A lot has been happening with Google yesterday. First, I noticed that my Adsense required a new TOS, which allows revealing total AdSense earnings, so long as they are aggregate data only:

“You agree not to disclose Google Confidential Information without Google’s prior written consent (…) [including] click-through rates or other statistics relating to Site performance in the Program (…) However, You may accurately disclose the amount of Google’s gross payments to You pursuant to the Program.” (Google Blogoscoped)

Also new to their AdSense program are three new forms of payment: local currency checks, Secured Express Delivery, and Electronic Funds Transfer. Finally, they’ve also added a new ad format called “Ad Links” which are an array of text-only advertisements. Second, Google Labs has “released” Google X, a Mac OS X-like dashboard for all the common Google services, in javascript. It’s pretty, but not really useful until it’s deployed across all the Google properties for consistency.

UPDATE:

Even though there is still an announcement on their blog, the Google X service has gone black for now…as if it never existed. There are conspiracy theories. Perhaps this epitaph on the GoogleX page prompted threats from Apple:

“Roses are red. Violets are blue. OS X rocks. Homage to you.”