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Monday afternoon, Google announced on their blog that they have moved their China-based search efforts to servers based in Hong Kong and have removed all censorship filters.  Visitors from China to Google.cn will now be treated to unfiltered, open search.

The move is in retaliation for both hack attempts on Google’s server facilities and core services in China, allegedly by Chinese government sources, and for the Chinese government’s snubbing their nose at Google’s claim to be following the law and being attacked for it anyway.  To counter this apparent open-season on U.S. companies by the Chinese government, Google is no longer following China’s laws regarding Internet censorship and is now turning the firehose of open ‘Net searching onto teh Chinese people.

At least until the Chinese government blocks Google.cn entirely.

So Google.cn now redirects to Google.hk (Hong Kong).  So far, the Chinese government has stuck with it’s “indignation” pose treating the whole affair as if Google is a stubborn step-child that won’t behave.  In an official announcement via the state-run news agency Xiahua:

“Google has violated its written promise it made when entering the Chinese market by stopping filtering its searching service and blaming China in insinuation for alleged hacker attacks.”

Meanwhile, in a further move against China, Business Insider notes that Google now has an “Evil Meter” on their site which shows what the Chinese government is blocking so far.  It’s labeled a service availability notice for Chinese surfers, but it’s been dubbed the Evil Meter by others.

Expect that Evil Meter to be all red Xs by this afternoon.

Despite the devices not being available for another two weeks, developers are already madly working to complete applications for the iPad to coincide with its launch.  Few companies have prototype iPads to work with, most are making guesses based on Apple’s iPad emulator for the Mac and testing on iPhone or iPod devices.

Most of the companies who do have them are media companies, not developers, like the New York Times.  In addition, developers who have been given access to the emulation software are also sworn to secrecy about it.

Probably the largest market for the iPad, over time, is going to be as an e-reader that can do things other than just load books.  At least, that’s what CrunchGear thinks.  Since the iPad is being said by many to be not much more than a much larger-screened iPhone, this may be the case, since the number one complaint amongst iPhone users who download e-books is the small screen size.  Amazon has already prepped a Kindle-like app for the iPad and has plans to have versions for all coming tablets.

Snarkmarket agrees with this assessment of the iPad’s usefulness as an e-reader with bonuses.  The Kindle, the top reader on the market, is unable to do anything but store and display electronic books.  With an iPad, that book reader would be capable of showing color graphics, video embeds, or have interactivity with the Web as part of the experience – not to mention sound and more.

With so much secrecy surrounding the iPad, the speculation is, of course, wild.  Most would probably agree that the initial iPad releases this year will likely be devices that really aren’t much more functional than an iPhone.

Google may be pulling out of China as early as April 10, says Bloomberg.  In January, Google responded with threats of leaving after it was learned that not only were the massive attacks on Google and others’ infrastructures and data perpetrated by people in China, but they were done by people in the Chinese government itself.  An official announcement from Google is expected to come next week on March 22.

Bloomberg also reports that an ex-executive with Google in China says that the move by the search giant would probably mean burnt bridges and an inability for the company to return to the Chinese market.

Google has removed most filters from its Chinese searches, which is against the directives of the Chinese government.  That move, meant mainly as a retaliation for the hack attempts, was met by stiff bureaucratic upper lips.  Relations have reportedly been worsening and the search giant may be ready to just call it quits, leaving the largest Internet usage market (by users) in the world.

This move would be a large boost to competitors like Baidu, the leading China-based search engine.

Many are calling the potential move by Google the “right thing to do.”  PCWorld blogger Ian Paul calls the move “socially responsible,” but questions the business decision on its loss of market potential.

To get a little political myself, I would say that Google pulling out is probably, in the end, in Google’s best interest.  If the Chinese government sets rules and Google has followed them (which they were), operating under the premise that the nation’s laws are to be followed, and then that country attacks or funds people who attack their infrastructure and proprietary data..  Then who is in the wrong?

