salvo in the social ID battle. Google announced that its Friend Connect service is now compatible with Twitter, meaning that users can now use their Twitter logon information to log into other Friend-Connect compatible sites and share social networking information.

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