Google releases Desktop 2 beta

Google has launched an updated beta version of its Desktop Search tool, adding a Sidebar interface with functionality that could pose a serious challenge to Microsoft and other rivals.

Google Desktop 2, available for free download at http://desktop.google.com/, will index a user's hard drive and include the content of Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and other Microsoft Office files in results to search terms.

It also allows users to launch Microsoft applications from within a list of search results, making the Windows interface a little more redundant for some.

The new Sidebar interface lets users create a personalised environment with a variety of panels, displaying such things as dynamic content from RSS and Atom feeds ("Web Clips") and a slideshow of photos recently accessed on the web.

Sidebar keeps track of the user's news and website preferences and filters the information displayed accordingly. It requires very little manual configuration.

"You can think of it as a personal web assistant that learns about your habits and interests to identify and present web pages, news stories, and photos that it thinks you will be interested in," said Marissa Mayer, director of product management for consumer products at Google.

The Sidebar can also be configured to link a panel to email coming in via Outlook or Gmail, and this can also be included in Google Desktop searches. Other panels include a scratch pad to jot down notes, a news service, and US weather reports.

The company is also keen to get developers involved and has published a set of application programming interfaces (http://desktop.google.com/apis) for the Sidebar.

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