During a special event today at Google Headquarters in Mountain View, CA, the search giant unveiled its new Google Buzz approach to sharing and several new features designed to enhance its Gmail service and bring it more in line with other mainstream social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Google Buzz, which works inside the Gmail interface, includes the following features:

• Auto-following. We didn’t want users to have to peck out a totally new social graph. There has always been a giant social network under Gmail.

• Rich, fast sharing experience. Same nice Gmail UI and keyboard shortcuts. Special attention to media.

• Public and private sharing. We want things Google can index, but also private messages.

• Inbox integration. The inbox is the center for communication.

• Just the good stuff. Some much social data, we need to filter the noise.

• Go to google.com on your iPhone or Android phone web browser.

• New application for Buzz.

• Update to Google Maps for mobiles. Android, Windows Mobile and Symbian today

According to Google, they will be rolling out the starting today so keep an eye out. One question to consider, though, is if Google’s answer to social networking will actually be successful or not? As someone who uses Twitter and Facebook daily but has less time for something like Friendfeed (which Buzz is similar to) I wonder if users will take to these new features or not.

Also, if you’re interested, there’s a video produced by Google that explains Buzz a bit more after the jump.

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Love is in the air for the gang at Greendale Community College this week as Community airs it’s very first Valentine’s Day episode. They’ve done a Christmas episode and a Halloween episode, so why not celebrate the Day of Love?

Things get a bit awkward for Jeff and Britta while Señor Chang finally gets his comeuppance. From NBC:

Jeff (Joel McHale) sets out to fix his relationship with Britta (Gillian Jacobs) after things get awkward with a drunken phone call. Meanwhile, Annie (Alison Brie) and Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown) make plans to humiliate Señor Chang (Ken Jeong) in order to defend Troy (Donald Glover) and Pierce’s (Chevy Chase) dignity.

We recently got a whopping six new clips to share with you, which you can check out after the jump. Be sure to catch “Communicative Studies” this Thursday at 8/7 Central on NBC.

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Today, the Apple Store went down, as it often does, and amid speculation that new core i5 and i7 MacBook Pros would be announced, when the store came back Apple instead dropped a comprehensive update of Aperture, its flagship image editing software, on us. The latest version, cleverly dubbed Aperture 3, brings many of the features users love from iPhoto ’09 and adds them to Aperture’s new, improved software set and tools.

According to Apple, the latest version of Aperture includes over 200 new features such as:

• Organization using Faces and Places
• Brand new Brushes that let you paint effects on images,
• Full 64-bit support for Snow Leopard
• Improved image adjustments with more “fine tuning”
• Facebook and Flickr uploading

Apple has a free 30-day trial or you can buy the latest version for U.S. $199.00, and upgrades are available for any existing Aperture users for U.S. $99.00.

New week, new comics from our friends at Marvel. This time around there’s some very cool and interesting titles hitting stores tomorrow. Among the ones we’re looking forward to are S.W.O.R.D #4, Dark X-Men #4, Punishermax #4 and the debut of Hit-Monkey, the monkey hit man. Yes, that’s right, a monkey hit man. How can you possibly not read that one?

As always, check out covers from some of these books after the break. New comics hit stores tomorrow. If you don’t know where to get comics in your area, use this handy guide to find a store near you. Check out all the comics below.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #620 (GNTLT)
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #620 DEADPOOL VARIANT
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN PRESENTS: JACKPOT #2
ANITA BLAKE, THE LAUGHING CORPSE – EXECUTIONER #4
DARK AVENGERS POSTER BOOK
DARK TOWER: THE BATTLE OF JERICHO HILL #3
DARK TOWER: THE BATTLE OF JERICHO HILL #3 ZIRCHER VARIANT
DARK X-MEN #4
ENDER’S GAME: COMMAND SCHOOL #5
HIT-MONKEY #1
MARVEL ADVENTURES SUPER HEROES #20
MARVEL BOY: THE URANIAN #2
NEW MUTANTS #10
NEW MUTANTS #10 DEADPOOL VARIANT
PUNISHERMAX #4

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With the second episode airing last Friday on SyFy, things have been picking up quite a lot for the first season of Caprica, the prequel spin off of Battlestar Galactica. Many of us remember the events that took place in the pilot, which hit DVD shelves back in April, and now things are underway for a whole season of action, drama and cylons.

One star in particular has been stirring up some buzz on the web, as Alessandra Torresani’s provocative photo shoot has been circulating around. We got the chance to sit down with star Alessandra, who plays “Zoe”, at New York’s Big Apple Convention. We spoke about her role on the show, how much more we’ll get to see of “Zoe”, and what Alessandra’s plans are now that she’s been introduced to the world of science fiction.

Check out our exclusive interview after the jump, and be sure to catch Alessandra and the rest of the Caprica on SyFy, every Friday night.

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With the internet community and a few studio execs hinting that this current season of 24 may be the last, big news is now coming out of Twentieth Century Fox’s camp, as they have just announced a film adaptation of the series.

The studio was allegedly blown away by a pitch from screenwriter Billy Ray (State of Play, Flightplan), in which Jack Bauer goes to Europe, and they have already hired him to finish the script for production. From Variety:

Script is said to have come through “24″ star Kiefer Sutherland, who’s also an exec producer on the series — and is said to be eager to turn the long-running TV skein into a feature franchise.

Feature would be produced by the TV show’s key exec producers, including Sutherland. Series was created by Robert Cochran and Joel Surnow, while exec producer Howard Gordon runs the show through his Real Time Prods. banner.

