Google has launched a new federal government search function today, placing it in at least indirect competition with Microsoft who operates FirstGov with Vivisimo. Users logging onto http://usgov.google.com get the Washington weather, White House news, headlines from the Washington Post and “Google News: Top Government Stories.” The site also allows users to personalize and narrow their searches. Google also refines its searches by offering searches in an index of government sites with .com, .edu, .gov, .mil, and .us domains. This is the latest in Google’s march to extend its search engine across multiple diciplines. The Microsoft-Vivisimo search engine is supported by the federal government with a $1.8 million annual contract. The two companies took over the site earlier this year and the number of accessible documents jumped from 8 million to 40 million. Full article via TechWeb.