I've Been on Vacation but Google Hasn't

For the past 2 weeks I have been on vacation, enjoying life on the west coast of Newfoundland, it has been excellent. Now it is time to get back to work, and briefly summarize what has been happening in the world of Google, here it goes:

• Walking directions are now available in Google Earth and Maps, both are in beta.
• Check out the 100 panoramas for Havana Cuba available at the 360 Cities website or they can be viewed in Google Earth.
• There is a new version of Google Earth 4.3 (beta) available here.
• 10 years ago the very first Google index had 26 million pages, last week it hit 1 trillion.
• Google Knol was released to the public last week. Knols are defined as "authoritative articles about specific topics, written by people who know about those subjects." This service is similar to wikipedia except the author identity is given, and authors can receive money via advertising for their entries. I gave it a quick look and read an article on Psoriasis, the author's name, picture, and job was provided and when his name was clicked on, more info was given.
• Google Docs announced that templates are present for documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. As of today, the total number available is 309. I think this is an excellent advance for the google docs package. I have to work on a resume for my brother, and I will be using one of the many templates for resumes available with Google Docs. As more great features like this are added, Google Docs will be an Office killer.

I think the biggest news is Google Knol, this is getting excellent reviews and provides accountability to a huge section of information available on the web. Time to go work on one of those knols.