Froogle has released Wish Lists! So you can create a wish list of products from any arbitrary website (that you can find in Froogle, which is pretty much any website).

Here are the explanations given by Google on Froogle FAQ:

What is this Wish List thing?

Your Wish List is the public part of your Shopping List. If there's an item on your Shopping List that you'd like to share with friends or family, just add it to your Wish List by checking the "In Wish List" checkbox next to the item. It will instantly be added to your Wish List, which will be accessible to anyone who searches for your e-mail address on the Froogle Shopping List homepage. You can also e-mail the URL, http://froogle.google.com/shoppinglist/shoppinglist?action=ShowWishList&email=YOUR_EMAIL_ADDRESS, to others. (If you send out your Wish List a few weeks before Christmas or your holiday, you may never again receive an orange and green plaid sweater for a present.)

Douwe Osinga is working for Google on the Google File System architecture. If you don't know what is the Google File System (GFS) you should read this paper called The Google File System (PDF 269 KB), by Sanjay Ghemawat, Howard Gobioff, and Shun-Tak Leung.

The paper describes how Google stores data and goes into some detail here. Basically Google runs one distributed filesystem over more than a thousand machines using thousands of disks in order to manipulate hundreds of terrabytes at a go. Data is safely duplicated and can be checkpointed. "It is really quite astonishing to work on stuff like that from the inside and you'd think that if you're going to keep stuff secret, this would be one thing. But it is not, it is a public paper.", Douwe Osinga says.

Douwe Osinga announces that "There's another paper out there about some of the stuff we're doing here that will really blow your mind"...

Google has released a Google Deskbar API, allowing programmers to write plug-ins to add their own features to the Google Deskbar. Plug-ins can be written in any .NET language, such as C# or Visual Basic.NET.

What's a Deskbar plug-in? The Google Deskbar plug-in is a simple extension mechanism for customizing the . When you enter a search term and choose your plug-in from the menu, Deskbar passes your search term to your plug-in code, which can then return a specific URL to be displayed in a browser or mini-viewer window, or return text to be displayed directly in the Deskbar's text box.

Users need to install the latest version of the Google Deskbar and version 1.0 or higher of the Microsoft® .NET Framework to use plug-ins. The easiest way for users to get the .NET Framework is to visit the Windows Update website. It's a good idea to remind your users to install the latest versions of the Deskbar and the .NET Framework before they install your plug-in.

What kind of plug-in can be written? The Google Deskbar API development kit includes sample plug-ins that allow you to search your Outlook address book and generate a random password. Here are some other ideas you might want to pursue:

• Locate and play a music play list on your hard drive
• Solve algebraic equations
• Send instant messages from the Deskbar

John Battelle gives details from Google PR:

The Google Deskbar API is in the experimental, beta phase. We invite developers to use the service and encourage them to send us their input and feedback. Plug-ins can be written in any .NET language, such as C# or Visual Basic.NET. More information about the Google Deskbar API can be found here: http://deskbar.google.com/help/api/index.html.

Via