WebProNews

This week, Google launched a Google Reader gadget for Google Desktop. The gadget allows users to track their feeds and Google Readers subscriptions directly from their desktop.

To use the gadget, you (of course) have to have Google Desktop installed. Then to use it just:

1. Download the gadget

2. Sign in to your Google Account

3. Select a subscription (your gadget will update automatically with new posts)

Clicking an item will open a larger view where you can see the item preview and star, share, and email items. Google notes that a technical limitation keeps you from being able to display full HTML feeds. But you can still click on a title to go to the original site in your browser.

The Google Reader gadget runs with the latest versions of Linux and Windows. It's open sourced under the Apache 2.0 license.