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The “Googleplex” has been Google’s hallmark offices for years and rates as one of the top places to work by many magazines. According to a new report from the Mercury Times, Google is expanding on its already large Googleplex. The Mountain View, Calif.-based Company reportedly plans to spend $120 million to add new advancements to its sprawling headquarters, from a new museum to new testing labs for the secret Google X projects.

Google plans to open a new Experience Center as a museum not open to the public. The Experience Center would show Google’s history to special invited groups. Some of the products shown off could potentially be confidential. The focus here would be selling products to groups, such as school districts.

There has been much in the news lately regarding Google’s “Project X.” In Project X, the team is reportedly working on new HUD glasses, which we exclusively told you last month. As part of its new $120 million addition, Google is attaching new additions to that sector. Google is also adding to its “Google/@home” initiative. As part of @home, Google is reportedly developing a new streaming home-entertainment device. This break through into consumer electronics could be announced tomorrow, according to a teaser from the Google TV team.

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Get excited! Google teased a “big announcement” for the Google TV on its Facebook page last night. What in the world could this be? There is a chance tomorrow’s announcement by Google could surround the streaming home-entertainment device that was leaked last week, or it could be something entirely different. Perhaps it is new hardware out of an OEM, but we are not so sure that is Facebook-post worthy. We will know for sure tomorrow.

Get ready for Monday, we have some big announcements!

Update: It’s nothing special.

(via The Verge)

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After being introduced in August, Google just announced improvements to its Gmail offline Chrome app. The first improvement, which the Chrome team called their favorite, is the ability to choose whether you want to synchronize 7, 14 or 31 days worth of mail. The second improvement includes attachment support, keyboard shortcuts, and enhancements when it comes to performance. You can download the Gmail offline Chrome application in the Chrome Web Store.

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Silicon Filter grabbed some pertinent quotes from Marissa Mayer’s interview today at LeWeb on Mobile, Local, Social (SoLoMo).  We’ll have the video up when it becomes available.  Notables:

• Google+ was a pleasant surprise. Comparing to the low bar set by past efforts, we’ll give this one a “#obvious tag.
• “We save two years, every day, of idle time using Google Maps and Navigation.”
• Google+ Check-In Deals Coming Next Week (goodnight FourSquare?)
• On the location space in general, there is still  a lot of competition
• Android is a vehicle for delivering Google services

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Google has acquired San Francisco based startup Apture, for an undisclosed amount AllThingsD reported today. Aperture is a downloadable browser plugin that presents users with contextual information from sources like Wikipedia to match the current webpage they’re on.

A Google spokesperson told AllThingsD, while they’re not only after Apture’s product, they’re after Apture’s talent to add to the Chrome team.

There’s no word on what the team will actually do inside of Google, but it would be cool to see this technology implemented somehow. Aperture raised $4.1 million in venture funding before being acquired by Google.

Google+ engineer Vermont Lasmarias revealed today that a new section displaying all of your recently played games has been added to the Google+ homepage. The new section can be found in the bottom left, and allows you to quickly launch into a game where you left off.  Luckily, if you’re not a fan of the new games section, or just want to free up your side bar, you can get rid of the widget right from the homepage too.

[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KQlPCflWP9k#!”]

Coming up tonight on Charlie Rose, Mark Zuckerburg has made comment that “Google is building their own little version of Facebook”. While that was certainly a hit towards Google, Zuckerburg was happy to give props to Amazon and Apple as partners.

Amazon and Apple “are extremely aligned with us,” said Zuckerberg. “We have a lot of conversations with people at both companies just trying to figure out ways that we can do more together, and there is just a lot of reception there.” Meanwhile, “Google, I think, in some ways, is more competitive and certainly is trying to build their own little version of Facebook,” Zuckerberg said.

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Google announced on their blog last week that they’d be redesigning Google Reader, and today the redesign has hit the interwebs. The redesign takes shape like almost every other Google product in terms of color, shapes, and speed.

Google Reader now also features Google+  functionality built in, after turning off friending and following in Reader. Users will be able to +1 a post and then from there have the ability to share it with their Google+ friends. Check it out after the break.

