We told you the Google phone was confirmed. And now some Googler’s seem to be confirming it, too. There is a lot of chatter on Twitter about Google employees with HTC-built unlocked Google Phones running Android 2.1. And the devices look to be coming out in January.

It looks to us like Google may have handed out a lot of the new Google Phone devices today to employees, and naturally they’re showing it to friends.

We also took great care to make Google Chrome a native application for Mac. For example, we integrated the Keychain into Google Chrome for Mac, and incorporated Mac-style animations when you open the Bookmarks bar. For more details on today’s beta release of Google Chrome for Mac, check out the video below.

So the Google Tricycle is hitting Europe, going off road. The California search engine leader has hired two cyclists to ride through Paris gardens, historical sites and other pedestrian-only areas on the device to take thousands of digital photos. For example, the are biking through the gardens of France’s Chateau de Versailles. The only difference this time, they are blurring the faces of the people they drive by:

To respect people’s privacy, Google has installed software that recognizes license plates and people’s faces and automatically blurs them, Dauba-Pantanacce said. Google will then choose the best photos among the thousands taken. The blurring comes to meet privacy concerns. – from MSNBC

CUPERTINO, California—August 3, 2009—Apple® today announced that Dr. Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer of Google, is resigning from Apple’s Board of Directors, a position he has held since August 2006.

“Eric has been an excellent Board member for Apple, investing his valuable time, talent, passion and wisdom to help make Apple successful,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple’s core businesses, with Android and now Chrome OS, Eric’s effectiveness as an Apple Board member will be significantly diminished, since he will have to recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings due to potential conflicts of interest. Therefore, we have mutually decided that now is the right time for Eric to resign his position on Apple’s Board.”

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

twitter.com/Google – our central account
twitter.com/Blogger – for Blogger fans
twitter.com/GoogleCalendar – user tips & updates
twitter.com/GoogleImages – news, tips, tricks on our visual image search
twitter.com/GoogleNews – latest headlines via Google News
twitter.com/GoogleReader – from our feed reader team
twitter.com/iGoogle – news & notes from Google’s personalized homepage
twitter.com/GoogleStudents – news of interest to students using Google
twitter.com/YouTube – for YouTube fans
twitter.com/YouTubeES – en Espanol
twitter.com/GoogleAtWork – solutions for IT and workplace productivity

Geo-related
twitter.com/SketchUp – Google SketchUp news
twitter.com/3DWH – SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse
twitter.com/Modelyourtown – 3D modeling to build your favorite places
twitter.com/EarthOutreach – Earth & Maps tools for nonprofits & orgs
twitter.com/GoogleMaps – uses, tips, mashups
twitter.com/GoogleSkyMap -Android app for the night sky

Ads-related
twitter.com/AdSense – for online publishers
twitter.com/AdWordsHelper – looking out for AdWords questions and tech issues
twitter.com/AdWordsProSarah – Google Guide for AdWords Help Forum
twitter.com/GoogleAnalytics – insights for website effectiveness
twitter.com/GoogleAdBuilder – re building display ads
twitter.com/GoogleRetail – for retail advertisers
twitter.com/TechnologyUK – for U.K. tech advertisers
twitter.com/InsideAdWordsDE – for German AdWords customers
twitter.com/GoogleAgencyDE – for German ad agencies
twitter.com/AdSensePT – info for Portuguese-language publishers
twitter.com/AdWordsRussia – AdWords news & tips in Russian
twitter.com/DentroDeAdWords – Spanish updates from the Inside AdWords blog
twitter.com/AdWordsAPI – AdWords API tips

Developer & technical
twitter.com/GoogleResearch – from our research scientists
twitter.com/GoogleWMC – Google Webmaster Central
twitter.com/GoogleCode – latest updates for Google developer products
twitter.com/GoogleData – Data APIs provide a standard protocol for reading and writing web data
twitter.com/app_engine – web apps run on Google infrastructure
twitter.com/DataLiberation – our initiative for complete import/export of all data
twitter.com/GoogleMapsAPI – about using Google Maps embedded in websites
twitter.com/GoogleIO – Google’s largest annual developer event

Culture, People
twitter.com/googletalks – notes from our @Google speaker series
twitter.com/googlejobs – the voice of Google recruiters

twitter.com/googledownunder – Google activities in Australia & New Zealand
twitter.com/GoogleDE – Google in Germany
twitter.com/GoogleKorea – News & notes in Korean*

