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Google unveiled more details about its Chrome OS yesterday, and released source code for developers.

Guest: Tom Krazit, CNET News

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Google will soon begin rolling out new search technology called Caffeine. It's designed to producer faster, more relevant results.

Guest: Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land

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Verizon Wireless and Motorola are expected to unveil details of their new Android phone today.

Guest: Kent German, CNET

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Google is sending 100,000 preview invitations today for Wave, its real-time communications product that combines e-mail, instant messaging, document collaboration and social networking.

Guest: Frederic Lardinois, ReadWriteWeb

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Rival companies Google and Microsoft fight on many fronts -- Internet search and advertising, for example, and operating systems. A newer battlefield is Southern California, where the companies are competing for a $7.25 million contract to provide email and office software for the City of Los Angeles.

The contract fight is significant because it could help determine whether upstart Google is ready for the big time when it comes to its cloud-based apps, according to David Sarno, business reporter for the Los Angeles Times.

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The departure of Google CEO Eric Schmidt from the Apple Board of Directors highlights the growing competition between the two companies, according to Philip Elmer-DeWitt, who writes the Apple 2.0 blog for Fortune.

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I'm in the market for a new smartphone and can't decide what to buy.

My BlackBerry Curve has been a good phone but I just want something new and different. I'm not considering the highly-touted Palm Pre because it runs on the Sprint network, which is weak where I live.

So I've narrowed my choice to an iPhone or a device that runs on Google's open source Android operating system, like the T-Mobile/HTC myTouch.

Today, some Android fans try to get me in their corner.

Follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, or call me on the comment line at 612-284-1965

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How should Microsoft respond to news that Google will make its own operating system?

Guest: Michael Cherry, Directions on Microsoft

Here is an edited transcript of my interview with Cherry:

Gordon: How is Google's announcement of a new operating system likely being viewed at Microsoft?

Cherry: There's a certain amount of interest when someone else makes claims they can do an operating system. There will be a lot of interest in what are they doing, what are they actually delivering.

I think there will be concern on the part of the company that it could fragment the sales of netbooks into netbooks running the Chrome OS, Windows and Linux distributions. When you add another player into a mix it's going to have some effect.

The missing piece here is while Google promises us there is going to be great applications for this OS, we need to see them. It's those applications that are going to get people to use it. It's not the OS itself.

Gordon: Some people are painting the Chrome OS as sort of a nuclear bomb dropped into the lap of Microsoft, and that it sets up an epic battle. Do you see it that way?

Cherry: Not really. The thing that will keep operating system developers at Microsoft, Apple, and the operating system developers who contribute to Linux distributions doing their best work is alternative operating systems. I think its super for application developers and consumers. So hopefully what Chrome OS does is spur a new generation of applications.

Gordon: How should Microsoft respond to the Chrome OS?

Cherry: The best response is to keep making sure you do your best work with your operating system, that you continue to make it better. To make it a better platform to run applications on than your competition does. That means making sure its fast and secure.

Gordon: I guess the big question for me is will it end up being better to have this sort of Internet-based operating system versus a more traditional OS that sits on your computer and does what Windows does.

Cherry: There is tremendous potential for it in the future. I just don't think we're ready yet. I've yet to find a Web-based application that I'm willing to give up my locally-running counterpart for. Web-based applications don't have all the features I want them to have.

Second, I'm very concerned about storing my data in the cloud. We had a severe outage here in Seattle last week where a large data center that hosted a lot of Web services went down after a fire.

Third, there are a lot of privacy issues related to data. I certainly don't want my data in a Web-based application if a third party is indexing it and going through my data.

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Today, we have an early review of Google Wave by Rafe Needleman, editor of CNET Webware.com.

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Last week the Obama administration promised to strengthen antitrust enforcement as a means to deal with powerful companies. That would make the U.S. more aligned with the European Union, which last week fined chip maker Intel $1.45 billion for abusing its market power.

Technology companies such as AT&T, IBM and Microsoft have been the biggest antitrust targets for the government over the past several decades. In many ways, the most dominant tech firm now is Google, which is already under some scrutiny by the Justice Department. Last year the company abandoned a search partnership with Yahoo after the government threatened an antitrust lawsuit. And this year the government has opened two separate inquiries -- one for Google's book scanning project, the other related to Google sharing board members with Apple.

Will the government make Google a major antitrust target going forward? Possible but not likely, according to University of Iowa law school professor Herbert Hovenkamp.

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Library groups are urging "rigorous oversight" of Google's agreement with authors and publishers that would allow it to put millions of books online.

Google reached an agreement last year with the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers to pursue the project. The lawsuit settlement It is awaiting a judge's approval.

The American Library Association and Association of Research Libraries say they're concerned Google will not safeguard readers' privacy, and are worried Google would be the only online source for many books and academic journals.

Guest: Ryan Singel, Wired.com

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Google has unveiled a service that lets users fill out a profile to improve how they show up in search results. Filling out the profile will help users show up in a new feature at the bottom of a Google search page. Users can add pictures, a bio, and links to things like their Web sites and Facebook accounts.

Google says the feature is designed in part to allow people with the same names distinguish themselves.

