Today at the Google I/O conference, Google announced that after a year of private beta testing, Google Wave is available for all to sign up and join. The "beta" tag has been removed in favor of a new "labs" test. Google Wave is Google's way to communicate and combine email with instant messaging and add little widgets and web apps for additional interactivity in messages, or "waves". Last year when the private beta was released at Google I/O 2009, it was biggest thing since the microwave and people were begging for invites left and right. Eventually, hype dramatically dwindled away, and now with news that Google Wave is public, time will tell if all that hype pays off for Google when they need it most to really keep Wave going. Sign up at wave.google.com.