Back during Google I/O, there was much fanfare with the announcement that the Chrome Web Store would feature Angry Birds for free in HD glory for user to waste massive amounts of time upon. It was a great synergistic move between Google and the producers of Angry Birds, and has resulted in a promotion of sorts via a Chrome commercial that plays up the benefits of Google’s own browser.

While it’s unlikely that such a techie-oriented commercial will ever pop up on television, there continues to be strong efforts from Google to play up pop culture references in order to further Chrome’s expansion. Working in tandem with the company’s business efforts, they are certainly spending a lot of time to properly execute a marketing strategy that hits on all sides.

This new commercial comes in the same week that it is expected Chrome will soon surpass Firefox, long thought to be the dominating browser for developers and early adopters. The amount of sheer resources that Google has poured into Chrome and Chrome OS over the past year, along with marketing campaigns that Mozilla cannot match, is causing Chrome’s growth to be further propelled at Firefox and Internet Explorer’s expense.

Does commercial marketing help Chrome’s overall popularity? Do you even think that it is necessary?

via 9 to 5 Goole

If there’s one thing Google knows how to do, it’s tug at the heartstrings of consumers. I’ve once again got a rather brilliant Google Chrome advertisement to share with you folks- and it’s no less impactful than the others they’ve posted. On Wednesday, Google posted to their YouTube channel a video(seen above) titled “Google Chrome Thailand: Dog Lovers“. The video follows the story of a group known as SCAD-Soi Cats And Dogs- in Bangkok, Thailand- and more specifically, the story of a dog named Bernadette.

It begins with a simple email which a member of the group-or, perhaps, the founder,Nina- finds in her inbox entitled “Another abandoned Dog .” Nina responds with “We Have to Help!” and immediately springs into action, setting up a YouTube channel detailing SCAD and what they do. What follows is a montage detailing Bernadette’s recovery, chronicled via a series of YouTube videos posted on SCAD’s channel. Eventually, one of SCAD’s viewers emails SCAD expressing interest in adopting her. What follows is a series of ‘farewell photos’ of Bernadette; uploaded to Picasa by SCAD as she’s shipped off to her new home in the United States.

The last shot we see of Bernadette is her happily in the arms of her new owner, followed by several photos of other animals that found new homes thanks to SCAD. Finally, the video closes with Google’s trademark line: “The web is what you make of it.” Well-designed as always, Google.

Looking to support Soi Cats And Dogs? You can check out their YouTube Channel to find out more about them.

As you likely know, Chromebooks aren’t being sold in brick and mortar stores, at least not at this time. They are only being sold via the internet. Considering that the $350 – $500 is a lot of cash to invest in something you haven’t touched or seen up close, let alone something that whose most outstanding feature is a lack of features, it’s a very good idea to give the public more of an idea of what the Chromebook is about through a demonstration that is longer than your typical commercial.

The Samsung Series 5 Chromebook got just that treatment in the most unlikely of places: The Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Show. For three minutes, Fallon’s audience got to see Chromebooks in action. Not only that, but all audience members got Chromebooks themselves to take home. Resident tech expert for the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon show Joshua Topolsky demonstrated over-the-cloud syncing in Google Docs. The demo didn’t go too smoothly – syncing got disrupted because one of the Chromebooks went into sleep mode, but all in all, it was a positive presentation. Topolsky described cloud computing as “the future… look at Apple.”

True, Topolsky. If a traditionally hardware focused company like Apple is also trying to get to the cloud, that’s as good sign that it’s only a matter of time before cloud computing takes to the main stream.

You can watch the video here:

The Samsung Series 5 is not built like the Cr-48 in the respect that you can just swap out the battery. Because of this, Google and the designers from Samsung decided to put the developer toggle switch in a different spot for this device. It will be interesting to see where they put it in the Acer Cromia, which is reportedly getting a name change and being delayed until July. We’ll see about that, since the first delay was extremely abrupt and suggests that Acer wants a lot more information about Chromebook sales before they sell them. But without further ado, check out where to find this switch.

Once you’ve done this, you’ll need create a recovery USB drive to load a new image of Chrome OS on the machine. This image will not be verified, and therefore you’ll be able to root the device using the normal Linux commands. First, you’ll need to go into the terminal by hitting CTRL+ALT+T. Then type “shell” to drop to a full bash shell. You’ll be the special user named chronos. Type “sudo su” and your rooted!

Did you have any problems doing this on your Chromebook? Let us know in the comments.

I received my Series 5 yesterday, and I got a chance to take it out of the box real quick.

Why is it that the battery on these never have a charge out of the box? Anyone know?

While some of the earlier channels of the Chrome browser have had prerendering for some time, Google is now touting this technology and the fact that it is in the dev channel. Not aware of what prerendering is? Take a look at this video. It’s basically a prediction on what the next user action is in the browser is going to be.

Some of this browser technology is getting whiz-bang fancy. But seriously, what’s your opinion on a browser being able to predict with good accuracy what you are going to do next? Also, how do you think that competing browsers like IE and Firefox are going to be able to continue to compete with things like this being available in Chrome?

Via Chromium Blog

This certainly looks similar to other Samsung television advertising, so I’m going to guess that this might be shown on TV. Samsung has the bragging rights to say that they are one of the first manufacturers of Chromebooks, so they might as well take advantage of it. Although this is longer than a 30-second spot, it could be trimmed down for time.

Would this entice you to buy a Chromebook?

There’s still a week to go before these are supposed to hit the street, but some people are already getting their hands on the Samsung Series 5 Chromebooks. Here’s the first unboxing that I have seen as of yet. While most of us will have to wait to get these devices, take a look at what comes out of the package with this Chrome OS device.

What are your impressions?

via Chrome Story

Here’s a quick overview of Mozilla’s new cloud interface for PCs called Webian Shell. Essentially this is an effort to capture the wave that is Chrome OS by offering a “shell”  that works with your traditional operating system. There’s actually an app in the Chrome Web Store called Jolicloud that does this as well. Many of the concepts in this video remind me of what Google has been saying about the future of the computing experience in that almost everything that we do today on computers resides on the web.

Do you think Webian Shell is a competitor to Chrome? Would you use it?

Intercontinental Hotels uses Chromebooks as a better option for security purposes because of a number of features that these PCs have. They are planning on eventually converting most of their IT infrastructure over to the cloud and since they start testing them it has resulted in a drop in IT-related issues.

Would you use a Chromebook at work?