The San Diego Zoo said Thursday afternoon that the zoo is the first zoo in the United States which will be featured in Google's Street View feature. According to the Zoo, Google Maps now features street level views of the zoo's trails and exhibits--including every visitor pathway and animal exhibit. Google's Street View feature allows users of the search engine's mappng service to see wraparound The San Diego Zoo said that the mapping was done by Google in June of 2009, using the firm's special "Trike," a tricycle rigged up with GPS and camera technology.

Search engine giant Google announced Tuesday that the firm is funding a number of University research projects, including a group of researchers at UC San Diego, a researcher at UC Santa Barbara, and a researcher in Los Angeles. Google said that the firm is awarding a total of $5.7M as part of its Google Focused Research Among the 12 projects, which include 31 professors at 10 universities, are one on the use of mobile phones as data collection devices for public health an environmental monitoring, which includes Deborah Estrin at UCLA; work on energy efficiency in computing, which includes Fred Chong at UC Santa Barbara; and another grant focused on energy efficiency in computing to Tajana Simunic Rosing, Steven Swanson and Amin Vahdat at UCSD.

San Diego Gas & Electric is one of the first utilities to sign up with Google and its new Google PowerMeter energy monitoring project, Google said this morning. Google, which is in the midst of creating widgets for allowing consumers to see and monitor their power consumption, said that SDG&E is one of eight initial utility partners launching with the Internet giant. The partnership will allow San Diego Gas & Electric customers with smart meters to access that smart meter information via Google and its PowerMeter widget software.

San Diego-based Gizmo5 , the voice-over-IP service and software started by former MP3.com founder Michael Robertson, has been acquired by Google. Google announced the deal late Thursday afternoon. According to Google, it does not have any specific features to announce right now, but will be adding Gizmo5's engineers to its Google Voice team. Google said it is suspending new signups for Gizmo5's VoIP service, and existing users will no longer be able to sign up for a call-in number. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

A report from TechCrunch claims that San Diego-based Gizmo5 , the voice-over-IP startup founded by Michael Robertson, has been acquired by Google. No confirmation of any deal was provided by either Google or Gizmo5. Tags: acquisition merger google gizmo Quoting unnamed sources, TechCrunch claims that the deal is worth approximately $30M in cash. The report follows an earlier rumor, also from TechCrunch, which said that Skype was buying Gizmo5.

San Diego-based OpenCandy , which develops software and services to monetize downloads of open source software, said today that it has added Joe Kraus of Google Ventures to the firm's board of directors. Tags: opencandy executive software download google ventures krau Kraus is the co-founder of Excite and Jotspot. OpenCandy said that Kraus was an early investor in the firm.

San Diego-based Brickfish , a developer of social media and networking software being used by brands, reported today that it has hired on a Paul Botto, most recently Head of Analytics for the North American Sales Organization at Google, as its Vice President of Sales. Botto joined Google through Google's acquisition of Urchin Software, where he was Business Development Manager. Brickfish is venture backed by DCM, Draper Richards L.P., Mangrove Capital Partners, and OCA Ventures, and counts such firms as Nike, MTV Networks, Coach, The North Face, Samsung, and

Stealthy San Diego alternative energy vehicle firm V Vehicles , which just raised $62.25M in a funding round, apparently has added Google Ventures as an investor in the company. Boone Pickens as backers--disclosed in a regulatory filing that David Drummond--Google's Senior Vice President for Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer--is now on the board of directors. V-Vehicles--which Vehicles--which counts Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers and T.

These are real Google Voice voice-mails converted to text by Google technology. Hey, I’ve just written down the coast of back to San Diego on sort of it right now. Tags: Crazy entrepreneur tricks eric david greenspan Google Voic I laugh every time I read them, so I had to share…

San Diego-based DivX said late Monday evening that it has inked a deal with Google to distribute Google's Chrome Browser alongside its video software tools. According to DivX, Google Chrome replaces third party software previously distributed by the firm. Tags: google browser chrome software div Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. DivX said it will launch the effort in either Q1 or Q2 this year.