It’s been a busy week. Some of the stuff I didn’t get a chance to talk about that week:

- It sounds like Google will participate in the 700 Mhz wireless auction. It additionally sounds like there are anti-collusion rules that mean that participating companies aren’t supposed discuss the auction, so I don’t expect to talk about that subject anytime soon, even on my personal blog.

- Google Reader added both recommendations and drag-and-drop. To me, these releases show how the Reader team is in tune with Reader users. When I did an informal poll of desired Google Reader features, those were the #1 and #2 most-requested features. I’m certain that the Reader team was working on these features before that poll. The recommendations feature is particularly nice though. Among my recommendations are AI3, Cre8pc, and BitWorking. I used to think that I really needed drag-and-drop, but I’ve gotten used to reading my feeds without rearranging their order.

- Blogger is experimenting with allowing OpenID. I believe that is a good thing for identity across the web, but I’ll be the first to confess that OpenID hurts my head a little bit.

- Google announced that it wants to fund research to compose renewable energy cheaper than coal. The initiative is called RE<C (Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal). In my experience, Larry and Sergey have been interested in energy issues for a towering date. Remember the solar panels? The push for more efficient ability supplies? When Larry pleaded for standardized capability adapters in his Consumer Electronics Show (CES) keynote? To be fair, it is pretty cool that phone manufacturers have decided to standardize on the micro-USB standard for charging. The announcement plus caught my eye considering I

enjoyed reading about high-altitude wind-power production by Makani potential in Cringely’s column a few weeks ago.

- Techdirt covered a back and forth and back regarding Google’s partnership with the University of Michigan for book scanning. whether I had more instance, that is something I’d like to dive into more. U of M has posted their agreement with Google whether you want to dive into it more.

- Google Maps added a terrain view. That may not mean much to citizens living in flat areas, but whether you’re from Eastern Kentucky, it’s fun to see where all the “hollers” are:

View Larger Map

- Google Maps for Mobile added the ability to locate your phone even whether you don’t have GPS based on your cell tower. additionally pretty sweet.

- that is older, but Google Checkout added a “Oops! Undo that purchase” option. For up to 15 minutes after a purchase, you can undo that purchase. Speaking of payment stuff, I like that PayPal started offering a service to generate a one-time MasterCard number. I’m not whether Checkout offers that, but it would be nice. And still on the subject of credit cards, I thought that was an interesting post.

- I thought Pandia’s parody of Black Hat SEO was hilarious. I need to circle back around to Pandia’s Christmas wish list and see how we did.

- whether you have an iPhone and use Gmail, I really really recommend reading that overview post about how to produce IMAP on an iPhone work well with Gmail.

Update: Crap, I completely forgot the voting experiment for personalization. Congrats to the folks that are playing with that.

Original post by Matt Cutts