Archive for 'News'
JSON and Cloud Computing Vulnerabilities
Posted on 29. Aug, 2011 by Julian West. 
6 Comments
One of the benefits of browser focused computing is its platform independence: all you need is a good browser and an Internet connection, and you’re in business.
The technology that enables such convenience in many cases is AJAX. AJAX allows data to be loaded quickly and asynchronously, with no need for the user to refresh the page. AJAX even enables data to be loaded in the background without delaying page rendering, which greatly improves the user experience.
One problem with AJAX, however, comes with sites like Flicker and Twitter that provide RSS feeds. AJAX has issues when it comes to accessing that feed however. The RSS feed can be accessed only by the same domain it is hosted on.
In this particular case, JSON can save the day. AJAX powered sites can use JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) to access the data. JSON allows such sites to use a method called JSONP that uses a callback function to send the JSON data back to the domain. It’s this capability and the speed by which it is able to do this that makes JSON so incredibly useful.
The usefulness of JSON doesn’t come without its downside. That downside is security vulnerabilities. The security vulnerabilities of JSON usually come from poorly written code rather than a developers maliciousness. A eval() can render the system vulnerable to malicious code. The problem for the user is it isn’t always possible to know whether they are trusting their data to a site with a good implementation of the code.
It’s important to be knowledgeable of the potential security risks you take on a daily basis and to know cloud computing – or computing in your browser – has its dangers. This doesn’t make cloud computing a less valid form of computing. After all, every kind of computing has its own particular risks, however, knowing of the risks enables you to take the necessary precautions.
The troubling issue about JSON is that the security fix is at the hands of the developer, not the user. The user may not even know a vulnerability exists until their security has been compromised. Google is working on its own implementation of JSON called GSON which is about to released to the public. Hopefully this can address some of JSON’s security issues.
Chrome helps Linux pt. 2: Cloud Graphics
Posted on 25. Aug, 2011 by Julian West. 0 Comments
With Chrome, Google has been at the forefront of enhancing the capabilities of the browser and enhancing the powers of the browser. One of these areas is GPU Accelerated Drawing. Traditionally, the CPU was the only computer hardware which was utilized to render graphics in a browser, which resulted in limitations with regard to the browser’s graphics rendering. With GPU Accelerated Drawing, however, the browser is utilizing the thin client’s GPU in rendering browser graphics, greatly boasting the browser’s rendering power.
Such advances in browser technology also has benefits for Linux.
Linux doesn’t have the best reputation with regards to graphics, mainly due to the fact that that not all hardware manufacturers make Linux compatible drivers for their graphics cards and it can take considerable time before open-source drivers for those graphics cards are available. Due to its cross platform nature, OpenGL ES is a clear path for Linux to obtain video support from major chip makers and sidestep these driver issues since OpenGL standardizes the rendering API for the browser regardless of the platform. GPU Accelerated Drawing will eventually enable the browser’s graphics performance to be at a level expected from today’s demanding users.
WebGL has a ways to go before it can compete with the video performance your traditional legacy system offers; the technology still is in its beginning stages. I tried GPU Acceleration in “about:flags” on my Cr-48, and it actually slowed down the graphics performance. I tested on the Asteroids HTML5 Canvas 2D Rendering and JavaScript Benchmark experiment, and it went from a benchmark score of initially 417, when the GPU Acceleration flag was disabled to 183 when GPU Acceleration was enabled. I’m not the only one who experienced the slow down.
I remain optimistic however. WebGL technology and the like are sure to advance due to the superior development process of Open Source. It’s just a matter of time. Consider the below statement from Linus Torvalds:
“[Open Source] is superior because it’s a lot more fun and because it makes cooperation much easier (no silly NDA’s or artificial barriers to innovation like in a proprietary setting), and I think Open Source is the right thing to do the same way I believe science is better than alchemy. Like science, Open Source allows people to build on a solid base of previous knowledge, without some silly hiding. [Y]ou can obviously never do as well in a closed environment as you can with open scientific methods.”
In a ZDnet article dated June 26, 2008, an exec from the Linux Foundation is quoted as saying “The future of cloud computing and Web 2.0 application development will be built on Linux and open source.” Consider how far cloud computing has come since then. Today, we can even play Angry Birds in the browser!
What are your views on Linux, Chrome, and the advances of cloud computing? Are you optimistic?
A Change Is In The Air For Chrome’s Start Page
Posted on 22. Aug, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 3 Comments
The default startpage on a clean install of Chrome Canary. Boring, ain't it?
You know, while I love Google Chrome, I’ll be one of the first guys to admit that Chrome’s start page is boring as hell. It’s just so drab, and bland, and…empty. Thankfully, it looks like Google feels the same way- word is, they’re planning a colossal revamp of the startpage. As they should- with both Opera and Mozilla focusing on their own ‘new tab’ screens, Chrome’s startpage is something Google simply cannot afford to ignore anymore.
