Google is asking the public to help it map out parts of the world using its new application.

The internet giant has launched Google Map Maker and is introducing it in some of the more remote parts of the world to get users to help the company build up its database of maps.

Google revealed the application on a blog posting and claims that Map Maker can build "high quality" maps of neighborhoods, cities and countries, together with relevant points of interest

Google has started to reveal some of the mystery behind the search engine and its methods.

Udi Manber, vice president of engineering and search quality for Google, has posted a statement on the company's official blog to open the company up and attempt to reveal some secrets.

He said that very little known about Google, admitting it was "entirely our fault". Two main reasons are explained for the secrecy, mainly competition and abuse.

Google has announced its plans to extend computer-based web marketing onto mobile phones.

On the company's website it announced the launch of mobile image ads, which are smaller versions of standard desktop web page ads, designed to work on mobile content.

Alexandra Kenin, product marketing manager for Mobile ads, said on the company's blog post that mobile image ads serve as "a branding tool" and have been shown to have "good clickthrough rates."

Yahoo! and Google have announced that they will undertake a three-week experiment sharing advertising space.

The deal, announced on Wednesday, will enable Google to show ads tied to about three per cent of internet searches made in the US through Yahoo!'s search engine, which is the second largest after Google.

Yahoo! will still use its own technology to place ads next to the rest of the results appearing on its search results.

Google has defended its policy of retaining information on web users for up to 18 months.

The internet giant is responding to an EU report which saw no need for search engine services to keep personal data for longer than six months.

Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy executive, said: "We believe that data retention requirements have to take into account the need to provide quality products and services for users, like accurate search results, as well as system security and integrity concerns."

Google has announced that it will be cutting jobs at DoubleClick, the online advertising company that it recently purchased.

One-in-four of DoubleClick's employees in the US are being axed, as part of the plan to integrate the company into its existing operations.

Google said: "Since our acquisition of DoubleClick closed on March 11, we have been working to match and align DoubleClick employees in the US with our organizational plan for the business."

Google is developing its web-based software to allow users to edit word processing documents offline.

The internet giant said it will begin to allow users of its Google Docs application to edit documents without an active web connection.

Google Gears was introduced around 15 months ago where developers could build offline features into their programmes. The Gears programme worked with Google Docs allowing word processing documents to be viewed and edited offline.

Yahoo!, Google and MySpace have formed an alliance to form the OpenSocial network to lure web developers away from the market leader Facebook.

The OpenSocial network is a set of technical specifications that lets new software run on any social network website.

Joe Krauss, Google director of product management, said to Reuters that the scope of OpenSocial applications could reach more than 200 million users.

Speaking about the coalition he added: "If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together."

Google has proposed the use of television 'white space' to broadcast Wi-Fi across America.

The TV 'white space' is empty frequencies left as buffer zones between analogue TV airwaves.

Google wants to use the airwaves that fill these blank spaces for mobile broadband services.

The internet giant proposed their initiative to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on how the airwaves could provide high-speed mobile access without any disruption to TV signals.

Google has reported a 20 per cent increase in people using its search tool for mobile phones.

The software is available for Nokia, BlackBerry and also Apple's iPhone, which the company says makes searching the internet on your phone 40 per cent faster.