The redesign will begin rolling out to users in the coming days, so hold tight if you’re not yet seeing it. For me, the new redesign is welcomed, because I thought the last one was just plain bleh. Having the new look around Google is giving the company a cutting edge feel.

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Spotted by TechCrunch, music.google.com begins to confirm rumors of Google’s new Music store that will drop in a few weeks. The webpage loaded on an Android device drops a hint at purchasing music through the Android market. As you can see in the image above, the webpage says, “Get songs from your favorite artists in Android market, or hundreds of free tracks.”

Currently, Music Beta is only available on the Android Market to those in the beta. The beta currently only features uploading of songs and not actually purchasing them . Purchasing is a rumored feature that is rumored to come out in the next two weeks with Google Plus integration.

A few members of the Google Maps team answered some pretty interesting questions on Reddit about the platform, from the community. Business Insider posted some of the highlights from the thread:

1. Building shadows within Maps are astronomically correct with the time of day and sun. Google did however scale the shadows.
2. Antartica has a street view in Google Maps.
3. Google collects 3D views with three laser cameras on their street cars.
4. The team is excited about/considering making a 3D game using Maps data.
5. Google Maps has a street view partner program for anyone to add street view photos taken with their own camera.
6. For colorblind Maps users, Google is figuring out how to accommodate users with the red and green indicators for Traffic.
7. Google favors higher quality images that are older over blurry ones that are newer.

The NYTimes thinks so.

According to numerous music executives, Google is eager to open the store in the next several weeks. It would most likely be connected to Google’s existing cloud service, Music Beta, which lets people back up their songs on remote servers and stream them to mobile phones and other devices, said these executives, who all spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were private and continuing.

Being able to buy MP3s would be a big hole for Google to fill, but it is having a hard time convincing the music industry that it is genuine about stopping piracy.  It will be interesting to see what concessions Google gives up to get MP3s and how their system will compare to Apple, Amazon and the other vendors.

Maybe they’ll be able to remove that pesky ‘beta’ tag as well.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKXPeIeKYd8]

Google announced today a new pilot program called Trusted Stores. Trusted Stores will give shoppers a piece of mind when shopping online, telling them which stores ship on time, have good customer support, etc. Once awarded the Trusted Badge, credited stores can display it on their website (seen after the break).

If a company would like to participate they need to provide Google with information regarding shipping, and Google will also collect information from the store’s customers. Here’s a part we really like: if a customer decides to select free protection from Google, they will receive help from Google if a problem ever arises. Google will also offer a $1,000 lifetime protection package. Expect this to start popping up around the web a lot more.

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Google has announced on their blog this afternoon that Google Analytics now features real-time data. In the past, Analytics was a great tool for viewing site stats from the past 24 hours, days, weeks, months, etc., but now the ability to see who’s on your site at any given time is an awesome feature.

The stats are pretty detailed showing the top referrals, active pages, and how many people are on your site at any given moment. There is even a graph that lets you know when your site peeked in terms of visitors.

Many other analytic services have had this feature, so it’s nice to see Google finally catch up. The ability to see real-time stats lets you know what content is doing well. Real-time will be rolling out to everyone in the coming weeks.

Google continues to dance around China with the news today that it is constructing a US$100 million, 15-hectare (37.07-acre) Data Center in Taiwan.

Google plans to complete the data center in 1-2 years and is expected to create 5-20 full-time jobs and a number of part-time jobs. By locating in Taiwan, Google will be close to the Chinese Mainland without falling under the laws of ‘Communist’ China which could theoretically sieze data if the data center were located within its borders.

Update: Reuters adds that Google will be building out Singapore and Hong Kong data centers as well.

Another Google data center video from this year below:
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From some slides of an internal presentation given by Google, it appears that where there is now Google Docs, there will soon be ‘Google Drive’.  Most of the functionality, like uploading files of any type, of the mythical Google Drive now lies in Docs Hopefully, with this upcoming rebrand, Google allows more storage (let me buy it) and also has some utilities like backing up the home folder on Windows or Mac.  Seriously, what better way to get users to adopt your system than to offer to sych your files to the cloud.

Oh, now that we have all of your files, you might as well get a Chomebook.

