As usual, too much happening, so here's the quick skinny...

Google's latest desktop stuff and other threats -- Google is scaring people, delighting others, as usual. Now it is turning its desktop product into a tool for linking and syncing data on different machines. Then you've got Google working out arrangements to load its software on Dell machines (see our Merc story here), threatening to squeeze Microsoft. You've got the increasing concerns about privacy. And ever the poacher, Google is stealing away people like Udi Manber, the leading light over at Amazon.com's search engine operations.

NASA launches venture firm -- No sign that NASA's new VC arm, called Red Planet Capital, will have an office out here in Silicon Valley. This item on its plans suggest it will stay within the Washington "group-think" beltway. But if it is really modeled after the CIA's venture arm, In-Q-Tel, which saw success in part because of its secretive office out here on Sand Hill Road, it might want to...

consider it. Especially since NASA has an operation in Mountain View. It plans to invest $11 million in 2006, and more thereafter. More details here at VentureWire (sub required).

WorkMetro gets funding -- This is a San Jose start-up that is developing job sites that serve specific metro areas. Although no amount details. Jafco Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners co-led the round. WorkMetro is no small operation; it apparently has 80 employees already. Though no offering for Bay Area yet.

Kleiner's passage to India -- If you're interested in additional details about Kleiner's move to India and its investments there, here are two more stories: VentureWire (sub required), and Om Malik.

Krugle and other Demo stuff -- Krugle, a Menlo Park-based search engine for open-source code, got some buzz at DEMO, though there are questions about how it will make money. It said it has raised $1.2 million in a first round of venture backing, led by Emergence Capital Partners, Omidyar Network and First Round Capital. Site opens on March 8. Apparently, you just paste in some code, hit search, and it finds the code and developers working on it. Meanwhile, here's our colleague Michael Langberg's item on DEMO, listing a few other products we haven't mentioned yet, including Gpal.

SkyStream sold for loss -- We've been watching Sunnyvale's SkyStream since the boom. It developed technology to deliver video over the Internet, so you'd think it would have done well. But it maybe it was too early? VentureWire has more, if you care. Raised $84M from VCs, sold for $80 -- that, after ten years of hard work.

More going down at Xensource -- We wrote about management fallout at the Kleiner backed company recently. Now the company is saying there will be an announcement next week. But here's the scoop, thanks to sources: New CEO is Peter Levine (a former Mendocino Software CEO and a Mayfield VC guy), the layoff was close to 20 people, with two founders (in Cambridge, UK) are being let go. Michael Enescu, VP of Development, was let go. As they say, normal Silicon Valley stuff.

Tiananmen a nice place?

How to get around Google's China blockade -- Saved this for last, as it is sort of last month's news. But here's a notable NYT story about how there are ways to outwit the Chinese censors (registration required), even if Google has to live by them. So that, instead of seeing this embarrassingly (for Google) whitewashed page on "Tiananmen" square when you search in China, you can get the real thing. And, to be fair to Google, here's some good perspective from BBC.

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