All of us know That Guy: he constantly asks you for pertinent links he could easily Google himself. Arm yourself against irritation! Let Me Google That For You is your weapon in this war.

Google’s never-ending chain of features continues with the newly-minted GTalk support for video and voice chat through GMail or other Google app interfaces.

The new functionality arrives via a browser plugin and requires at least a microphone. People without video capability can use voice chat alone, and people with webcams can video message each other. If one party has a camera and the other does not, video can be transmitted one-way while both use voice messaging.

Coupled with AIM access via your GChat list, this shows that Google is still serious about providing its users with feature-packed products.

Full GMail and app features are supported in recent versions of Firefox, Safari, IE7, and Chrome.

Russian search and advertising firm Era Vodoleya has filed a lawsuit with the allegation that Google’s contextual advertisement is in violation of a 1998 copyright.

The suit alleges that Era Vodoleya invented contextual advertising in 1997 and later began using the patented technology in 1998. The suit also claims that Google’s implementation of the technology did not begin until 1999, which demonstrates clear and willful infringement.

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Just one day after it was alleged that Google was restructuring its deal with Yahoo! in an attempt to quell regulatory concerns, Google has walked away from its proposed deal.

Citing a disinterest in a legal battle with antitrust regulators, Google has washed its hands of the ordeal. This occurrence leaves many to wonder how Yahoo! intends to weather their severe turmoil.

Yesterday the FCC convened to decide the future of so-called whitespace bandwidth. Referring to unused frequencies in the analog TV block, the FCC voted to approve the use of these frequencies which would blanket the US in freely-accessible bandwidth.

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According to several reports, Google and Yahoo! have revised their deal with the hope that U.S. antitrust approval will be given. It is currently speculated that the newest terms reduces the duration to two years from ten and caps the revenue Google can obtain from Yahoo! at 25%.

Google Calendar has become an indispensible asset for keeping my errands, writing and tasks on schedule. There was a time when I thought the Google Calendar was more or less useless, but it has really come into its own for me. As a result of relying on it more heavily, I’ve had the need to access it constantly and seamlessly. GCal Popup has stepped in to address that need by providing a lightbox-style overlay that sits atop any page I’m browsing.

As an experimental addon, registration is required fore download, but for anyone who relies on the Google Calendar, the nuisance is worth it. Having Google Calendar has saved me plenty of time on a repetitive task, and every minute counts in productivity land.

Today Google has announced the settlement of two lawsuits for a combined $125 million that were filed in protest of Google’s controversial Book Search service.

In the event the settlement is approved, it would provide Google with the ability to resume scanning books to provide an online source for many copyrighted and archived works.

If you’ve ever wanted to add the ability to see your calendar and your docs on your GMail screen, you’ve got it now.

This is a feature we’ve been seeking for a while (without Greasemonkey scripts). Thankfully, it’s also feature that seems to fall in line with Google’s apparent strategy to unite their services in visible and accessible ways. It is evident that the web giant is hoping to make uninitiated users aware of their entire suite of web applications, not just the popular Gmail service.

In response to outstanding criticism to alleged violations of human rights, three of the biggest internet giants are set to adopt a voluntary code of conduct. Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google are preparing to unify their approach to operation in China where assisting authorities can lead to censorship or protracted imprisonment for Chinese citizens.

The two year effort of technology companies, investment firms and human rights groups outlines many potential human rights issues that internet giants may face in repressive countries. The document is said to detail what a company should do before, during, and after a regime makes a request that could impinge on free speech.

While the code is seen as a step forward in the protection of human rights, it is drawing criticism due to its vague terms. Detractors for the document question how diligent companies will be in using “best efforts” to narrowly comply with governmental requests. Morton Sklar of the World Organization for Human Rights USA said that such passages create a document that proposes “general support for freedom of expression on the Internet, but doesn’t go beyond that to provide the specifics.”

The document and its official list of supporters are expected to be published next week.

But it’s all in the name of science. Honest.

For users of J2ME-enabled or BlackBerry phones, the official Google mobile blog just announced the immediate availability of Gmail 2.0. The update supports multiple mail profiles, drafts, shortcuts, offline support, and refinements to the application’s performance.

Be sure to delete your existing installation of Gmail prior to installing the new version.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has been a supporter of presidential hopeful Barack Obama for some time. In addition to performing in an informal advisory role to Obama, Schmidt plans to hit the trail in support of the candidate, a task he’s doing personally. This has elicited mounting speculation that Schmidt may be the United States’ first Chief Technology Office if Barack Obama wins the upcoming election.

While Schmidt has publicly stated he’s wildly opposed to the idea, there are few individuals more suited or seemingly more in line for the task.

Before the T-Mobile G1 was available to end-users, the Android app store teemed with more than fifty applications that could be downloaded and used. Now that the G1 is leaking into the public, Google has pared the app store back to just thirteen hand-picked applications. Whether the impetus be a little house cleaning or something more conspiratorial, it’s a little bizarre.

During our look at Microsoft’s faltering relevancy in the era of Web 2.0, a quote from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer indicated that he hoped that they [Microsoft] were not competing against Google Apps as they were not very good products. Fast forward to today, Icrontic is receiving some vindication with Ballmer’s admission that Google Docs has the edge. “Google has the lead, but, if we’re good at advertising, we’ll compete with them in the consumer business,” he said.

This all points more broadly towards Microsoft’s struggle to keep up with Google in an age where simple tasks like email and word processing no longer need to be tied to the desktop. While Google has been quick to the punch, Microsoft has taken a sluggish approach which has made it something of an anachronism on the web. It can hardly be contested that Google is in the lead when we “Google” everything, instead of “MSNing” it.