If attacks by the Chinese government’s cyberwarriors accessing and potentially stealing Google’s data being something that China sees no problem with while they at the same time demand that Google follow the laws of China or face expulsion or fines, the double-standard will eventually have to be dealt with.  Given the potential losses, perhaps a pull-out by Google would be the proper thing to do.

According to a report in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, Google is teaming up with Intel, Logitech and Sony to bring you a WebTV-like platform for Web viewing in your living room called Google TV.  Everyone involved seems to have something in mind as to their own gains for doing this deal.

Funny, given their vision for this, none of them seem to have realized that the PlayStation and the XBox both already do everything that’s been said this new Google TV setup will do.  Tell me if you can’t already do this on the new game systems on the market today:

• Surf the Web and use apps like Twitter and Facebook
• Use photo sites like Picasa or Flickr

What Google seems to want to bring the mix is to base the whole thing on the Android platform.  That would be interesting, since it would leave it open to developers to create all kinds of nifty apps and wizbangs for the setup.  Sony seems interested in capturing exclusivity on built-ins for TVs and DVD/BluRay players while Logitech will likely provide the underlying hardware with Intel doing the processor(s).  Both Google and Intel have nothing in the realm of television, really, and Sony is fast losing market share thanks to their high price points.

ComputerWorld says that an SDK is going to become available as the technology progresses.  If it does, then this whole idea will have some merit and could be very interesting.  Watch for Apple to make a similar announcement in the coming months to keep up with the Joneses Google-es.

A much-anticipated upgrade to the Verizon/Motorola Droid OS will be coming tomorrow, beginning at noon.  Android Central broke the story with a release of the memo of release notes.  Further details are on the Verizon Wireless Droid Support page as well.

These include anticipated updates to the OS which appear to be giving the Droid feature parity with the Google Nexus One (also an Android-powered phone).  Pinch-to-zoom, Gallery, Google Maps, new weather and news widgets, voice-to-text entry, 3D gallery layout, and several small pattern-lock and audio enhancements are included in the upgrade.

Endgadget mentions the live wallpapers and that the Droid won’t be capable of 3D app launching like the Nexus One, but otherwise will be on par with the Google phone.

The rollout begins at noon Easter Daylight tomorrow, March 18.  It will be sent to 250,000 phones per batch and is expected to be complete in less than 24 hours.  Most phones should receive their upgrade notice by Friday afternoon.  Verizon did not give details as to how batches are chosen, but it is likely by tower location.  This “slow roll” method of updating phones serves to keep the network from overloading with requests.

Finally, the Droid will be on par with the Nexus One and the Android family can all be happy again.

Twitter announced, via their blog, that they will soon be integrating a new platform called @anywhere which will allow interaction between websites and Twitter across the Internet.  Partners in this endeavor will include Amazon, the Huffington Post, Yahoo!, YouTube, and others.

Simultaneous with the announcement on the blog was the keynote by Twitter CEO Ev Williams who demonstrated how the @anywhere platform will work.  The demonstration, which took place live at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Texas, included a showcase of how it would work with, say, The Huffington Post where Twitter users would not only be able to comment on articles, but also follow the columnist or tweet directly from the website.

Mashable was also at SXSW and saw his keynote and mentioned another tidbit Williams let drop: Twitter does not plan to allow itself to be acquired by anyone for at least two more years.  It’s been obvious that other Web giants like Google or Facebook might see Twitter as a highly desirable acquisition, so it appears they’re SOL.

More details on how the @anywhere setup works were available on PCWorld, where the new platform was compared to Facebook Connect – and not favorably for Twitter.

The reasoning behind the new setup may be more than what is being let on, though.  The new @anywhere plan may not be to just build interactivity and information sharing amongst Twitter users, but more to bring in the ability to serve advertisements from trusted partners over the Twitter network.  Since, in order to use the @anywhere API on your site you’ll be required to use special coding from Twitter, this may be a doorway into serving advertising as well.

Time will tell.  The new feature is planned to launch in the next few months.