For their part, each of the major browser developers are going for their own unique ‘style’ of sorts. Mozilla is looking for a means of integrating a permanent Home Tab into the browser- something that goes beyond a simple ‘new tab’ page and instead is present in the browser as a permanent app. Details are rather sparse on this one, though I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Mozilla found some way to tie it into social networking in some way.
Opera, on the other hand, is using widgets- giving their start page a rather deep sense of customization by allowing users to pick and choose what they want to see when they open their browser. Definitely a good idea, and one that I hope Google considers adopting for Chrome, at least in part. Anyway, you’re probably wondering what Google’s doing to give the Chrome startpage a bit more zazz, right?
To that end, I’ve got some rather cool features to show you folks. No word on when they’ll be arriving in the Chrome browser, though- they’re currently in the process of making their debut on the Chromium platform. See, the way Google’s setting up their start page appears involve organizing the elements into ‘pages.’
Why You Should Probably Avoid Google Minus
Posted on 22. Aug, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 3 Comments
In a lot of ways, Google’s “Circles” are something of a mishmash of Facebook’s friend system and Twitter’s followers system. You’ve got the sort of personal connections you can make on Facebook coupled with a twitter-like system of friendship known as “circles.” Consequently, there are a lot of people obsessed with who’s added them to their Circles on G +- just as you’ve got folks on Twitter who’ve an unhealthy compulsion to gather as many followers as humanly possible. In many cases, it all seems to come down to a popularity contest. On Twitter, it’s at the point where you’ve got what I like to term ‘fair weather followers’ who follow people just to get them to follow back, then proceed to unfollow them once that ultimately irrelevant little counter on the right side of their page goes up by another little tic. As you could imagine, there are a lot of Twitter apps designed to notify users when they’ve been unfollowed. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were something like that for Google +?
Currently, there’s an extension that at least purports to do so. I wouldn’t trust it, though- and I’m not sure you should, either.
Use Chrome To Send Texts With DeskSMS
Posted on 20. Aug, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 10 Comments
Google Voice is great, isn’t it? Lets you call and text from your computer, send SMS to and from your phone, and generally just provides a great service as keeping in touch is concerned. The problem is…it’s not actually available outside the US. Plus, I’m sure there are quite a few of you who, for whatever reason, don’t want to use Google Voice, even though you have it available to you. Fortunately, there are alternatives. We’ve already looked at one a little while ago- Mightytext. Today, we’re going to look at another one, known as DeskSMS.
Right off the bat, I’m going to make it clear- you could do a lot worse than this application. Whitson Gordon of Lifehacker labels DeskSMS as quite possibly the best application of its kind. After doing a bit of my own research on the extension, I’m inclined to agree with him- at least partially. While I don’t know of enough alternatives to say whether or not this is the best piece of software out there, it definitely ranks among the upper echelons.
You’re given a number of options regarding how you want to manage SMS on your system, and how this management will relate to your phone. Any time you receive a text message, DeskSMS will automatically forward this message to Google Talk, Gmail, a web interface, or the Chrome extension. Hell, if you’d prefer, you can go with all of the above.
One particularly nice touch of DeskSMS is that it allows you to respond to text messages with your instant messaging software- no additional steps required. Just receive message, send response, and you’re done. As an added bonus, it’ll send the response using your phone number, rather than an email or internet phone number.
Where it really shines is the interface- it’s a simple, no-fuss affair, and it’s amazingly simple to set up and use. All you need to do is download the Android app, then install the extension onto whatever platform you’re running it on. Once you’ve done this, link the extension to your account, and you’ll be prompted to select what services you want to forward and you’re good to go.
There’s one problem with this software. If you don’t have an Android phone, you’re pretty much out of luck.
Those of you who do can grab the beta of this extension from the Chrome Web Store. Be sure to download its counterpart from the Android Marketplace.
Google Chrome Currently The World’s Fastest Browser
Posted on 18. Aug, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 2 Comments
Anybody wondering how their browser stacks up in terms of real world speed? I mean, sure- we’ve got lab tests and official benchmarks, but those are isolated, controlled environments. In the real world, things can tend to be a little more chaotic- people use different models of computers, have different software and hardware…you get the idea. How fast a browser is and how fast that browser feels- that is, the experience of the audience- are two entirely different things, after all.
At least, that’s what Compuware’s benchmarks division- titled “Gomez”- reasoned. The project collected browsing data from over 1.8 billion individual measurements spanning over two hundred websites. So what’d they end up finding? What results did the test provide? What browser is the fastest of them all?
The answer isn’t particularly surprising- it’s Chrome.