So is confused online identity such a problem? I thought I'd investigate by asking some of the other top Jon Gordons on the Web - those who spell their first names J-O-N like me. I talked to Jon Gordon the author and motivational speaker, and Jon Gordon the acclaimed jazz saxophone player.

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Google has unveiled two new products: one for improving image searches; and the other to give users a timeline of stories appearing on Google News. The new services are not 100% finished, but the company says it wants to accelerate the release of projects in its lab. Google is still known primarily for search, and it maintains a stellar reputation. But according to a story in Advertising Age, the company is facing some real challenges.

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One of the most talked-about features in Google Voice is voice mail transcription. To get a sense of how well the machine transcription works, we asked listeners to leave messages at our Google Voice number. Here are some of the results:

Transcription for above:

the following taxes taken from and onion info graphics called tornados safety and spring is tornado season the national weather service recommend taking these following safety measures in the event of the twenty eight oh light down in a bit if you are already lying in a ditch do not attempt to set up the most important thing you can do is stay calm this will be difficult since you are almost certainly going to die twenty does spoke easily firing if you wanna shots in the air is usually enough to scare them off hey little little for a while strap yourself to the roof of your house enraged i haven't hey present tornados before they happen make sure that one memorial fair front's do not convert with cool dry ones if during a tornados the only safe places in my loving arts i'm here baby hey if atone eight oh strikes you're home is even your basement could be dangers so constructive basement for your basement and finally if you spot a tornado always remember to point at it and yelled tornado and then run like hell

Transcription for above:

our reading but you know do flynn the past of most resistance and it's fundamentally flood core the name of almost any learning program to help us become what we are not hey if you don't have national town with numbers you still force to spend time in that area area to attain a degree if you're not very impressed attic you get a sense to a course designed to and few sympathy into your personality from the cradel to the cubicle we devote more time to our shortcomings then to our strengths it's been has been a reading from strings finder two point oh part-time ralf goodbye two two four thank you

Transcription for above:

jabber walking hey floors brilly can the slightly toasted ironing gamble in the way down on the with the borrow grose animal morass upgrade be where the jetta lock my son the job byte the closet catch you where the jeff jeff bird and shawn the from this bender snatch if you get this mobile blade in hand long time the names of info you soft so message to you by the comes in three wants to the while involved and i was in the office talk to you stuart it's trevor walk with elisa playing came with we went through the told you would and behold as it came one two one two and coming through the republicans krisak he left a dead and with its head he can't about something back and has douse lane the driver walk coming to my office my name is boy ohh i'm just taking a break he totaled in is joy probably like and the slightly toasted guy ring and along the way but on and see where the bro goes animal mass upgrade

Transcription for above:

hi i just thought i'd read you the first amendment harrisville making a large back and if that was kind of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or bridging freedom of speech or a price for the rest of the people to use we have several expedition the government's for regressive griffin says hope google voice works out for you

Other stories mentioned today:

Conficker FAQ (F-Secure.com)
The evolution of an extraordinary globe-spanning worm (lastwatchdog.com)

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In 2007 Google bought a company called GrandCentral, then appeared to ignore its new toy.

GrandCentral allowed consumers to sign up for a new, free phone number. Users could then choose to have the number ring to their cell phone, work number, or home phone, or all of them simultaneously. Users could easily record calls, and listen to their voice mail on the GrandCentral Web site.

Google put no marketing muscle behind GrandCentral and in fact closed down the service to new users. Turns out, though, that Google was quietly remaking GrandCentral into Google Voice, which should be available to the public in a matter of weeks.

Google Voice includes some important new features: It automatically transcribes voice mail messages into text; delivers SMS messages into a users' inboxes; and allows people to make cheap international calls.

Guest: Dwight Silverman

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On today's show I visit Google's founding executive chef, Charlie Ayers, at his new restaurant in Palo Alto.

Charlie Ayers does some early morning work in his new restaurant, Calafia, which is located across the street from Stanford University

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Google says it will help consumers track their home energy usage in a bid to lower demand and the harmful emissions that come from producing electricity.

Guest: Jesse Berst, SmartGridNews.com

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A new service from Google enables mobile phone users to broadcast their whereabouts to family and friends. The software plots a user's location by relying on cell phone towers, global positioning systems or a Wi-Fi connection.

Guest: Dwight Silverman, Houston Chronicle

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Internet company Yahoo says it will anonymize some user data within 90 days of its collection. That includes information on the sites users visit, and advertisements they click on.

Meanwhile the Ponemon Institute, a research group that focuses on privacy issues, hasreleased its annual Most Trusted Companies survey. Google fell from its top 20 perch, partly because consumers expressed growing unease with Google's data collection and retention practices.

Guests: Jay Cline, Minnesota Privacy Consultants; Larry Ponemon, Ponemon Institute

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For years YouTube has championed user-generated videos over Hollywood-style programming, and steadfastly avoided obtrusive advertising.

But recently YouTube announced it will sell search terms as part of an advertising program, and secured the rights to post full-length movies from a major Hollywood studio. And that's probably just a taste of what's to come for a site that's captured the world's imagination but has yet to figure out the money thing, according to Greg Sandoval of CNET News.