thechromesource – Google Chrome and Chrome OS News and Resources

thechromesource Daily: Links for 7/28/10

Posted on 28. Jul, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey.

One billion devices are a legitimate possibility for Android; at least that’s what Google CEO Eric Schmidt believes.

The dev channel of Chrome browser has been updated; the release includes some UI tweaks and stability fixes.

Apple has released an extensions gallery for its Safari browser creatively called – Safari extensions.

You can’t just throw out an OS like Windows because people are connected to the local applications says GigOM’s Sam Dean.

Is Facebook Questions a legitimate contender in the search market or will it just simply be an annoyance?

Why Use a Laptop When a Tablet Will Do?

Posted on 21. Jul, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the advent of the tablet. Sure, much has already been written about the subject, so I’d like to stay away from the normal conversation. I would, of course, like to reference some articles before I delve deeper here, including Devin Coldewey’s article about the coming onslaught of Android slates, as well as Christopher Dawson’s take on the amount of changes he’s seen in a month’s time of more people relying on tablets and smartphones.

I currently use a Dell v13, an $899 ultra light laptop that is loaded with Windows 7 for all of the work I do on this site. Notwithstanding the fact that I had a Dell tech replace the faulty touchpad within a month of purchase and the fact that the graphics capabilities are tethered to the Intel-based chipset, I’m happy with it. But a nagging feeling remains that my current setup is just not optimal. If there were a middle ground between smartphone and laptop that is not Apple based and could give me what I get from the v13, I would happily switch.

The problem with my current laptop is that even though it is light and very mobile, it lacks the “easy-on” that I need. It runs Windows 7, a behemoth that seems to be better suited for desktops or bulky replacements for such. I don’t need all the junk that comes with a Windows OS; I just need something that works. This is not to say I don’t want to tinker, but I would prefer everything be configured from the start, and I’ll mess with what I want to much later on.

I want a tablet; I just don’t want an Apple one. I also am not interested in one that runs Android because that’s for phones, not for computers. Do I need a keyboard? That’s a subjective question, since I do type a lot as a writer but if there is a badass alternative to this antiquated set of Chiclets that I use to communicate then I would be all for it.

What do you think? Is the time for grappling with Windows over? Where is the cloud-based Windows killer we’ve all been looking for?

Most Popular App on Android? The Browser

Posted on 15. Jul, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey.

Senior Vice President of Product Management Jonathan Rosenberg said on Google’s Q2 conference call today something that certainly bodes well for webapps, and maybe a different way of looking at mobile technology. The most popular application on the Android platform is, of course, the browser.

Is that true on Apple’s platform? Maybe, maybe not, I don’t know the answer (I did look), but without Flash, it makes one wonder how Apple plans on moving forward with apps. Do they want it to be the browser, or is it more profitable for them to keep all content (apps, music and movies) in their own Store?

Android’s browser shares some of Chrome’s elements, like the V8 JavaScript engine. How much more of Chrome will be lent over to the Android browser in the coming years? When will Chrome be the browser for Chrome?

Here is a graph provided by Business Insider from Nielsen, showing the top downloaded apps by smartphone. Where do you think the browser fits in on this graph for these phones? Is it the browser, as it is on Android? Also, note the amount of Google services (Maps, YouTube, Search) that comprises this graph.

Surprise – Google Recently Surpasses Yahoo in Time Visited

Posted on 13. Jul, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey.

Silicon Alley Insider’s recent chart showing the amount of time spent on major sites displays a strong push for both Google and Facebook, while the previous (shocking) champ Yahoo is experiencing a steady overall drop.

Yahoo and AOL are in steep decline, while Microsoft is simply staying afloat, most likely bolstered by spending hundreds of millions on marketing their Bing search engine. Apple, which is rumored to be preparing for a more cloud-based approach, isn’t even on this list.

Facebook has really pulled up close with Google, but co-founder Sergey Brin recently said the company is unfazed by Facebook’s growth.

“The indications that we have show that when Internet users become Facebook users they actually do significantly more searches on Google,” Brin told Reuters in Sun Valley, Idaho last week.

But Google isn’t resting on their laurels in regards to competing with Facebook. That would explain this recent release of a huge 216 slide presentation by Google UX researcher Paul Adams on the problems and opportunities of social networking.

Webapps Vs. Native Apps – A Battle of Control?

Posted on 08. Jul, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey.

Yesterday’s launch of the new YouTube Mobile site (just go to m.youtube.com) further reiterates something that has been in my thoughts ever since the explosive growth in mobile apps started. This has really led to another way for large technology companies to wall off their users, much like Microsoft has done over the years. Even though it’s great that you can have a mobile application for virtually anything that you want in your pocket, there are some inherent limitations to these native applications.

TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid makes a good point in his look at YouTube Mobile that the video quality is fantastic – better, he says than the native application that came with Apple’s iOS for the iPhone and iPad. That may have something to do with the fact that the webapp is built in HTML5 and optimized for the current wireless networks that devices use.

“Video on the HTML5 app looked much better, and was snappier to boot”, remarks Kincaid in his write-up.

All the more proof that giving browsers the ability to use the web as a platform to utilize applications is the future of computing, whether it be via a smartphone or a laptop. The idea of Chrome OS or other web operating system simply doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

One of the reasons that web applications have a clear benefit over native ones is interoperability. On the web, diverse applications are able to access and communicate data between one another in order to provide a seamless ecosystem. Think about Twitter, where users allow web applications such as HootSuite access to their accounts to better understand the underlying data. Or, as Kincaid remarks, the simplistic convenience of auto-fill in the YouTube Mobile app.

But what’s wrong with the way things are done now? We’ve seen both Apple and Google take take direct control of users’ devices. Even Amazon has removed books from its Kindle e-reader, citing copyright problems with a publisher. With the new browser technologies like HTML5, a third party cannot take away something that is on the web; and no developer or group of developers is dependent on an outside partner for its applications.

Sure, there are motives behind the decisions above in the face of security and potential lawsuits. Possible hurdles abound with what could happen in a world where applications are easily installed with one click. But Microsoft led a tech space for years that allowed people to put whatever they want on their computers, and despite their flagging performance, they’ve been around for over thirty years.

From Zero to Almost Ten Percent: How Chrome Surpassed Safari

Posted on 30. Jun, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey.

It has been big news recently that Chrome has overtaken Safari as the third most used browser in the U.S. While this statistic is one that’s skewed towards the United States since Chrome and Safari have been neck and neck, the reality is that Chrome took third place worldwide over Safari back in September.

The main reason that America has lagged in this regard is probably the fact that Apple sells so many computers in the United States, coming with the well regarded WebKit-based Safari.

But the point of this post is to understand how Chrome got this far in a period of two years. When I first tried Chrome as an early adopter-type in the beginning of 2009, I liked the design interface and the idea of “sandboxing” where every tab was its own process. The problem with Chrome at that time was one of compatibility: there were sites that did not function correctly with Chrome, a surprise to me because of its WebKit roots.

Over time, which really isn’t long by Google’s measurement, Chrome evolved. Many sites needed to adapt some functionality to Chrome, but for the most part it was the folks at Google working fervently to make the best browser available. Perhaps they knew that they were making the foundations of an operating system at the time, who knows?

Extensions

In December 2009, Google launched the Chrome Extensions web site, an opportunity for the company to better compete with Firefox’s vaunted library of add-ins. Not only did they take an existing idea, they improved on it by putting security limits around extensions at their site, making sure that proper measures are taken to make sure that personal data and important computer processes cannot be compromised through the browser. Clicking around at the Extensions site the other day it appears that there are over five thousand now available.

Translate

In the beginning, Google offered an extension that you could install into Chrome and translate different languages of the web. Then they started adding it into the development Chromium builds, and finally it was released with the launch Chrome 5 to users a few months ago embedded in the browser itself. This feature is so easy to use, and it unlocks the web for everyone to read no matter their language. Google took an existing service they had and put it right into the browser where it’s the most useful.

No Messing With Flash

Maybe Google sees something in Flash that Apple doesn’t, but they decided to take a very different approach to handling Adobe Flash than Cupertino. Instead of eschewing it completely, Google has embraced the technology. Flash is used in YouTube videos, for some streaming music sites and I’ve recently noticed it needs to be installed to use Google Analytics. So, unlike other browsers that require you to install it and then update to newer revisions manually, Google preempts any inconvienence and risk by making it a part of Chrome.

In the End

Relentless innovation has gotten Chrome browser this far. This is due to Chromium as an open source resource as well as the amount of manpower that Google has thrown towards it in anticipation of Chrome OS. I didn’t even get to talk here about interesting features like the omnibox, bookmark sync and geolocation, but they are an aside to these three major developments that are propelling this browser’s growth. How much market share can this browser take from Internet Explorer and Firefox in the months and years to come?

Will Developers For Google Platforms Make Any Money?

Posted on 25. Jun, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey.

It was brought to my attention recently an article talking about overall dollar amounts that developers make for their applications that are sold in top mobile marketplaces. Basically, a huge amount of money has been paid out to developers for Apple’s iOS, while Android has seen very little in revenues to those who create for that platform.

The fact that so little apps have been sold in the marketplace, coupled with the fact that there are more Android phones now being outsold by iPhones, brings up a few thoughts.