Chrome Weekly Release Roundup: August 8-12, 2011
Posted on 14. Aug, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 1 Comments
It’s been yet another busy week for the Google Chrome team, and they’ve two more major release under their belts. As you all well know, Chrome 14 is now live on the Beta channel. In addition, the Developer channel has updated a whopping five times-one of those to Chrome 15-and the stable channel got an update to 13.0.782.112 just before 14 went live on Beta.
In other words….we’ve got a pretty big list to cover this time around. As we usually do, let’s start with the developer release channel.
New Beta Release Brings Native Client To Chrome
Posted on 13. Aug, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 1 Comments
Chrome 14 has finally hit the Beta channel.
On Thursday, The Chrome team officially announced the launch of Chrome 14.0.835.35 to the Beta channel on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome Frame. It was a pretty big update- and a rather awesome one. If there were things to be excited about with Chrome 13, that’s doubly true for Chrome 14, which comes packed with a plethora of awesome new features that I can’t wait to see hit the stable release two months down the road.
I’d argue that the most exciting aspect of this release is that it’s primarily aimed at a particular usergroup. Developers, I’m looking at you. Several of the most touted features in this update are designed specifically to make your lives easier.
First and foremost, Native Client has now been officially released. While it’s definitely been around for quite some time, it’s not really seen much exposure- or use. As a result, it’s basically been quietly gathering dust in Chromes about: flags section. Kind of a shame given its rather incredible potential.
NaCLBox is just one of the possible applications for Native Client.
If you’re not sure what Native Client is, don’t worry- there’s a lot of people in the same boat. The best way I can explain it is to tell you that it’s essentially a software virtualization interface designed for Google Chrome. They’ve explained it a little better on the Google Blog than I can here:
Native Client allows C and C++ code to be seamlessly executed inside the browser with security restrictions similar to JavaScript. Native Client apps use Pepper, a set of interfaces that provide C and C++ bindings to the capabilities of HTML5.
Windows applications are primarily coded in C. So, yeah. Native Client; kind of a big deal.
Second, Google’s released a new API for high performance audio, which they’ve christened “Web Audio API.” According to the Official Google Blog, “the Web Audio API supports audio effects such as room simulation and spatialization, allowing web developers to create even more interactive experiences and games.” They’ve provided some examples for the devs to toy around with, as well. Not as exciting as Native Client, but pretty cool just the same.
Also present in the new release is additional support for Mac OS X Lion, Print Preview for Mac, two new experimental APIs and a new Sync Encryption security feature. We’ll take a close look at those tomorrow, in the Weekly Release Roundup.
Chrome On The Eee Pad Transformer
Posted on 13. Aug, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 1 Comments
A very interesting series of tweets from Liam Mcullough earlier this week. For those of you who don’t know, Mcullough- also known by his nickname, Hexxeh, is the man who’s more or less been solely responsible for pretty much every Chromium OS release since Chrome first hit the market. He’s also the fellow who loaded Chrome onto a Macbook Air. With that information in mind, it was pretty clear what his intentions were when he tweeted on Sunday that he was “picking up an Asus transformer tomorrow, with the keyboard dock.” That said, he continued by establishing that he was “not interested in running Android on there.”
After spending about a day fiddling around with his new purchase(which apparently rather impressed him), Hexxeh managed to load Google’s Chrome OS onto the rig, as made evident by the screenshot above. Though it’s kind of hard to tell due to the lighting, that is none other than the Asus Eee Pad Transformer, complete with a shiny new OS- and it definitely isn’t Android.
Now, before you folks go getting all excited; there are a few things we’ll first need to establish. One; this isn’t as much of a total system overhaul as with the Macbook Air, either- in this case, he booted straight from a USB drive, in order to make it easier to work on the image. Second, the current build of Chromium on the Transformer is suffering from some…pretty nasty bugs, if Hexxeh’s to be believed. When asked about how well it ran, he responded with the following:
“runs terribly things to some huge bugs in the LDK, gonna try to work around them by patching Chromium and the WM. Basics like WiFi, touchscreen work, sound is MIA right now but that’s an easy fix.”
So….long story short, he’s still working feverishly on getting this system up and running. Those of you expecting a touch-based UI might be a bit disappointed, though. Hexxeh’s made it clear that he’s not keen on building a touch interface for the transformer at the current moment- seems likely he’s more focused on getting the basics working before he starts fiddling with the onscreen keyboard- something which is made possible thanks to the transformer’s rather excellent keyboard dock.
Currently, Hexxeh’s managed to shave ten seconds off the boot time of the Transformer (No word on how long it takes to load, I’ll keep you posted), and the release date for this build is…basically “TBA.” According to Mcullough, when or if he releases this build hinges entirely on when he finds the time to finish it.
