Though the last we heard, Google was nearing a compromise that would allow them to stop censoring their Google.cn results, the Financial Times is reporting that they are almost certainly going to close their Chinese search engine. Since their initial ultimatum in January, Google and China have traded vague statements about reaching a compromise, but, unsurprisingly, talks haven’t produced a mutually agreeable solution. [ Financial Times ] More

Google and China’s dirty laundry has been airing in public since mid-January when Google refused to continue censoring search results in the country. A resolution could be nearing though, with Google rumored to be pulling censorship this month. More

Cynics will likely say China’s forcing Motorola to include Bing search instead of Google in Chinese Android phones, due to the ongoing war o’ censorship with Google . Me? Well, Bing is the better search engine. Kidding! More

You can learn a lot about the psyches of internet users through Google’s search suggestions, as we’ve seen . But What Do You Suggest? lets you explore these suggestions in a much more in-depth way. The site allows you to start with any word you want, opening up visual trees showing what words people usually type next. The lines connecting the words show how common each word combo is, allowing you to follow the popularity to the most common search phrases or going to some of the weirder ones

Forget typing out searches or searching by voice. Devices running Android 2.0 can now use Google Gesture Search to find contacts, music, and more. All you have to do is “draw” letters on the screen. This is how Google says the whole thing works: Say you want to call your friend Anne.

Microsoft certainly knows a thing or two about anti-trust suits , and if the kids at Google are to be believed the company is waging something of a proxy war on them by injecting itself in lawsuits and complaints brought up by third parties. As Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich told The Wall Street Journal , “our competitors are scouring court dockets around the world looking for complaints against Google into which they can inject themselves, learn more about our business practices, and use that information to develop a broader antitrust complaint against us.” Of course, Microsoft claims that this is mere bosh, saying that it’s neither initiated nor is it funding anti-trust lawsuits from small companies like TradeComet.com or myTriggers.com — the latter of whom is being represented by Charles “Rick” Rule, Microsoft’s chief outside counsel on competition issues. Then again, if we remember correctly Ciao — the European online shopping portal — didn’t have any problems with how Google did business until they were snatched up by Microsoft recently. Coincidence? Inevitable

With all the intrigue around China hacking Google and Google hacking back , it’s easy to overlook the real-world consequences of what further escalation might lead to. Specifically: Chinese researchers and scientists could see the plug pulled on their work process. A full 84% of Chinese scientists said that blocked access to Google would “somewhat or significantly” hamper their research, in a recent survey by Nature News . While there are alternative search engines like Baidu, none are nearly as effective at searching English-language sites or research papers as Google. Google Scholar, in particular, is an invaluable resource for tracking down academic papers. It’s an apt analogy from the unnamed scientist quoted above: research without Google really is like life without electricity

Now that Microsoft’s browser selection story story is all but settled, it looks like the European Union is gearing up for a new antitrust probe, with its crosshairs aimed generally in Google’s direction. According to the search giant’s Senior Competition Counsel Julia Holtz (via its European Public Policy Blog), complaints from three European internet companies — legal search group EJustice.fr , price comparison site Foundem.co.uk , and German-based Microsoft subsidiary Ciao.de — have prompted the European Commission to launch a preliminary, fact-finding probe. The charges? Anticompetitive practices stemming from unfair downranking of its competitors in search results.

Wired’s Steven Levy takes us inside the ” algorithm that rules the web “—Google’s search algorithm, of course—and if you use Google, it’s kind of a must-read . PageRank? That’s so 1997. It’s known that Google constantly updates the algorithm, with 550 improvements this year—to deliver smarter results and weed out the crap—but there are a few major updates in its history that have significantly altered Google’s search, distilled in a helpful chart in the Wired piece. For instance, in 2001, they completely rewrote the algorithm; in 2003, they added local connectivity analysis; in 2005, results got personal; and most recently, they’ve added in real-time search for Twitter and blog posts

In today’s Remainders: possibilities. Bing hopes to expand its search empire by adding Yahoo’s results; T-Mobile looks to add WebOS to its roster; the next iPhone might get a Super AMOLED screen (it won’t); and porn possibilities abound for troops. AMOLEDOMG You’d think that OLED-display.net would be a trustworthy source for OLED-related news, especially when their info comes from “OLED industry sources,” but their claim that Apple’s next iPhone will use Samsung’s Super AMOLED screens isn’t very convincing. We heard this business in the run up to the unveiling of the iPad, too, and there isn’t really any indication that this newest report is anything other than idle speculation. It’s also noteworthy—or un-noteworthy, as the case may be—that the post ends with this bit: “the CEO of Rapid Repair believes also that Apple use Samsungs SUPER AMOLED in their next generation Iphone 4G.” Neither the grammar nor the sourcing of this sentence do much to help the rumor’s case. [ OLED-display.net ] Posterity Tweets As you probably know by now, your Tweets don’t stick around forever