I have set up a number of feeds in Google Reader, and it is important that I am notified as soon as they update. Google talks notifies me when I receive new emails. Is there a similar tool for Google Reader?

The software you are looking for is Gwatchman.

You can download Gwatchman here.

It can check for both new emails and new additions to your Google Reader account and then displays a real time alert at the bottom of your screen:



After that, you can set the interval with which you want Gwatchman to check for new feeds.



Hope this helps and good luck!

That was VERY fast...