Disclosure: I use AppBrain.  I find it very useful to browse apps online & then easily sync/install on my Captivate.  Looks like they’ve been pretty hard at work filtering out the crap, though, & have some interesting things to say on the state of the Android Market.  Apparently, out of the total 70,000 apps that Google states are available, the number of craptacular apps has risen from 30% in March to 50% today.  Yep, 20% increase in 4 months.  Thankfully, they’re working to improve their search algorithm to filter these spam-tastic apps from their search results.  My question is: why isn’t Google taking up the lead on this?  Kudos to AppBrain for their efforts.

Google started testing a new look for Google Search … Perhaps a sign that everything Google will soon look like Wave?

[singlepic id=223 w=520]

I hope this “upgrade” in styling becomes a Google-wide phenomenon — although I guess I’m still left wanting.  Google has had a tendency to stick with minimalism in their design, but I’ve also found their products to feel a little too utilitarian – cold and functional but missing the form.  I’m not saying that Google’s design is ugly … well, yes I am.

If you’d like to check out this new look for yourself, you can enable the wave style look and feel by adding a cookie to your browser.  Just head over to google.com and paste the following JavaScript in your browsers address bar:

javascript:void(document.cookie=”PREF=ID=20b6e4c2f44943bb:U=4bf292d46faad806:TM=1249677602:LM=1257919388:S=odm0Ys-53ZueXfZG;path=/; domain=.google.com”);

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Yesterday, Google announced Dashboard, a one stop information center that helps you keep track of all the Google products attached to your Google account.  Although it doesn’t seem like a really big deal, it really does a great job of centralizing the management of 20 Google products that you might have even forgotten you’ve signed up for.

They’ve included this snazzy little video to tell you all about it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPaJPxhPq_g[/youtube]