The event is expected to bring the launch of Google‘s online music download store, the latest such digital storefront from the search giant. Google already operates a digital store for books, as well as for software applications on both its Android and Chrome platforms.

The new service will play into Google’s existing music offering, a beta service that lets users store digital copies of their music tracks on the company’s servers.

Alongside the formal launch of that service, Google is expected to unveil deals with most of the big record companies to sell digital music downloads from those catalogs. Purchased tracks can then be accessed from both the Web and on mobile devices, including those running Google’s Android operating system.

There may be more too. CNET broke the news that Google will add extra social features on top of its store. According to the Wall Street Journal, that social feature will include letting users share tracks they’ve purchased with their friends on Google’s social network Google+.

The press event kicks off at 2 p.m. Pacific, and Google is providing a live stream of it at YouTube.com/Android. As usual, we’ll be using Cover it Live to bring you updates and photos from the press conference as it’s happening. Just bookmark this page and come back to it Wednesday afternoon, or sign up to get an e-mail reminder just ahead of the start. Plus: We’ll have running commentary in a special Google Music segment on Buzz Out Loud.

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Google has a secret laboratory, unknown even to most of the company’s employees, where it develops projects that sound like something taken from a sci-fi movie, the New York Timesreports.

At the lab, located somewhere in the Bay Area, Google’s brightest engineers are working on some hundred projects, including smart refrigerators and dinner plates, robots that fetch the groceries and elevators that can take you to outer space.

An unnamed Google engineer says that the lab is run mysteriously, in two different office buildings — one for logistics and the other for robotics projects.

The scientists working in the lab include hires from Microsoft, Nokia, Stanford, M.I.T., Carnegie Mellon and New York University. Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin is reportedly “deeply involved” with the project, and he and co-founder Larry Page have come up with a list of ideas for the lab.

It is reportedly headed by robotics and artificial intelligence expert Sebastian Thrun from Stanford, best known for his work on the world’s first driverless car. Andrew Ng, a Stanford professor and an esteemed A.I. expert, also works at the lab.

A Google spokeswoman would not confirm the existence of the lab, but she did say that Google likes to invest in speculative projects. Google’s 20% rule, which lets engineers spend one-fifth of their work time on personal projects, is one example of that, but a secret lab takes this idea a step further and makes you wonder which of these technologies will graduate to be full-fledged Google projects.

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The new-look Gmail that Google accidentally told us about last weekis now rolling out to all users.

The changes, officially announced in a blog post Tuesday, allow Gmail users much more control over the look of the service. You can drag sidebars around to your preferred size and width, choose from a wider selection of high-resolution background pictures, and decide whether you want lots of email on your screen or more white space between mails. (Your choice of email density is between “Comfortable,” “Cozy” and “Compact.”)

Heavy Gmail users will also be pleased to learn that there’s a new search function — that is, you can now access Advanced Search by clicking on the search bar. Conversations have been condensed, and profile pictures added.

These are more features than Google offered in its sneak peek of the new Gmail, which started in July. Here’s the video about the new features Google mistakenly made public last week:

For now, at least, the new features will be opt-in — and not all of us will be able to access them immediately. “If you like what you see, over the next few days you’ll be able to switch to the new look by clicking on Switch to the new look in the bottom-right of Gmail,” writes Google user experience designer Jason Cornwell.

So do you like what you see? Will you be switching? Or is Google messing around too much with a good thing? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

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Lift Off of Space Shuttle Antlantis

 Landing Off of Space Shuttle Antlantis

Just before sunrise, the space shuttle Atlantis made its final landing, putting to bed the 30-year U.S. shuttle program. “Like a UFO in the dark, fiery contrails lighting Florida up,” Beth Carpenter wrote on Twitter in one of the many elegies.

The NASA Goddard Photo and Video team put together a short, sweet tribute to the last flights of Discovery and Atlantis. In the first few seconds, Discovery moves past the night side of the Earth into the daytime, as the Aurora Borealis clings to Earth’s side. In the second, the Discovery shuttle moves over a cloudy United States. And in the last few moments, the sun rises behind Atlantis in this time-lapse sequence on July 19, 2011, just two days before it landed:

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Congratulations to William R. Jenkins, III (Chip), Chief Executive Officer, Director of The First State Bank!

He is the WINNER of a new Apple iPad 2 from the Percento Technologies drawing at the 2011 Texas Bankers Association Annual Meeting – Conference in Austin, texas.

Thank you to everyone who joined our drawing.

