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Microsoft's Bing search engine launched its social sidebar last month and the company has been adding features and support for additional social networks ever since. The core of Bing's social efforts, however, is its Facebook integration and the company today announced a nice new feature for Facebook users on Bing. The social sidebar already allowed users to ask their Facebook friends questions right from Bing, but with today's update, Bing is also allowing users to tag up to five of their friends whenever they ask a question. This, says Microsoft, will allow you "to effortlessly tap into the collective wisdom of your social network, and get input from your friends who are in the know."

Microsoft's Bing search engine launched its social sidebar last month and the company has been adding features and support for additional social networks ever since. The core of Bing's social efforts, however, is its Facebook integration and the company today announced a nice new feature for Facebook users on Bing. The social sidebar already allowed users to ask their Facebook friends questions right from Bing, but with today's update, Bing is also allowing users to tag up to five of their friends whenever they ask a question. This, says Microsoft, will allow you "to effortlessly tap into the collective wisdom of your social network, and get input from your friends who are in the know."

This was probably inevitable: Google today announced that it is replacing video chats in Gmail with Google+ Hangouts. The company first brought video chat to Gmail in 2008, but ever since the launch of Google+, it was only a matter of time before the company decided to replace its old video chat feature with Google+'s marquee group video chat tool. Hangouts, Google says, "utilize the power of Google’s network to deliver higher reliability and enhanced quality" and will allow Gmail users to also reach people not only when they are using Gmail, but also "if they are on Google+ in the browser or on their Android or iOS devices."

This was probably inevitable: Google today announced that it is replacing video chats in Gmail with Google+ Hangouts. The company first brought video chat to Gmail in 2008, but ever since the launch of Google+, it was only a matter of time before the company decided to replace its old video chat feature with Google+'s marquee group video chat tool. Hangouts, Google says, "utilize the power of Google’s network to deliver higher reliability and enhanced quality" and will allow Gmail users to also reach people not only when they are using Gmail, but also "if they are on Google+ in the browser or on their Android or iOS devices."

After its new owners decided to go back to the drawing board and figure out what to do with the former Web 2.0 darling, Digg is relaunching on Wednesday. Today, a week after its new owner Betaworks explained why it bought the site and announced the August 1 relaunch, the company has published the first mockups and screenshots of the new Digg v1 and explained what the user experience on the site will look like. According to this announcement, the new Digg will be a "beautiful, image-friendly, and ad-free experience."

After its new owners decided to go back to the drawing board and figure out what to do with the former Web 2.0 darling, Digg is relaunching on Wednesday. Today, a week after its new owner Betaworks explained why it bought the site and announced the August 1 relaunch, the company has published the first mockups and screenshots of the new Digg v1 and explained what the user experience on the site will look like. According to this announcement, the new Digg will be a "beautiful, image-friendly, and ad-free experience."

Every few months or so, somebody will declare the death of RSS, and with it the death of old-school feed readers like Google Reader. Don't tell that to Samuel Clay, though, the founder of Newsblur, a web-based feed reader that's in Y Combinator's current batch of startups. Newsblur has many interesting features besides the pure feed reading experience, but at first glance, the web app feels like a throwback to the heady early days of feed readers a few years ago. In addition to the basic feed-reading experience, however, the service also lets you curate your favorite stories on Tumblr-like "Blur Blogs" which bring a strong social aspect to the service.

That was fast. Just a few days ago, Google officially opened registration for the 1 gigabit fiber network it is launching on both the Kansas and Missouri sides of Kansas City. Within just two days, more than 20% of the eligible neighborhoods on the Missouri side have already reached Google's thresholds for bringing its super-fast fiber network to their "fiberhoods" and quite a few others are just a few signups away from reaching their goals.

We've seen an increasing number of fashion startups lately and the newest one is Hello La Mode, a New York-based startup that just launched its marketplace for luxury fashion resale last week. The company just announced that it has raised a $500,000 seed round from three undisclosed angel investors. That's not quite on the same level as some other fashion-focused companies like JustFab, which raised $76 million this week, but Hello La Mode has an interesting business model that sets it apart from other fashion startups. Until now, Hello La Mode co-founder Eric Gagnair tells us, people were hesitant to buy secondhand apparel online because of potential issues with quality and conformity. His company, however, makes sure that every item that is put up for sale goes through a "manual check by fashion experts."

Just 48 hours after its official launch, Apple's Mountain Lion, the latest version of Apple's desktop operating system, has already captured 3.2% of Mac web traffic according to a report by ad network Chitika. Given its low cost ($19.99) and the fact that it's available as a download and very easy to install, chances are these numbers will continue to increase quickly over the next few days. Mountain Lion has already passed OS X 10.4 (Tiger) in Chitika's stats and is on its way to pass Leopard in the near future.