Google announced that it is introducing new features to its Google+ social network, including new controls that adjust how posts from a given circle are blended into the overall stream of posts, along with which posts are highlighted for your attention. The Google+ Android app has also been updated.
More info: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/google-few-big-improvements-before-new.html
Firefox 9 is now available to download from the official Firefox website.
The most significant change over Firefox 8 is the addition of type inference to the JavaScript engine, which singlehandedly improves JS execution speed by 20 to 30%. Without getting into the complexities of this change, type inference basically brings JavaScript one step closer to compiled languages (like C or C++) in terms of speed and optimization.
Full Release Notes: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/9.0/releasenotes/