The blogger buzz today seems to focus around Google and its various manifestations in our technological world, tinged with suspicion at the search giant’s increasingly Big Brother-like power.

From a purely practical view, there’s much excitement about the beta launch of Google Sync, announced on the Google Mobile blog, which allows users to sync contact and calendar information over the air free of charge, challenging Apple’s MobileMe subscription service.

Dan Frommer at Silicon Alley Insider points out: “Meanwhile, it’s another way for Google to get all of your contacts for stuff like its Latitude location-based social networking service.”

Om Malik points to this essay on the gaping security flaws underlying Google’s social network Orkut, with the caution: “Don’t trust Google [with] your digital life just yet.”

And Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb is treating Google’s newly launched Social Web Blog with caution, saying:

“Google has all kinds of positive things to offer, from the wonders of Google Reader to the awesome Google Social Graph API. We’ve got high hopes for Android to beat the phones we’ve got in our own pockets. But each new entrance into “the social” that Google makes is also worthy of a heavy dose of skepticism.

Google is Big Brother just waiting to happen. The company indexes the bottom of the ocean, the web, the view of the front of your house and an increasing number of peoples’ genetic makeup. That’s not something to take lightly.

Its specific products are often a big disappointment, too. OpenSocial failed to solve the data portability problem that was the only reason most people cared about it, then it failed to deliver the app portability it promised to developers. Google FriendConnect is ugly and seems pointless until you tie it to the as yet untested system called Latitude, where Google knows your every waking move around town.”

Elsewhere on the web:

Jeremiah Owyang has some recommended reading on social computing from HP Labs – specifically, examining crowdsourcing, attention and productivity; and predicting the popularity of online content.

Adam Ostrow at Mashable comments on how Facebook grows remarkably similar to Friendfeed every day – in this case, because the social network has cloned the Friendfeed ‘like’ feature.

Joshua Topolsky at Engadget has pics, video and impressions of Amazon’s Kindle 2, available in the US from 24 February. David Kaplan at paidContent interviews Stephen King about the Kindle, who says it won’t yet replace books.

BBC Radio 4′s controller Mark Damazer has started a blog to explain how the radio station operates behind the scenes and to find out what listeners like and don’t like.