Financial Technology Support

As the year is winding down, it is time to look at those technologies that succeeded shaped our lives for the better and those that failed and went the wrong direction. We are starting the series with the 10 best technologies and services of 2010, chosen by our editorial team. Feel free to weigh in.

10. Facebook
There is a good chance that you are using Facebook personally or for your job. We often have very emotional connections to this service and I personally can say that Facebook was a huge driver in virtually destroying my personal life and then rebuilding it. However, whether you love or hate Facebook, there is no denying that it has become the definition of the social network, just as much as we refer to Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) as a synonym for search.

It is simply stunning to see how much of a discussion and debate Facebook is prompting, how much we care about possible Facebook mobile devices or email services, and how upset we get when we believe that Facebook is violating our privacy. Facebook has entered our life much faster than we anticipated and much faster than many of us are ready to deal with. There is little doubt that Facebook is here to stay, and we may only have seen the tip of the iceberg of what Facebook will be. Facebook is discovering just now how much power it really has.

Some 550 million people have Facebook accounts. No other entity on the Web is serving as many ads as Facebook. According to Google, Facebook reaches 37.9% of all Internet users, it has 590 million unique visitors every month, and it delivers an incredible 690 billion page impressions.

9. Microsoft Windows 7
I will be the first to admit that I did not expect Windows 7 to do as well as it has done in 2010. I still maintain that Windows 7 is just a reasonable patch for correcting Vista, which brought Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) down to its knees.

According to Net Applications, Windows 7 has now a market share of just under 20% and is gaining more than 1 point every month. The gains are not enough to compensate for the losses of Windows Vista and Windows XP, but there is no denying that Windows 7 is the Windows Vista that Vista should have been. There are solid sales results: Windows 7 has allowed Microsoft to pick up share in netbooks, and it is without doubt that it will pick up share in tablets as well.

There are some who claim that Windows 7 is just a bandage for a much bigger problem Microsoft is facing — a problem that is based on a 40-year-old OS principle to build an operating system, while there are new ideas emerging that are a potential threat to Microsoft’s core business. Windows effectively dealt with Linux in the mass market, but it will soon be facing Google’s Chrome OS in the entry-level and corporate OS market.

It would be foolish to dismiss Chrome OS as a toy, even with as many holes as the software still has. Windows 7 will soon be confronted with a fresh OS that is strongly following a trend that Microsoft is embracing as well — cloud computing. Windows 7′s successor will have to provide ideas and solutions that are out of reach for Windows 7.

8. Netflix
Back in 2006, we were presented with the first ideas of delivering movies on demand: CinemaNow and MovieLink came at a time of heated DRM discussions and were doomed to fail because of their approach to offer movies for relatively high purchase and rental prices. We needed a few years to understand that ownership of digital content is relatively meaningless as long as we have convenient access to content.

Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) has emerged from a DVD-by-mail content distributor to a successful content-on-demand provider. There are few entertainment platforms that do not provide Netflix access by default. Roku was first to announce a streaming Netflix box in May of 2008. The service then made its way to Blu-ray players, game consoles, and connected TVs. Now we have Netflix on iPhones and possibly on some Android phones in the near future.

If you haven’t noticed, Netflix has not just bankrupted Blockbuster by innovating the movie distribution model along the lines of consumer needs. It is also developing into a massively influential distributor that has enough reach to decide what we watch on a variety of devices. If movie publishers fear the power of iTunes today, they are entirely missing the possible impact of Netflix in the future.

7. Google Chrome
I wondered for some time whether it is fair to mention just Chrome in this list. Web browsers overall have made the most significant progress in technology since the invention of the software in the mid-1990s. Mozilla is transforming Firefox and Microsoft has the most competitive IE (IE9) out since IE4. But we know that Firefox 4 isn’t out until Q1 2011 and IE9 isn’t out either — and, in fact, IE9 has some critical shortcomings, such as the limitation to users of Windows Vista and Windows 7.

If one Web browser should be honored as the best browser of 2010, it should be Chrome.

If we look back to January 2010, we were working with Chrome 3. At some point, Google accelerated its development and, by far, outpaced its rivals in JavaScript acceleration as well as innovation in what a browser can do — ultimately laying the foundation for a much higher goal: cloud computing. Chrome 5 brought a massive speed improvement in JavaScript, and Chrome 6 refined the browser interface that every other browser developer would eventually follow.

Hardware acceleration isn’t finished, and given today’s Internet technology, we couldn’t care less about that. There are many Labs features for Chrome available, and we wish Google could get them into better order and release them faster — including Snap Start or Instant Search. However, if you are somewhat interested in Web browsers, it isn’t particularly difficult to activate these features via flags or switches and you can create an enormously fast and powerful browser yourself.

