Google took a page out of the Twitter playbook by adding trending topics to Google+ on desktop browsers. Simply titled “Trends”, Google pulls down the top ten subjects people are talking about on Google+, and presents you with a constant stream of public G+ posts that happen to mention those topics. The design of the new trends sidebar isn’t elegant at all, and it’s clear Google is still building around the feature.

If you are moving in the United States, it is advisable to settle in a state where the unemployment rate is relatively low. Unfortunately, such precise information is hard to come by, but today, Google has announced a new feature that aims to consolidate all this information. Enter unemployment rate in Google’s Public Data service.

Basically, begin by searching for “Unemployment rate in New York,” or even a specific city or county. After entering in that information, a neat graph will be displayed along with the unemployment rate. If you decide to click through, you can even compare it with either the national rate, or that of another area.

We will all have our own views on what will be hot or not in 2008, but this list of 5 areas to look at seems pretty spot on to me: The Web To Go – The year for Gears, Air and Silverlight. Ultra Mobile PC’s – Building on the Asus EEE, and utilizing flash more »