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Whenever you see the same ad for a shopping site you just visited pop up across the web, chances are that's not a coincidence but a remarketing effort by that site. These sites often offer users who abandon their shopping carts a discount to lure them back, for example, but the only way to get a hold of them once they have left the site is to target ads to them on other properties around the web. Google today announced that it is bringing its Google Analytics and Google Display Network closer together to give advertisers an easy to use option to remarket to very specific audiences who have visited their websites. This new service, says Google, simplifies the remarketing process and gives its advertisers more flexibility and "new ways to connect with [their] target audience."

Google just added a new feature to its mobile search page that lets you hand-write search queries in cursive and block letters. Once you have enabled this new feature, you can simply start writing on your screen and Google will translate your scribbles into a legible search query. The new feature will work on iOS5+ devices, as well as Android 2.3+ phones and Android 4.0 tablets. You can write both single letters and complete words on the screen (assuming they are short enough to fit on your phone's screen). In our brief test, this new feature worked surprisingly well.

After a few delays and setbacks, Google today officially launched its 1 gigabit residential fiber network in Kansas City. The network will deliver symmetric 1 gigabit connections to households across the city. That's about 100 times faster than most current residential broadband connections in the U.S. There will be no monthly caps or overage charges. Google Fiber will also come with 1 terabyte of cloud storage and HD TV service. Users in Kansas City will have to pay a $300 fee to get the service installed in their houses. The monthly price for TV service and the 1 gigabit Internet connection will be $120/month. Users who just want the Internet service will have to pay $70/month. Users who just want a basic 5 Mbps Internet connection will be able to get this for free for at least the next 7 years, as long as they pay the $300 construction fee. Google will also offer free gigabit connectivity to schools.

You may not have heard about Vermont-based mobile apps company Green Mountain Digital yet, but the company has developed a number of very popular nature and outdoor lifestyle apps. The company, which was founded in 2009, just announced that it has closed a $1.5 million convertible note funding round and is changing its name to NatureShare. This funding round includes new and previous angel investors and includes a follow-on investment from the Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies’ Vermont Seed Capital Fund. The company also raised about $1.5 million in a previous seed round in 2010.

Google just launched the latest version of Google Earth for iOS. This update brings Google's new highly detailed 3D imagery of a select number of cities to the iPhone and iPad. Google first announced these new features in a hastily arranged press conference in early June to scoop Apple's own 3D maps announcement a few days later. The company first launched this feature on Android phones and tablets in late June. This new version of Google Earth for iOS also features Google Earth's new tour guide feature.

Google's Project Glass made quite a splash at I/O last month. Besides stunning the audience with a skydiving demo of Glass, Google also allowed those developers who attended the company's annual developer conference to exclusively pre-order the $1,500 Google Glass Explorer Edition. These first alpha versions of Glass are only scheduled to ship early next year, but according to an email the Project Glass team just sent to everybody who pre-ordered the devices, the company plans to involve this early tester community before the devices ship as well. Google, the email says, will post exclusive content for those with pre-orders on Google+ and also invite them to special events and Google+ Hangouts with the Glass Team.

Western Digital just reported its earnings for its fourth financial quarter of 2012. The company reported revenue of 4.8$ billions and earnings per share of $2.87. On a non-GAAP basis, net income was $872 million, or $3.35 per share. That's far better than what most analysts expected and also better than the company's own guidance of $4.2 billion to $4.4 billion in revenue. The consensus was that Western Digital would report revenue around $4.25 billion and earnings of $2.47 per share. In the year-ago-quarter, the company reported earnings of $0.67 per share.

Safari 6 brings improved performance and many new features to OS X, including offline reading lists, a unified search field and support for Do Not Track. What seems to be completely gone from Apple's site now, though, is any mention of the Windows version of Safari. Indeed, it looks like Apple has removed all download links for Safari from its site for the time being. This could be because Apple is currently highlighting Safari's new features in Mountain Lion (which pre-installs Safari 6), or because Apple has indeed ended development of Safari for Windows. Windows users can still download the old version from Apple, but the link is hidden on the company's support page.

Microsoft hosts a number of events for developers, including TechEd, MIX and PDC. The other major event Microsoft has hosted since it announced that it was working on Windows 8 is BUILD. This year, the company just announced, BUILD will take place on its Redmond campus from October 30 to November 2. Just like PDC, BUILD doesn't run on a set annual schedule, but when the company feels it has something important to communicate to its developers. This year, the conference is obviously scheduled to coincide with the launch of Windows 8 on October 26 and the launch of Windows Phone 8, which should also fall around this time.

During Apple's Q3 earnings call today, the company's CFO Peter Oppenheimer announced that Apple now has 150 Million iCloud users. That's up from 125 million users the company cited in its last quarterly earnings call in April. As Apple announced at its annual developer conference earlier this year, iCloud will be tightly integrated into Mountain Lion, the next version of OS X that's scheduled to launch tomorrow. Apple sold 26 million iPhones and 17 million iPads in the last quarter, which surely helped to push the number of iCloud users up as well, though the growth in iCloud users is obviously lagging behind the overall growth in the iPhone and iPad ecosystem.