The recently released Chrome OS beta, which is little more than a Chrome browser to the user, shows just how far Chrome will reach. Today, Google has the most conclusive vision of a Web browser and the platform it will running in the future.

6. Amazon Kindle
The Kindle was an interesting product this year as the iPad invaded the Kindle’s e-book turf. As revolutionary as the iPad may be, the Kindle remains the default e-book reader and has greater appeal in this specific application than any tablet that is currently on the market.

A completely renovated line of Kindles that are more attractive and also cheaper have amplified their appeal and are widening their reach with consumers. We are now hearing that Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) is selling more e-books than hardcover books, and some publishers are brave enough to charge more money for a Kindle book than for the hardcover version.

The trend? We begin to see more value in a digital book than a physical hardcover edition. There is a good chance that 2010 has been the beginning of the end of the hardcover book. However, Amazon may have control of the e-book market now, but there is little doubt that the market is evolving and that there will be more requirements for e-book reader hardware. Amazon cannot rest on its laurels and will need to drive innovation to keep its lead when Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) rolls out its second-generation iPad with a much more advanced display, which is currently the Kindle’s strong point. Amazon will need more Internet features and will need to react to the trend of rich multimedia books.

5. Microsoft Bing
Seriously, who would have thought that Microsoft has figured out search! Leaving the silly name aside, Microsoft now has a search technology that is competitive and among the more promising product lines that have come out of Redmond lately.

In September, Bing was listed by Nielsen as the No. 2 search engine behind Google, and it appears that it has been gaining ground while Google’s market share gains have slowed. There is little doubt that Bing has the genes to challenge Google, even if Google is possibly too far ahead for Microsoft to catch up. Bing has a disadvantage compared to Google as Microsoft cannot offer Instant Search because of Google’s patents, but Microsoft recently filed interesting voice search patents and we hope that Microsoft’s Bing team can keep building on the success it has seen so far.

Back in June 2009, I enjoyed listening to Steve Ballmer, who proudly talked about Bing as Microsoft’s little engine that could. Bing surely has turned out to be that engine and has a solid foundation. Now Microsoft needs to show that it can be special and unique with talents Google does not have.

4. Chevrolet Volt
I have had the pleasure of driving a number of cars this year that hint to the automobile of the future. General Motors‘ (NYSE: GM) Chevy Volt is the best compromise of all and is, if it is sustainable that you are looking or in a car, the vehicle to own in 2011.

It is difficult to compare the Volt with any other car on the market because of its unique drivetrain that combines an electric motor that can run the car for up to 50 miles and a combustion engine that will recharge the batteries once the battery charge level drops below 35%. Compared with a Toyota Prius, you get vastly more mileage out of the battery. Compared with a Nissan Leaf, your range is much higher (about 400 miles). Compared with a Fisker Karma, it is more affordable (about $44,000 including common extras, but excluding the ridiculous price-gouging many Chevy dealers have indicated).

A recent Edmunds test indicated that a Prius plug-in hybrid may be cheaper to operate than a Volt, but the Prius isn’t available yet and I would bet the farm when I say that the Volt’s concept will be the one that we will be seeing succeeding in the mainstream class of cars in the near future. The Volt is Chevy’s best car since the Corvette.

3. Microsoft Xbox 360/Kinect
Both Sony and Microsoft placed big bets on motion controller technology this year. Two weeks before Christmas, it is clear that Microsoft has won the battle. Kinect outsells Move.

What is even more impressive that the Xbox 360 sells at a faster pace than the Wii in the United States. We remember that the Xbox 360 is the oldest console on the market, which makes the success of the Xbox 360 even more astonishing. When the PS3 and the Wii were introduced, the Xbox 360 looked antiquated and Microsoft had a tough time finding its way. However, the company kept the console’s hardcore gamer appeal, effectively introduced entertainment features, and has now every opportunity to go after a huge mainstream gaming market with Kinect.

Kinect is far from perfect, but by now we know that the technology is clearly ahead of the Wii controller. Kinect cannot be directly compared with the PS3 Move as it lacks the sensitivity and detail Move provides. For mainstream gaming, however, the Kinect is the trend both the Wii and the PS3 will have to follow if they want to compete in the next-gen mainstream gaming market.

2. Google Android
Smartphones have been a huge topic this year, and it was the iPhone 4 as well as Android that have dominated the headlines. So would you choose the iPhone 4 or Android as the winner for this year? The iPhone 4 is an outstanding device, but we went in favor of Android in the end, because of Apple’s hiccups and the arrogance Apple displayed in public. Google executed flawlessly, and it seems that with 300,000 Android units now activated every day, it is in the range of iPhone shipments. There is reason to believe that Android is beating the iPhone in several markets and has surpassed Apple in market share.