Considering how fast he seems to work, I’d imagine it’ll probably be some time next month.
Either way, it’s pretty exciting news- as he put it, the experiment is basically “complete proof of concept” regarding the viability of Chrome as a tablet OS. Of course, we sort of knew the concept was true from the beginning- Hexxeh’s just demonstrating it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
You can follow Hexxeh on Twitter here, or visit his blog and toss a donation his way here.
Image Credits: Hexxeh
Google Adds Games to Google +
Posted on 11. Aug, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 4 Comments
It should be pretty clear by now that I’m a big fan of Google +. And hey- why wouldn’t I be? Seamless integration into Google’s other services, Google Hangouts, a simple, high quality interface, it’s not Facebook. What’s not to love about it? Of course, Facebook has had one major advantage over G + since the latter’s launch- games. Facebook has them, Google + doesn’t.
If Google + was to compete with Facebook, it needed social games- there’s no getting around that fact. Google knew that. They were well aware of the nuances of social media- and the how large a part of said media gaming truly is. If Google + was going to survive, and truly be a viable alternative to Facebook, they’d need to eliminate that chink in their armor. A great many people pointed at a lack of games as one of Google +’s biggest shortcomings.
A shortcoming that today was eliminated. That’s right, folks- gaming has finally come to Google +.
Could Opera be a Challenger that Could Approach Chrome?
Posted on 11. Aug, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 1 Comments
Opera isn’t anything new- it’s been around since 1996. Just the same, it’s always been something of an underdog in the browser market. For much of its life, it’s lacked the stuff necessary to challenge IE. Chrome, or Firefox Maybe Opera simply isn’t powerful enough. Perhaps it just didn’t catch on in the way the other three did- what is there to differentiate Opera from Chrome, or Firefox?Whatever the reason, Opera’s been puttering along at less than 5% of the global market share for web browsers.
That might just change, though.
Opera’s latest update to Opera 12 sees a rather considerable boost to the browser’s speed. You’ll notice how I said speed, and not power- that’s because the browser’s performance on Benchmark tests hasn’t changed anywhere near as much as the speed boost would indicate- though Opera 12 is no slouch in benchmark performance, either. According to Lee Matthews of Geek.com, Opera bested Chrome 12 in benchmark tests, and scored mere points behind Chrome 14. Not bad, Opera- not bad at all.
Opera 12 improves speed in a manner similar to Chrome- that is, it doesn’t actually reduce load times by being beefier, but rather contains a number of tweaks and tricks to make browsing faster. Specifically, Opera’s latest release is packaged with a number of network tweaks that are custom tailored to reduce latency. The Opera team has also made some pretty hefty improvements to the browser’s Presto rendering engine and its Carankan Javascript Engine, to boot. End result? Opera 12 feels obscenely fast.
So How Fast Is It?
I decided I’d give the browser a run myself. And I’m actually…very impressed. For all intents and purposes, it feels just as fast as Chrome(I’m using the most recent Developer build). Granted, I’m still sticking with Chrome for the time being, but…I think that Opera could actually end up being a contender in the race for web dominance, if they play their cards right. That’s a big if, though- speed isn’t everything.
The tweaks aren’t the only thing Opera 12 has going for it, either. Opera also features something known as “Turbo Mode;” which debuted in Opera 10. Basically, pages are compressed and cached via Opera’s servers. Kind of a simplistic explanation, but long story short; it makes Opera load pages faster-since there’s generally less data to load. Opera 12 doesn’t really play nice with Turbo quite yet, but that’ll likely be fixed in the final release.
Could Opera Challenge Chrome?
I actually rather like Opera. It’s aesthetically pleasing, fast, and reasonably powerful. If how well it performs is the only thing we’re taking into consideration…then yeah, it could most definitely challenge Chrome. The browser game, though…it’s changed. Though it’s certainly one of the most important elements of any web browser, it’s not the only thing to consider any more.Web applications, integration with other products and websites, instant pages…these are all advantages of Chrome’s that are rather lacking in Opera.
Just the same, Opera’s definitely got the potential to be a lot more than it is now. I’ll be keeping a close eye on it- and you should, as well.
via Geek.com
The Chromebook Receives A Plethora Of New Features
Posted on 11. Aug, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 2 Comments
Got some good news for all of you. See, the Chrome 13 release wasn’t the only thing that came to the Chrome Operating System in the last week and a half. You all know the basics of what Chromebooks got, of course- instant pages, print preview, all the good stuff that everyone’s been anticipating for weeks. On the Chromebook side of things, though….it brought a little more than a few bugfixes, security updates, and instant pages. A post went up yesterday on the Google Chrome blog, detailing exactly what’s new with Chrome. I daresay it’s a rather exciting update- and there’s most assuredly something for everyone.
