If you’ve been paying attention to the news you’ve probably seen announcements for a couple of new Google products, including “Google Trends”:http://www.google.com/trends. Another newly released product now making waves is “Google SketchUp”:http://sketchup.google.com/, a recently acquired 3D modeling suite that is now free, with the added feature of being able to build native 3D objects for Google Earth. SketchUp is a highly intuitive design package, but the free version has a fairly basic set of features, so doesn’t seem intended to replace 3D design for more rigorous applications. I don’t know how much better the Pro version is, but from what I can see SketchUp isn’t going to be replacing AutoCAD for the mechanical design work I do anytime soon.