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A Peet’s Coffee in San Francisco (what happened to NYC?) is showing a Google Wallet logo beneath its original MasterCard PayPass NFC reader.

It appears that there is minimal upgrade to get Mastercard PayPass systems upgraded to be Google Wallet systems.  In fact, from the merchant standpoint, it may just be upgraded signage.

That’s good news for Google and its rollout plans.  PayPass locations are all over the place and Google wants to hit the ground running.

As of March 2011, more than 92 million MasterCard PayPass cards and devices have been issued for use at approximately 311,000 merchant locations worldwide, including new acceptance environments such as vending, taxis, tollbooths, transit, football/baseball stadiums and golfing events.
In addition to robust deployments at major merchants in the US such as McDonalds, 7-Eleven, CVS, Duane Reade, Sheetz, Hess, Wegmans, The Home Depot, Best Buy, Gulf Oil, Sports Authority, BJ’s, Meijer’s, Whataburger, Tim Horton’s, Shop-Rite, Foot Locker, Sunoco and BP.PayPass has been rolled out in 37 countries. Outside the US, PayPass speeds consumers through the checkout process at  McDonald’s (US, Poland, UK), Burger King (Turkey, UK), 7-Eleven (Australia), Starbucks (Turkey, Malaysia, UK), Petro-Canada (Canada) Tim Horton’s (Canada), Boots (UK), Tesco (UK), Carrefour, Cora and Intermarche (all 3 in France) and in many other types of merchants including supermarkets, cinemas, gas stations, fast food and transit.

Google is expected to release Google Wallet officially today and has created a very amusing ad (if you are a Seinfeld fan), below.
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The Logitech Google TV console has just dropped to $90 at Tiger Direct (New, free shipping).  Interestingly, this box will be upgradable to GoogleTV 2.0, due out in the next month or so.  Why is Google/Logitech in such a hurry to get rid of these?  Certainly when GoogleTV 2 comes out, they will be worth more to the consumer, won’t they?

I think this also hints that the second round of GoogleTVs will be much cheaper than the first.
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Marisa Mayer just made the announcement:

So, today, I’m thrilled that Google has acquired Zagat. Moving forward, Zagat will be a cornerstone of our local offering—delighting people with their impressive array of reviews, ratings and insights, while enabling people everywhere to find extraordinary (and ordinary) experiences around the corner and around the world.

That is an interesting play which I’m pretty sure no one was expecting.  It gives Google a huge foothold in local and will certainly put Yelp, Open Table and company on the defensive and will also fit in nicely with its Offers service.  Zagat’s statement below the fold:

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As reported by Google Operating System, Google will release a “smarter” spell checker in a future update of Chrome. Currently, Chrome only uses the dictionary to spell check, not taking context into consideration. The future update, however, will work like Google Search’s “did you mean” feature.

Google has been hesitant to add the updated spell checker citing privacy concerns. As Google Operating System explains, a JSON-RPC request is sent to the “did you mean” service in the background, where the context-menu will then be updated. It will be interesting to see how fast Google can get results to come back.

We already showed you how to give Google’s new search UI a try, but yesterday The Next Web discovered that you can also give Google’s new sign-in page a try. The new sign-in page goes along with the rest of Google’s general new design we’ve been seeing spring up across products, ever since the launch of Google Plus. Enabling the new design is much easier than what we showed you yesterday. You could just go and click the option to preview the new sign-in page, but here’s the link to make things easy.

While there isn’t much of a change, we do like the new colors and general spacing.

The latest rumor out of the mill is that Google is developing multiple online “Celebrity Themed” online TV channels. It is unclear exactly where these channels will be located, whether it’s YouTube or a part of a bigger plan to bolster Google TV. A source said yesterday that such celebrities as Robert Pattinson, Cameron Diaz and Deepak Chopra are just a few of the celebrities that will take part in this project.

This news would not be surprising as Google has recently been adding additional services to its YouTube platform in hopes of monetizing the service further. Combine this with their fledgling Google TV service, Google may see an opportunity that other streaming services are currently not taking part in. Would this be a good opportunity to snap up a Logitech Revue on the ($99)cheap?
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