There have been rumors circulating for years that Google was working on their own operating system. It's now no longer a rumor. The Chrome OS is underway. It's planned as an alternative to Windows XP for netbooks. Consumer netbooks running Chrome OS should hit store shelves next year.

The particularly interesting part of this announcement is that the Chrome OS is a separate project from Android. Android will run on netbooks, and companies like ASUSTek have already said they were exploring the option.

So are we going to see netbooks for sale with two different Google operating systems?

Google has tended toward a non-traditional use of the term "beta" when describing their tools. Software is traditionally in beta when it isn't quite ready to be released to the public. Google has thought of it more as a label for items when they weren't quite sure if they were done tweaking the interface. Some Google tools have been stuck in beta for years.

As it turns out, companies balk at the idea of using "beta" software to run their important business. Who knew? So Google is losing the beta label for Google Apps related tools, including Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Talk.

Do you think this is a smart move that will convince businesses to switch to Google or a pointless gesture in a Microsoft-dominated marketplace?

It wasn't really a surprising announcement, but the Department of Justice is officially investigating the settlement agreement Google struck with the Author's Guild and the Association of American Publishers over Google Books.

What's the big deal? The settlement is an agreement designed to let publishers, authors, and Google profit from works in Google Books. So far, so good. The sticking point is what happens with "orphan works." These are books that are no longer in print but still have a copyright. Under this agreement, Google assumes those books should be available in full unless rights holders say otherwise.

They've set up a group to try and find the rights holders and pay them their share of any future revenues, but there are probably plenty of orphan works that will remain ownerless, and opponents argue that this gives Google an unfair advantage when it comes to publishing rights.

Google argues that their agreement is non-exclusive, so other publishers are free to enter into agreements of their own. That wasn't an argument that held water when they tried it with the Yahoo! AdSense deal, so I'm not sure how well it will work in this case.

This won't do anything for the people who are still waiting for a Google Voice invite, but those who already have one will really appreciate it. Back when Google announced that they were going to start inviting more users "soon," they also announced a nifty new feature. You can pick your number by searching for text and number phrases.

I'm sure I wasn't the only person who suddenly eyed this new feature with envy. Back when I got my account, you had to go through a long list of numbers and hope you could find something memorable.

You are no longer stuck with your original number. Go into Settings: Phones, and you'll see an option to change numbers. It costs $10 to change, but your old number will still be forwarded for 90 days. You pay the fee through Google Checkout, and you're not obligated to pay unless you find a number you actually like. I found one that spells my name. How awesome is that?