Google Employees Literally Dish It Out; Gavin Newsom to Visit Microsoft on Tuesday

Every week, Mountain View makes news with technology developments, discoveries and sometimes controversies.

Every week, Mountain View Patch brings you a “Bits and Bytes” column where we’ll relay the past week’s news highlights from our backyard giants, start-ups and small businesses alike.

Google employees value productivity. This is especially true of a Google dishwasher who on Wednesday spewed profanities and hurled a six-inch metal container at a fellow employee because he wasn’t working fast enough. An employee who overheard the argument called police, but the victim–who was hit in the arm with the flying cooking utensil–declined to press charges.

Today Google acquired PostRank, a service which measures how far content like tweets and Facebook updates spread across the web. Google has yet to announced specifics of the project, but in the meantime the PostRank folks will relocate from Waterloo, Ontario to Mountain View.

The Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs (SVASE) announced today that California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom will kick-off Launch: Silicon Valley 2011 on Tuesday, June 7 at Microsoft's Mountain View campus. The event will round-up and showcase various emerging technology companies from around the area.

Today Quova, which specializes in IP geolocation, announced a feature called “user type,” which allows users its clients to know whether users are logging in from a home or office address. Knowing general user behavior, such as if one most often logs in from home, will help the company predict if something is off, and better pinpoint fraud.

High schools in Sweden are now using Google’s cloud login technology to securely access their applications. As online identity theft is a growing problem around the world, online identity provider Svensk e-identitet and strong authentication company Yubico are are working with Google to provide solutions. In lieu of a regular username and password login, students use two-factor identification.