From the Go Go Google C dept.:
Go is a new programming language from Google that aims for performance that is nearly comparable to C, but with more expressive syntax and faster compilation. What it won't do, however, is liberate the coding masses from bracist tyranny. Google's Go is yet another take on C.

...Go offers an expressive type system, fast compilation, good performance, and built-in language features that simplify threaded programming and concurrency. The language has been under development for roughly two years. It started out as a 20 percent project—time that Google's engineers are given to use as they choose for undirected experimentation—and evolved into a serious full-time undertaking. Google is releasing the source code under the BSD license with the hope that a community will emerge around the new programming language and participate in the effort to make it a compelling choice for software development.

We discussed the new programming language with Google engineer Rob Pike. He says that the Go language itself and the current implementation are relatively mature, but it's not quite ready for adoption in production environments. The ecosystem around the programming language is still a work in progress. There is no IDE integration, the standard libraries are a bit thin, and there aren't a whole lot of real-world code examples yet. Opening up Go to the broader programming community could help to vastly accelerate its advancement in all of those critical areas.

arstechnica.com