Weekly high-tech hot topics in the blogs: Chrome for Mac, Google gets real-time feeds

Hot topics in the tech blogs for the week of December 11: Google releases a Mac version of its Chrome web browser, real-time feeds get included in Google search results, bloggers protest against Facebook's default privacy settings changes, CrunchPad gets renamed JooJoo and lawsuits get filed, and bloggers start rumors about Apple releasing a web-based version of iTunes.

Mac users get to go Chrome for the holidays
After many months of waiting, Google finally launched its open source Chrome web browser for Mac computers on December 8. Technology blog Mashable was one of the first to report on the news when it announced consumers with a Mac running OS X 10.5 or later could download the web browser (in its current beta form). A chorus of bloggers followed with their own articles reporting on the features that were already available on the Mac version of the browser.

Google and the real-time web
During the week Google announced it has formed a partnership with social networking companies Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, allowing Google searchers to access real-time feeds related to their search term in Google's search results. "Obviously, this is huge," wrote TechCrunch's MG Siegler in a December 7 post. Cnet's Tom Krazit commented that the technology would only be useful if Google could "bring the same degree of relevance and trust to real-time results that it brings to regular search results."

Facebook Privacy Changes
Scathing articles were published in technology blogs and on online news sites when Facebook introduced its updated privacy changes on December 9. Bloggers had already cautioned that Facebook's initial privacy recommendations would have a huge impact on the future of the social networking site when CEO Mark Zuckerberg first announced the company would update users' privacy settings. Privacy advocates criticized the social networking site for making the default privacy setting "visible to everyone." ReadWriteWeb ran with the headline, "The Day Has Come: Facebook Pushes People to Go Public," while Electronic Frontier Foundation said "Facebook's new changes are obviously intended to get people to open up even more of their Facebook data to the public."

CruchPad becomes JooJoo, lawsuit is filed
The ongoing saga between Michael Arrington and Fusion Garage - the company involved in designing the software for the CrunchPad - has seen a lot of publicity this week in the technology blogs. Last week Arrington announced that the project was over when he was advised he was no longer involved with the CrunchPad. This week Fusion Garage CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan announced the CrunchPad would be renamed "JooJoo" and the device would go on sale on December 11 for $499. On December 11 Arrington posted an article on TechCrunch providing further details on the matter as well as announcing he had filed a lawsuit against Fusion Garage.

Apple iTunes refresh
Rumors about a web-based update of Apple's iTunes software have been spreading in the blogs this week after the company acquired a music streaming service called Lala. Technology websites such as Apple Insider, VentureBeat, Mashable and Gizmodo explored the idea of Apple revamping its iTunes software and taking the service to the cloud.

Technorati's list of Top 5 movers in the Top Technology blogs recorded on December 11:
1. OpenDNS Blog - http://blog.opendns.com
2. Facebook Blog - http://blog.facebook.com
3. Google News Blog - http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/
4. Google Analytics Blog - http://analytics.blogspot.com/
5. GottaBeMobile.com - http://gottabemobile.com