Google Instant comes to a browser near you this week with the new feature that provides search results while typing in your search terms.   The company estimates that the typical user will save approximately between 2 to 5 seconds for each search.   Google Instant will be available starting this week in the US, UK, Germany, Spain, Italy and France.   Internet browsers that will be supported include Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3, Safari 5, and Chrome 5 and 6.   A mobile version will be rolled out later this fall.

Less than 48 hours after Apple launched Ping, a music centric social networking site, the company claimed that more than 1 million users had signed on.    1 million happy users?  Maybe not.   The press certainly has lots of skeptics which reflects concerns by Ping users. The criticisms range from it not being truly connected to the web, to it not being well integrated into an iTunes user’s own music library.  Dave Winer from Scripting News writes, "Ping is not a social network, by any realistic definition of the term... My guess as to why we can't post to the timeline is that Apple is afraid we might say something harsh about them or Ping." Meanwhile  TechCrunch’s Eric Schonfeld writes,   "The biggest problem I have with Ping is that it lives in iTunes. Not only does it live in iTunes, it is isolated there. iTunes is not social. It is not even on the Web."

It all started with Dell’s initial $1.15 billion bid for 3Par Inc. a few weeks ago, then HP countered with a higher bid that started the bidding war between both companies.    HP currently has the highest  bid with a $2 billion dollar offer for 3Par, leaving Dell wondering about its next move in this strategic chess match.   “We're assessing what our next step will be," Dell spokesman David Frink stated.  As the cloud computing market heats up, both Dell and HP see 3Par’s storage technology as a great compliment to their respective product lines.   The question of how much HP or Dell is willing to pay for 3Par, Inc. may be answered in the near future.  "If HP is able to rapidly ramp up 3Par's sales, it can certainly justify the price they're offering to pay for it," says Stan Zaffos, research vice president at Gartner.

Your favorite movie may be available at home on YouTube sooner than you think.  Apparently talks are currently underway between major motion picture studios and Google regarding making a catalog of Hollywood favorite films available on a pay-per-view basis by the end of 2010 according to the Financial Times.    The on-demand streaming service will provide the movies for $5 per viewing based on reports from those are familiar with Google’s plans.  When a  YouTube representative was asked about possible developments the response was that, “We have nothing to announce at this time."