The newest member of Google Labs, Google’s playground for new ideas, is Code Search, an ambitious project that aims to index billions and billions of lines of code.

Code search gives users the ability to search for publicly accessible soruce code. According to Google, source code lives in two ways on the internet: in things like zip files and gzip, or in software control repositories such as SourceForge, Google’s code hosting, and other places. They aim to index source code found in all of those places.

Google won’t just be indexing the zip file, but they’ll also be opening it up, unzipping it, and indexing all the individual files within in it.

The regular Googlebot crawler is being updated to recognize these zip files, and although they are unable to give an exact figure, Google says that Code Search already contains billions of lines of code. Such a staggering number makes you wonder how easily this code will even be able to be searched. But fear not, the smart people at Google have set it up so that Code Search can be searched by software license, programming language, and by file name. With all three of those in place, you should be able to find the code that you are looking for. Users may also search by regular expressions and patterns of words.

Launching alongside Code Search is the Code Search API, which will allow coders and programmers to further extend the project.

There will be no AdSense ads in the Code Search results, at least at first, and the results will not show up in regular Google searches.

Some potential uses of Google code is for developers to look and see where there code is being used. This may help to combat plagerism and software license use infractions.

Most of the code indexed by Google is open-source, and they believe that very little of it is proprietary since it is all posted in public places. However, with anything, there does remain the possibility that some people may post other people’s code illegally. Therefore, there may be some proprietary content included in the Code Search index. Luckily though, they have created a way for such instances to be reported so that they can be removed from the index.

You can access Code Search directly at http://www.google.com/codesearch,via the Google Labs page, or by clicking “Advanced Search” on the Google web search.

Google announced Monday that registration is now open for Google Code Jam 2006, Google’s annual online coding competition. The competition is set to run through October 27, culminating with the Championship round held at the Google offices in New York City.

The tournaments are a series of timed competitions in which programmers work to solve the same problems using the programming language of their choice: either Java, C++, C#, VB.NET, or Python.

Up for grabs is $165,000 worth of cash, with $10,000 going to the first place winner. 2nd through 10th place winners will each snag $5,000, 11th-25th get $2,500 each, 26th-50th each get $1,000, and lastly, those who place 51st through 100th each score $750. The top 250 in the second round of competition each get a t-shirt. Only 100 move on to the final round.

Want to learn more? Visit the Google Code Jam 2006 competition page to find out more information and register today.

Despite the soaring prices in gas, Americans are still hitting the roads to travel in record numbers. You can make your drive, whether it is for work or for play, a little easier by getting live traffic updates with Google.

Launched today as an update to Google Maps for mobile, you can now access comprehensive information about traffic conditions in more than 30 major metropolitian areas, as well as partial information in many other areas.

To utilize the service, you will need to download Google Maps for mobile through your mobile web browser. After you’ve done that, simply moved to the desired location within the application, and select “show traffic” in the menu. The most up-to-date traffic information will be sent to the users mobile device, and will highlight conditions on the covered commuter routes using red, yellow, and green overlays.

Another added feature to Google Maps for mobile is the addition of expected drive time to directional searches within Google Maps. So now when you look up directions, it will also give you an estimated trip time as well as inform you of any expected delays. You can also store favorite searches and driving directions, and will be able to access your favorite routes even faster.

Google announced its 2nd Quarter earnings today after the close of the market, exceeding analyst expectations. Google said it earned $721 million, or $2.33 per share for the period ending June 30th. This figures are up from $328 million, or $1.19 per share a year ago.

Sales surged to $2.46 billion, up 77%, as Google placed more contextually targeted ads alongside its search results. Subtracting the commissions Google pays to its content distribution partners, the net revenue was $1.67 billion, up slightly from the $1.65 billion expected by analysts.

Excluding the cost of employee stock options and one-time items (such as the sale of their stake in Baidu), Google reports earnings of $2.49 per share.

In traditional Google fashion, they did not issue a financial forecast along with their 2Q financial earnings report. Industry analysts, however, are expecting the stock to go up in price, some estimating as high as $450 to $500 per share.

A number of internet users in China are reporting problems using the international version of Google’s site, which has prompted speculation that the site is being disrupted by government censors.Many of Google’s China users have only been able to access the site intermitently over the past few days.

A spokesperson for Google said “We have heard reports of users in China experiencing problems in accessing Google.com. We are investigating this matter.”

China rarely lets people know when they are censoring sites, so an official confirmation of the censorship is not likely. However, the problems that users are experience are very similar to those of other censored sites.

In 2002, Google.com was blocked entirely within China. It was only reinstated after worldwide protests. Now, many believe that China is attacking the international site after Google set up a censored China-based version of the site.

The recent problems with Google.com are the worst in years, prompting speculation that the introduction of Google.cn has emboldened the government to take action against Google.com.

“It was only to be expected that Google.com would be gradually sidelined after the censored version was launched in January,” says Reporters Without Borders, a media freedom watchdog.

According to Google’s estimations, 99% of users within China use the international version of the site. A paltry 1% use the Google.cn site.

In other news, Google is also reportedly in talks with China Mobile to collaborate on mobile search in China.