Microsoft Corp has begun testing technology that brings together a person’s pictures, documents and other data scattered across a growing number of machines with the goal of allowing people to access their information from anywhere and at any time.

Microsoft’s “Live Mesh” program, which uses the Internet as a data hub, synchronizes files across computers, phones and other devices so a digital picture frame at home could show a picture minutes after it was taken by a cell phone.

Initially the program will be limited to 10,000 U.S. testers and computers running its Windows operating system, but Microsoft said it plans to extend Live Mesh over the next few months to mobile phones, computers from Apple Inc and other devices connected to the Internet.

An advertiser sued Google Inc. in federal court Tuesday claiming the company deceived him and charged for ads displayed on third-party Web sites, even though he left blank an “optional” box that seemed to address the issue.

The dispute is over Google’s popular AdSense program, which targets ads to keywords in articles and other content at participating sites. The program complements the traditional AdWords program, which runs targeted ads alongside Google’s search results. Ads under both programs generate the bulk of Google’s revenues.

The lawsuit accuses Google of defrauding advertisers out of millions of dollars collectively by “redefining the universally understood meaning of an input form left blank.”

The plaintiff in the case, David Almeida, had signed up for Google ads to promote his private investigation business in Massachusetts. Because he did not want to buy AdSense ads, Almeida said he left the maximum per-click bid blank, believing “optional” meant he could opt out of the AdSense program by doing so.

Instead, it turned out the AdWords bid applied when he did not exercise that option, and he should have put “zero” into the box to opt out, said his attorney, Brian Kabateck.

Google gave up control of its Keyhole Markup Language, or KML, in order that the file format used in Google Earth and Google Maps could become an international standard.

“Starting today, Google no longer controls KML,” said Michael Weiss-Malik, KML product manager at Google, in a blog post. “The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), an international standards body, has announced the completion of KML’s standardization process. KML has become an OGC Standard, and the OGC will take responsibility for maintaining and extending it. This transfer of ownership is a strong reflection of Google’s commitment to open standards. Fundamentally, our interest is not to control information, but rather to encourage its spread.”

The OGC includes 345 companies, government agencies, and academic organizations from around the world with an interest in geographic data standards. In addition to Internet companies like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, the organization counts as members the likes of Boeing, NASA, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, to name a few.

Having seen Google set up their Google Analytics product for free (in an attempt to get everyone to spend more money on adwords) and then seen Microsoft release their version of a free web analytics tool into beta, Yahoo have decided to do the same thing, by buying someone else and releasing it into the wild for free. Great news for bloggers who don’t want to sign up for Google’s ‘evil’ plans.