Google blatantly copied Apple’s most innovative software and UI features, added unique touches and a fantastic suite of applications, built a competitive app store, and combined this package with an open distribution model. Android has become a strong contender, and it is apparent that it is Android’s market to lose in 2011. Given its traction, we can predict that Android will be Apple’s second Windows experience, and Google has every opportunity to become the next Microsoft as far as operating system dominance is concerned.

Google is facing software fragmentation problems and will have to find ways to contain the mess of operating system versions and find solutions to differentiate Android from Chrome OS without confusing consumers. If Google executes as it did in 2010, it will dominate the smartphone market by the end of next year.

1. Apple iPad
Is there any other product that has changed our perception of technology than the iPad? Eight months after the introduction of the tablet device, we know that the iPad has paved the way for a new class of computing devices, we know that tablets are adopted by consumers at a fast pace, and we know that tablets will alter the landscape of personal computers.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs said earlier this year that the iPad may have been the most important product he has ever done, and it appears that he is right. The iPad is already outselling MacBooks and has enabled Apple to capture 12.4% of the PC market, according to DisplaySearch. The company is expected to exit 2010 with a 95% share of the tablet market, but 2011 will see more rivals in multiple form factors, while Apple said that it will not offer tablets that are smaller than 10 inches in screen size. Next year will reveal how strong Android and Chrome OS will be in this market and if Apple’s rivals have learned how to compete much more effectively.

Rumors suggest that a new iPad may be announced as early as next month and upgrades such as cameras could be on the way. As strong as the iPad is, Apple will need a continuous pace of innovation to maintain its leadership role among attractive tablets that will be coming in a variety of flavors from virtually every PC manufacturer next year. However, the iPad will remembered as the device that successfully introduced tablet computing, even if it was not exactly Steve Jobs’ idea.

Overall, there was no other product in 2010 that has been as significant as the iPad.

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Mobile App Development

Mobile check-in app Foursquare’s Monday outage happened after staff tried to fix one problem and somehow triggered another.

Then another glitch hit Tuesday, just hours after they were up and running again.

“It sucked for everyone (including our team — we all check in everyday, too),” the always irreverant Foursquare staff said in a blog post late Tuesday. “We know how frustrating this was for all of you because many of you told us how much you’ve come to rely on foursquare when you’re out and about. For the 32 of us working here, that’s quite humbling. We’re really sorry.”

The post’s title: “So, that was a bummer.”

Tuesday’s outage was shorter and more spotty.

“[W]e had downtime on Monday and Tuesday, but things should be ok now,” Foursquare support’s Twitter account reported at about 2 a.m. Wednesday.

Monday’s glitch was caused when one of the app’s servers was noticed storing too much data. When the support team went to fix in, all the other servers went down.

The blog said Foursquare is working with the company that makes the system that runs their servers. It also said changes are planned in the coming weeks and that the New York-based startup will communicate problems to users better in the future.

The outage prevented the app’s nearly 3 million users from checking in between about noon ET on Monday and just before midnight.

Launched in 2008, Foursquare is a location-based app that lets users “check in” at clubs, restaurants or most any other place they visit. Checking in alerts that person’s friends to his or her whereabouts. As a social-networking tool, the app is designed to help friends find and socialize with each other.

And its game aspect lets players earn virtual badges for certain accomplishments (visit 10 different movie theaters for the “zoetrope” badge, for instance) and the most frequent visitor to a spot becomes its “mayor.”

As of last month, Foursquare was nearing 3 million users, with more than 15,000 businesses offering special deals to people who check in there, according to its website.

On Monday, Foursquare’s New York-based staff was using various Twitter feeds to update users, sometimes lightheartedly.

“The servers are overloaded but we’re working on it! We will be back up ASAP,” someone wrote on Foursquare’s technical support Twitter feed.

The post was followed by the hashtag #caseofthemondays. Hashtags are ways Twitter users can find other people talking about the same thing or make joking follow-up comments — in this case a reference to the movie “Office Space.”

A later tweet said that Foursquare’s entire engineering team had been called in to handle the problem.

In recent weeks, Foursquare has been updating its app with new features, including the creation of a “to do” list that ratchets up the game-play aspect of it.

Since then, users have reported sporadic trouble checking in, although Monday’s was the longest widespread outage.

The app is facing increasing competition from the social networking giant Facebook, which recently launched a feature called Places that lets its 500 million members “check in” to locations, much as they can on Foursquare.

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