by Krishnadev Calamur

Internet giant Google has unveiled its plan for a new tool that is a hybrid of e-mail, IM and document sharing. Dubbed Google Wave, the tool takes another stab at real-time online communication.

In his blog, Lars Rasmussen, the man who developed Wave with his brother Jens, says Wave is "equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more."

Google plans to make the code open source, giving developers the opportunity to help in its evolution.

The public can access the service later this year.