Here is the Gardner Group's advice to corporate users on the new instant messaging (IM) system launched by Google: Prohibit the use of Google Talk to avoid having to manage yet another public IM network.

Which would be a kiss of death for most companies. But this is Google, which last week launched its Google Talk, an instant-messaging (IM) and a voice over IP services (VoIP).

Earlier this year, Bill Gates commented in Fortune magazine that Google was "more like us than anyone else we have ever competed with".

Wishful thinking. Google has a long way to go before becoming the "Great Satan" of the computing world, the company everyone loves to hate. However with all the features being offered by the best search engine in the business, there is a real Googlespace developing.

Gardner generally praises the Google expansion into IM and Internet telephony, but calls on the company to bring its Gmail service out of beta and make it available to the general public: Gmail is Google's online e-mail service, which now offers 2.5 gigabytes of free storage, so you "never have to delete mail". Go to the Gmail site and a running tab keeps adding more space as you watch. Incredible.

The company began to offer Gmail to selected users about 16 months ago. From then, on getting on the list was considered the height of nerdishness.

Invitations were traded on Internet forums. The good news is Google has started registering normal folk.

The bad news is you have to do it with a US cell phone.

Just go to www.gmail.com. Register and you get an "invitation code" sent to your mobile phone. The code allows you to create a Gmail account. If you happen to have a US cell then try it from Bermuda. If not you will have to wait until the company makes a more general public release.

Why mobile? Google says it wants to prevent spam from invading its space. Requiring a phone number ensues there is real person signing up for the service and not a mass mailing company that wants to send from the account.

Or is it because the company wants a great collection of cell phone numbers? Oh, oh! Adding the layer of e-mail, IM and voice messaging solidifies the company's position as an emerging power in Web portals and digital media.

@EDITRULE:

Here is one of those wild and wacky lives you encounter on the Internet, and in lots of other places too.

I think FedexFurniture.com can be classified as whacky. However FedEx does not find it humorous that someone has decided to deck their home out using the company's packaging.

I guess the company either does not want people abusing its packaging or has simply missed a brilliant marketing opportunity. You be the judge.

The furniture displayed at the site was built by Jose Avila, a computer techie who needed to fill his new digs when he moved to a job in Arizona. Since he was low on cash Avila decided to use FedEx's free packaging to construct a desk for his computers.

Soon, obsession set in. He built a bed and a dining table. Next he produced a couch. His troubles began when he put the pictures up on his site. FedEx was not amused and is now suing him, first for using the company's name and secondly for misusing its packaging materials.

The Stanford Law School is backing his case as a violation of free speech.

@EDITRULE:

You have to download a video from a Japanese site but it's well worth watching if you want to see how far robotics has developed.

Named R Daneel, the humanoid robot is able to get back on its feet from a lying down position. The robot kicks up its legs and rolls back onto its shoulders to gain the momentum to get onto its feet in a crouching position.

The robot looks incredibly human in the way it gets up. Intelligent Systems and Informatics Lab is building "bots" to be human like.

The video is available at www.isi.imi.i.u-tokyo.ac.jp

@EDITRULE:

Ahmed ElAmin writes on technology every Wednesday in the Royal Gazette's Personal Technology section. E-mail him at ahmedelamin.com