As of 8 am today, users who will download or upgrade Java for Internet Explorer will be prompted to install a MSN search bar that will set Microsoft’s search engine as the predefined one. The deal, announced earlier today by Microsoft and limited to US surfers only, has the potential to make a very large number of users switch from Google in a matter of just a few days.

After Google pulled out of the advertising deal with Yahoo! yesterday because of seemingly unresolvable conflicts with the U.S. Department of Justice, Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang announced today at the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco that the company will now consider future offers of a Microsoft buyout.

Google Earth, the popular globe rendering software that was downloaded over 400 million times since its release in June 2005, just got a new and very exciting feature: the Google Earth team announced earlier today that when looking at Rome, Italy it is now possible to see a number of historic places as archaeologist thought they looked like thousands of years ago.

Verizon, soon to become the biggest mobile phone carrier in the U.S., was about to close a search/advertising deal with Google back in June that would have put a Google search bar on the home screen of its phones and made it the default search engine in exchange for a share of the revenue generated by their users. Now, Microsoft tries to “steal” the deal from the Mountain View-based search engine by offering the company better conditions that Google did.

Google just announced new, exciting features added to its e-mail platform: starting today, Gmail users will be able to make voice and video calls with each other and even hosting conference calls, allowing for a potentially much faster way of communicating and connecting with others. The feature is built on the pre-existing chat functionality embedded in Gmail and, even if not quite as sophisticated as other tools such as Skype or Meebo, it is fairly easy to install and use, and should make a welcome addition to Gmail.

In the first test for its users response speed, Google just released a patch to its Android operating system that corrects a bug in its browser that came to light about ten days ago, as well as some other minor details. The update process was reportedly smooth and completely automated for T-Mobile’s G1, the only commercially available phone that currently features Google’s mobile operating system.

After an early statement by sources linked to Google that the company would be rejecting any kind of compromise that was forced by U.S. antitrust organizations, the company recently announced that the terms of the much rumored about advertising deal with Yahoo! has been revised to accommodate the government requests, as a clear hint that the two companies are truly looking forward to close the deal.