The Stock? Whatever. Google Keeps On Innovating.

The New York Times > Business > Your Money > Techno Files: "Today, Google is still plenty interesting for financial reasons. In the weeks before its shares first went on sale in August, disparaging views about its prospects forced it to lower the target price to $85 a share from $135. By last week, its stock had more than doubled, to $190.64, giving it a market capitalization of $52 billion, more than Ford and General Motors combined.

Everything about such numbers screamed "bubble!" But on the same day last week that Google's price-to-earnings ratio hit a Hindenburg-esque 443 - versus 35 for Microsoft, 10 for Ford and 5 for poor G.M. - Google made another in a startling series of announcements showing that its real fascination remains its technology.

The latest news was that Google had acquired the Keyhole Corporation, a small company with a vast database of high-resolution satellite and aerial images of Earth's surface. Since its debut on the Internet three years ago, Keyhole has had a high gee-whiz factor.

GOOGLE S.M.S. Unveiled this month, S.M.S., for short message service, allows specialized searches from most mobile phones. You send a brief text message to the number 46645 - GOOGL on a phone keypad - and it returns an answer in a few seconds. For example, sending "Sushi 20036" will get addresses and phone numbers of sushi restaurants in downtown Washington. Sending a name and ZIP code or city will look up that person's home address and phone number.

GMAIL Introduced last April and now in trial or "beta" form, Google still offers it by invitation only. In its ease of use, Gmail is vastly superior to other Web-based e-mail programs. It even offers advantages over full-strength mail programs like Outlook - for instance, by automatically grouping all related messages together and allowing searches at, well, Googlelike speed.

GOOGLE PRINT Nearly a year old and still in beta, it lets users call up specific pages of current books. Type "books about George Bush" into the Google search screen and you'll see several - and you can then search for particular paragraphs or passages within the books.

This obviously raises copyright issues aplenty, which Google is now negotiating with publishers.

GOOGLE DESKTOP SEARCH Introduced this month and still in beta, G.D.S. can seamlessly incorporate most files and e-mail on your computer into a regular Google search. "