In its never-ending quest to deliver technical innovation, renewed behaviors and refreshed revenue streams, today Google launched a Beta version of their new “open source” Internet browser.

The browser is called Google Chrome. Promises are faster browsing, integration with the open source community Google Gears and a Javascript VM. The browser will also change the way users browse content–with a revised tab structure and a ready-at-hand gallery of your most visited sites as you launch the browser.

On the heels of the launch of Microsoft Internet Explorer 8, also in Beta format and available for public download, Google Chrome is following suit with special new privacy features; principally an “incognito” session/window which enables users to browse without passing browsing data to a computer.

This certainly creates a lot of dialogue about the future of browsers

Today’s Contentinople announced that the video/multimedia platform, CONVIVA, received a $20M B Round funding. See the article by Contentinople writer, Ryan Lawler.

According to the article, Conviva received the funding to “target broadcasters and sports leagues that want to broadcast live video on the Internet” with “a brand new and built from the ground up” platform for live web video delivery. This is important news for digital distribution. It demonstrates significant movement in the henceforth slow-to-market aim to make the Internet the central vehicle for complex media access.

Former Google employees just launched a new Search Engine–Cuil (www.cuil.com). According to a Reuters article today, Cuil, which is being launched to compete with the Search giant, “goes beyond prevailing search techniques that focus on Web links and audience traffic patterns and instead analyzes the context of each page and the concepts behind each user search request.”

There is new layout and “psychology” to Cuil. It enables searchers to reference cross-topics in a more graphically engaging, social networking-intelligent manner.

Read more of the Reuters article (via Yahoo! Tech News) here.

Contentinople announced today that Yahoo! will open its search to external developers as “search-as-service”. This is an important trend: opening their search code and enabling search customization. Access to tools which will support truly personalized search is revolutionary, similar to the social media phenomenon of YouTube where video content became inherently socialized.

Read the article on Contentinople here.

YOUTUBE continues to actualize the digital multimedia/video revolution that has been long-coming, and about which Mitra Creative’s team has been aware for many years.

Many of the current innovations in the communications applications and true socialization of video and other rich media were pioneered some two decades ago in incubation centers like the MIT Media Lab (now “The Media Lab”), the NYU Tisch School of the Arts and many more. Our team observed the budding of this revolution and deeply respect the empowerment in this regard that came from the visionary YouTube.

In an article published today, YouTube has taken a step that those of us in the digital/interactive space, as well as in the filmmaking, multimedia software development and other spaces had eagerly awaited and hoped for. The “video sharing site” (that’s what people call YouTube, though it is clearly much more) has just introduced a dedicated “channel”, called a “Screening Room” for Independent Filmmakers. Read the AP/Yahoo! article about the new YouTube Indie Film Screening Room by writer, Ryan Nakashima.

This is a very important step. It means the loosening of the controls that have been a stronghold on creating, distributing and socializing some of the most important of all media. Independent films, for example, took home the largest number of Academy Awards® in the 2007 ceremonies (2006 films). YouTube’s move better enables the “voice” of independent film production.

We are excited!

VISIT THE YOUTUBE INDEPENDENT FILM SCREENING ROOM: http://www.youtube.com/ytscreeningroom.