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Principle photography for DC and Warner’s newest superhero flick, Green Lantern, starts up this month. With that, we’re expecting to see lots of news on the casting front of the film. On that note, Heat Vision is reporting that Academy Award-winning actor Tim Robbins will be joining the cast.

Robbins is set to play Senator Hammond, the father of the film’s villain Hector Hammond, played by Peter Sarsgaard. The role will be mostly supporting, but with a name like Robbins filling the shoes, we can expect it to be longer than 30 seconds.

Robbins will join an already hearty cast of Ryan Reynolds, Sarsgaard, Blake Lively, and a rumored Mark Strong as Sinestro. Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) is taking on the task of directing, and he’s already reassured the easily irritable fan community by stating that most of the film will take place off-planet.

Last week, some interesting concept art got leaked online, and may have given us a first glimpse of what the rest of the Green Lantern Corps could look like. We’ll be sure to keep you posted as more information on the film comes our way.

Tonight on NBC is an all-new Chuck episode and the season 4 finale of Heroes. In this week’s Chuck, Chuck turns a bold move into a potentially hazardous one. See how that works out for him during “Chuck vs. The Mask.”

As for Heroes see what Tim Kring, Hayden Panettiere, and Robert Knepper have to say on the set of the Season 4 finale. Hayden promises not to give away any secrets, so you should be sure to tune in tonight.

Check out the videos after the jump.

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This clearly falls into the “no surprise” category as Columbia Pictures has confirmed that Dan Brown’s novel, The Lost Symbol, will get the big screen treatment. The third film in the Robert Langdon series, this time we find Langdon traversing the mysteries of the Freemasons in Washington D.C.

Scribe Steven Knight is set to adapt the screenplay from the novel which sold over 1 million copies in the first day. Knight’s other credits include drafts for Martin Scorsese’s upcoming Shutter Island as well as The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

While both Brian Grazer and Ron Howard are set to return no word on whether Tom Hanks has committed to the project. That said, I find it highly unlikely that he would not reprise the title role of Robert Langdon.

While the second installment of the series, Angels and Demons, performed less then The Da Vinci Code, $486 Million compared to $768, the resounding popularity of  The Lost Symbol is sure to help.  Moreover, The Da Vinci Code was wrapped in controversy which had people eager to check out what all the fuss was about by seeing the film. Angels and Demons had little to no controversy surrounding it. Regardless, a $400 + million take is by no means a failure.

I, for one, was not blown away by either film. However, they were serviceable thrillers with solid production value. While all these stories involve enigmas at some level, there’s no mystery as to why they’re popular and I’ll certainly check out The Lost Symbol when it hit theaters.

There’s no denying Twitter’s popularity. It’s everywhere and many people use it all day, every day. So, if you need to Tweet while on the go, you need an smartphone with a Twitter app on it. The iPhone has several, with Tweetie and Twitterific probably being the most popular.

That’s great, but what if you’re using a cool Android powered smartphone like Verizon’s DROID? Fortunately, there’s a app for you too in the form of Seesmic. And now, the folks who make Seesmic have updated their app with some cool new features.

Among the new features are multiple account support with cross-posting, extra large font size, auto-correction of typing, automatic profile updates, on device twitter password management and optional timeline position memory so you jump back to the last tweets that you were reading.

The latest version of Seesmic is available now for free from the Android Market. If you check it out, be sure to come back and let us know how it compares to other Android Twitter apps like Twidroid and Tweetcaster.

In an effort to keep things out of the hands of those who made the characters popular, major studios such as Sony, and now Regency and Fox, are rebooting their recent Marvel films in order to retain the rights so they don’t default back to Disney owned Marvel. Sony is doing so with the reboot of Spider-Man, while Regency and Fox have recently announced that they’re doing the same with Daredevil.

Originally made in 2003, and starring Ben Affleck and Colin Farrell, the film isn’t even a decade old and it’s getting a complete revamp. This time, the writer behind 2008′s The Day The Earth Stood Still, David Scarpa, will be penning a script, and the story will more than likely scrub the previous films’ continuity.

It’s unfortunate that studios resort to these childish ways. If the franchise eventually ends up in the hands of Marvel and Marvel Studios, this could mean great film cameos from some of our favorite heroes. A perfect example is what Favreau, Brannagh, and Joe Johnston are doing with the Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America films, and it’s all like a fanboy’s greatest dream.

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According to Heat Vision Blog, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Grindhouse) and Joel Edgerton (Attack of the Clones) are set to star in the latest incarnation of The Thing, Universal’s take on “the shape-shifting alien who terrorizes a group of people in a remote facility.” Oh yeah, that one.

Winstead will play a Ph.D. candidate who joins a Norwegian research team in Antarctica after it discovers an alien ship frozen in the ice. When a trapped organism is freed and begins to kill, she is forced to team with a mercenary helicopter pilot (Edgerton) to stop the rampage. Matthijs Van Heijningen is directing the movie, which was written by Ronald D. Moore and Eric Heisserer.

Sadly, Van Heijningen has never directed a big budget feature film before, so he’s probably the best choice for this one. Yes, that was sarcasm.

The Thing has, of course, been made into a film at least twice before. The best (and best-known) of these is probably the John Carpenter version from 1982 which featured Kurt Russell as the titular “mercenary helicopter pilot.” That film was a contemporary remake of 1951′s The Thing From Another World, directed by Howard Hawks and featuring pre-Gunsmoke James Arness as the creature.

A March 15 start date in Toronto is planned with a very short theatrical run and swift trip to your local video store probably soon to follow.