Here is some essential search engine reading harvested from this week’s web buzz:

How Google Instant’s Autocomplete Suggestions Work
SE Land: Google says other factors are also used to determine what to show beyond popularity. However, anything that’s suggested comes from real search activity by Google users, the company says.

Into The Lion’s Den: Microsoft Launching Streetside In Germany
SE Land: Microsoft Germany tells Deutsche Welle that Streetside vehicles will begin driving in four cities (Nuremberg, Furth, Erlangen and Augsburg) on May 9th. The images should be online sometime this summer. Eventually, Streetside cars will photograph about 50 German cities in the next 18 months.

1 billion computing core-hours for researchers to tackle huge scientific challenges

Google Blog: Today we’re announcing an academic research grant program called Google Exacycle for Visiting Faculty, which provides 1 billion hours of computational core capacity to researchers.

Bing for iPad – Touch and Decide
SE Watch: “At the bottom of the screen, the App Bar features large, tiled, up-to-date content areas. The App Bar is used to exploring various vertical search properties, such as Movies, News, Maps, Trends, Finance and more. ” See also: Bing Community

Pandia: It is actually very cool. Bing has again shown that it can be much more innovative than Google, whose iPad apps are underwhelming. It is also interesting to see Microsoft Bing embrace the technology of another big competitor: Apple. Unfortunately, the app is not available in the Norwegian app store, which is why we cannot review it.

Google To Expand Into Entertainment Business: YouTube Google TV
SE People:Google is set to actively enter the entertainment business by injecting $100 million in the production of unique YouTube-only content produced by professional Hollywood talent agencies.

HOW TO: Use Wildcard Search with Various Google Services
SE Journal: General Google search allows a lot of flexibility with its wildcard operator. How it works: * is substituted by one or more words. When it comes particularly in handy: In combination with “” (exact match) search to control the proximity within a set phrase.

Big Google Executive Shakeup: Larry Page Reorganizes Team
CEO Larry Page’s week began with the resignation of Jonathan Rosenberg and is ending with a big change to the structure of Google’s management. Six executives last night were promoted to senior vice presidents and will now run their individual business units, reporting directly to Page, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Is Google Engineering A Social Media Train Wreck?
Marketing Pilgrim: According to the Business Insider, Page has tied 25% of all employee bonuses for 2011 to the success or failure of Google’s social media efforts….Add this information about how Google needs to be social to compete to a history of failed social efforts. Then add the final piece of the puzzle which is Page’s move to give engineers more say in how Google’s business is done and you get what? I say a train wreck that is caused by engineers of the software and algorithm kind not the diesel engine kind.

Google’s Page Can’t Buy Social Love
Google Watch: Page allegedly wrote in the memo, titled “2011 Bonus Multiplier,” that the company multiplier will be somewhere between .75 and 1.25, depending on how well Google does in social. Employees’ bonuses could shrink by 25 percent if Google doesn’t perform. No pressure, right? This is the sort of stuff that confirms chatter that Page and the rest of Google’s senior management view computer science problems as something that can be solved with math. See also: Beyond Search.

Feds Ready To Approve Google-ITA Deal — With Ongoing Government Oversight
SE Land: Google Inc. and the Justice Department are close to an agreement that would clear the search giant’s $700 million acquisition of flight-data company ITA Software Inc. in return for granting federal regulators authority to monitor a part of its operations. Cp. Wall Street Journal.

Google Said To Have High Level Mole At Twitter, Makes Massive Counteroffers To Retain Employees
TechCrunch: Google may have paid as much as $150 million in stock grants to retain key product employees Sundar Pichai and Neal Mohan, say multiple sources. Both were offered the chief product role at Twitter earlier this year.

Google News Layout Testing A More Social Layout
SE Watch: The new layout still uses three columns for categories, top stories and recent news. Departing from the traditional blue ‘news-only’ links, the new design includes video news and related opinion and news stories in the main results.

Google loses autocomplete lawsuit
techradar: Google has lost a lawsuit in which an Italian businessman sued for libel due to the search engine’s auto complete options, known as Google Suggest.Whenever the anonymous businessman Googled himself on Google.it, suggested search terms included ‘truffatore’ (conman) and ‘truffa’ (fraud).

Bing turns on HTML5 UI
Liveside: After months of waiting and a few peeks, it looks like Bing has finally turned on the HTML5 version of its decision engine.

CopyPDF.com Finds Information Across the Web
Beyond Search: KillerStartups reports on a PDF search engine and viewer in CopyPDF.com- find Rare PDF’s. CopyPDF.com searches the Web for your information and brings it to you in PDF form.

Bio of the Google boys: Larry Page and Sergey Brin
State of Search: It’s the American dream, becoming a big famous and rich entrepeneur starting with absolutely nothing. Larry Page and Sergey Brin actually lived that dream. These three videos show the chronicle of their success.

Google Called to Capitol Carpet for Enabling Web Piracy
Google Watch: Congress held an anti-piracy hearing April 6, in which Rep. Bob Goodlatte, chairman of a U.S. House Judiciary subcommittee that is investigating Web sites accused of pirating intellectual property said: “The question isn’t what Google has done. But more about what Google has left to do.” CNET noted that he then accused Google of allowing alleged pirate sites to fund their activities by posting Google ads on their site, and failing to promptly remove infringing materials when notified.

Google +1 button
P Bradley: I’ve said it plenty of times before, and I’m saying it again. Google doesn’t understand social. They have absolutely no clue as to how it works, how to use it, or how to work with it. If Google has a downfall at any time in the future, this is what’s going to cause it. Orkut, Google Wave, Google Buzz, and now this latest mess.

Google Street View Infringes on Privacy, Say Swiss
Google Watch: Switzerland’s top administrative court supported the country’s Federal Data Protection Commissioner Hanspeter Thuer in agreeing that Google Street View map service infringes on privacy… Switzerland’s ruling comes two weeks after Germany ruled that Google Street View is legal.

Google April Fool’s Joke Turns Real
Remember Gmail Motion, Google’s fake product launch on April 1? It claimed you could use motion controls to send and receive Gmail messages with a very silly list of full-body gestures for various tasks. Well, now Evan Suma, a postdoc researcher with a sense of humor and some mad Microsoft Kinect hacking skills developed a real Gmail Motion middleware solution. Check out the video.

Google Hotpot Going Away, But In Name Only
SE Land: The company has announced that the Hotpot name is a thing of the past, and the ratings and review experience is being formally added into Google Places.

Google Fights France on Data Storage Rule
SE Watch: Twenty-six Internet companies, including Google, tomorrow will lodge a complaint with France’s State Council, the country’s highest judical body, in opposition of a decree that forces sites to store users’ private data for a year.