Microsoft has released a minor update to its Windows Live Essentials 2011 suite of free tools, which includes Mail, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker and Messenger. Live Essentials 2011 build 15.4.3538.0513 is available for download now, while existing Live Essentials users will be prompted to update later this month.

This latest release contains a number of specific fixes and improvements for Mail, Messenger and Photo Gallery, as well as containing other "usability, performance and stability improvements" across the entire suite.

Google intends to retire several non-Google name brands, such as Blogger and Picasa, in the next four to six weeks. The search giant plans to rename them as Google products, unifying the company's brand in time for the public launch of Google+, according to two sources familiar with the matter cited by Mashable.

Blogger and Picasa aren't going away – they are two very popular Google products after all – instead, Google intends to rename them as Google Photos and Google Blogs, respectively. Several other Google brands will also be likely affected by the move, but it's not yet clear which ones.

Microsoft today said it will issue four security updates next week, only one of which is pegged as critical, to patch 22 vulnerabilities in Windows and Visio 2003.

Next Tuesday's patch lineup is smaller than June's, when Microsoft shipped 16 updates that fixed 34 flaws. The company typically delivers a lighter load in odd-numbered months. In May, for instance, Microsoft shipped just two updates -- the company calls them "bulletins" -- to patch only three vulnerabilities.

Most Internet researchers agree that Google's Chrome Web browser is steadily gaining market share at the expense of established rivals Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

Two top browser researcher disagree on just how much market share Chrome has worldwide. StatCounter said Google claimed 20.7 percent browser share for June, up from 2.8 percent a year ago. Net Applications claimed Chrome actually corralled 13.1 percent, up from 12.5 percent through May.

A year and a half after Google pulled its popular search engine out of mainland China, partly over concerns about censorship, its rival Microsoft has struck a deal with the biggest Chinese search engine, Baidu.com, to offer Web search services in English.

Baidu, previously primarily a Chinese-language search engine, made the announcement Monday afternoon, saying Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, was expected to appear on Baidu’s Web pages by the end of this year.

Baidu, which dominates Chinese-language search services here with about 83 percent of the market, has been trying for years to improve its English-language search services because English searches on its site are as many as 10 million a day, the company said. Now it has a powerful partner.