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we’re already talking to partners about the project, and we’ll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve. Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work. – from Google

The new OS will focus entirely on the web: “The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform.” What that means is this. The browser is the platform. The browser is the UI. Now, finally, even the tech purists can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Windows is hardware management plus an application platform, and we call that an OS. Chrome OS is hardware management plus an application platform (the browser), and we call that an OS, too. – from Techcrunch

David Grant, a car parts worker, drove 200 miles to Dartmoor to kill himself – after printing off Google aerial pictures of his suicide location from the internet. An inquest heard how Mr Grant also printed off notices against the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning as he gassed himself in his car. The 40 year-old from London planned his death with great precision and left A4 size sheets on his car telling passing people not to open the doors. – from Telegraph

The long expected upgrade to the Live Search product from Microsoft (MSFT) is being tested for a public rollout later this year. The blogosphere was a-twitter, literally, after a Twitter post by Powerset co-founder Barney Pell this past weekend, about a rebranding and updating of the search offering. (Microsoft acquired Powerset last year and Pell works on search strategy.) – from All Things D

Ending one of the worst kept secrets in Redmond, Microsoft is apparently going to publicly present its new “Kumo” branded Web search engine at the Wall Street Journal’s “D: All Things Digital” conference in Carlsbad, Calif., next week. – from Seattle

Personally, I doubt Kumo will be the new name. After being used in testing, any “thunder” with that name is kind of gone. Plus, I’ve seen plenty of people on the web ridicule that name as a new brand choice. Sift seems potentially tied to a Microsoft mobile platform, plus Sift.com is actually owned by someone else. Hook.com also is owned by someone else. Bing.com resolves to a blank page, is registered to Microsoft and uses Microsoft’s name servers. So that’s what I’d guess it’s going to be. -from Danny Sullivan

Concerned a brain drain could hurt its long-term ability to compete, Google Inc. is tackling the problem with its typical tool: an algorithm. The Internet search giant recently began crunching data from employee reviews and promotion and pay histories in a mathematical formula Google says can identify which of its 20,000 employees are most likely to quit. Google officials are reluctant to share details of the formula, which is still being tested. The inputs include information from surveys and peer reviews, and Google says the algorithm already has identified employees who felt underused, a key complaint among those who contemplate leaving. – from WSJ

The head of the world’s most popular search engine urged college graduates on Monday to step away from the virtual world and make human connections. Speaking at the University of Pennsylvania’s commencement, Google chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt told about 6,000 graduates that they need to find out what is most important to them — by living analog for a while. “Turn off your computer. You’re actually going to have to turn off your phone and discover all that is human around us,” Schmidt said. “Nothing beats holding the hand of your grandchild as he walks his first steps.” – from AP

Google said Wednesday it will reshoot all photos in Japan for its Street View service after residents complained the 360-degree panoramic images provided a view over the fences around their homes. The photos currently on the website were taken by cameras mounted on a stick attached to a car roof. Google Japan said it would lower the cameras after many residents said they were high enough to look over fences around their homes, company product manager Keiichi Kawai said in a statement. – from Japan Today

Amid the on-going shake-up in Google’s display advertising business, there’s a rising debate over the future of Google’s most disappointing display advertising property, YouTube. Credit Suisse says YouTube is set to lose $470 million this year and it’s got people asking: Should Google spin-out YouTube? Or at least treat it like a separate business — the way a VC would handle a portfolio company? One source familiar with these conversations, but unauthorized to discuss them, told us “If I were Eric [Schmidt, Google CEO] I would say one thing doesn’t look like the other thing and I would probably spin [YouTube] out.” – from Business Insider

Schmidt also downplayed another option for reducing the expense of YouTube by downgrading video delivery to third-world countries where advertising revenue is insignfiicant. “I have not personally been in meetings where there were discussion on throttling bandwidth because of its costs,” Schmidt said. “In general we don’t link the two (bandwidth and cost). A typical example is India. A few years ago… we spent quite a bit of money to dramatically increase the connectivity to India even though it had no short-term or even near-term way to justify it economically. And I’m very proud of that. That’s how Google works. So I would discourage a linking between the two.” – from SiliconBeat