One is a recent report that says developers are indeed interested in making apps for Android tablets and smartphones; the problem is that this may be true, interest is not turning into solid numbers for the Android Market. For whatever reason, the overall amount of money that is going to app developers for Android is still small despite the interest. That’s a problem. Is it possible that Android users expect all of their apps to be available for free? That is indeed a possibility.

That brings the Chrome Web Store into the picture here. Expected to be the way that users will be able to buy apps when Chrome OS comes to market, one has to wonder whether it will be a boon for developers or not.

One way to prevent the same problems that Android is now experiencing is to launch an incentive-laden paid advertising model for the Chrome Web Store, one perhaps not unlike AdSense for websites. This way, developers can see that they need to create applications that captivate a large audience. This way, popular apps are created for the mass market, and creators make money for doing so.

It may not work for all applications, but it is a great way to launch an app market until there is a diverse set of people using the platform, which may be the underlying problem that currently plagues the Android Market. Too many people with the same interests, and for whatever reason not willing to pay up for apps like those who use the iPhone do.

Viacom Loses to YouTube: Good for User Content

Posted on 23. Jun, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey.

Viacom sued YouTube for $1 billion dollars back in 2007 over copyrighted content that was hosted on the video sharing site. Today, it was announced that Viacom has lost their suit against YouTube. A primary reason for this was that the content on YouTube has been declared as protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

This is a big deal, since it allows for people on the web to be able to share things that in the past could have proved to violate possible copyright laws. The problem up until now is that bloggers, user-generated content sites and social media mavens were in a gray area in regards to the legality of sharing certain things with other people on the internet. With this precedent today, we now have something to rely on that cements the web as a place to share thoughts and ideas about anything, as long as it is not outright stealing.

This also helps out in terms of cloud computing, as not only users were at risk previously, but also the datacenters that hold information. These massive structures full of servers are generally operated by large companies such as Google, Amazon and Apple – and I would assume that in the future possible legal disputes about user information stored in the cloud (whatever it may be) would have certain protections as well.

Content sharing and social media, along with cloud computing are starting to come out of the “Wild West” era, so to speak and it is further apparent that there is legitimacy for those who are involved in this space.

Who’s Going to Compete With Apple’s Tablet?

Posted on 22. Jun, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey.

The current state of the tablet market is pretty stale. And let’s not even go into the JooJoo.

I say this because when I was at Taiwan’s Computex 2010 conference less than a month ago there were some formidable competitors in terms of hardware, but the leading manufactures for these devices didn’t really offer a whole lot in terms of software.

Sure, the Acer tablet that allows one to flip the netbook-style form factor over to a table was impressive, but the touch functionality of Windows 7 for it was quite lackluster: I asked a product rep to reboot the device because there seemed to be a problem with the touch software, only to have the same problems crop up again once it started up.

Asus offered up a beautiful tablet design that had potential to compete with Apple, but they kept a product manager closely hovering over the device running a new version of Windows CE that looked surprisingly Android-like, but because of the people and Asus employees holding a close grip on the tablet, no one was really able to test the paces of Microsoft’s UI.

MSI had a winged version of a tablet running Android that seemed surprisingly comfortable in my hands, but we all know that Google’s smartphone operating system isn’t really meant for tablets – it just seemed like a supersized stock version of the OS. An MSI product manager also told me that the MSI Wind tablet was just a concept for now.

This is problematic. The reason why I say this is because since Apple has taken the world by storm plugging an already existing operating system with the iOS to a tablet form factor, that have essentially beaten the entire computer manufacturing market with the iPad. There is no one else that has an operating system that is fully compatible with touch on a tablet.

That’s not to say Android is far behind Apple’s touch-based operating system, but it is clear that unlike the iOS, there was no plan for tablets in its future. We’ve seen early on Google’s Chrome OS tablet concept, and we can only hope that Chrome OS will offer a stylishly-designed slate from the likes of HP, Dell or Acer in the coming months, hopefully something that is just as functional, open source for app developers and creatively designed mobile gadget that can compete with the iPad.

I hold out hope on this, because only one successful tablet in the market does not bode well for innovation. What do you think? Which one of these PC manufacturers has the best chance of offering a tablet running Chrome OS that can compete with Apple?

Adobe PDF Files Now Integrated into Chromium

Posted on 17. Jun, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey.

How will Apple combat the PDF on the web? They have already said that they won’t support Flash, and Adobe has since slowly backed away from support for anything related to Apple. It’s a smart move on Adobe’s part, and gives Google a chance to move in on the vacant space.

The Chromium Blog has just posted a bit about PDF files now being integrated into the browser. This is something I had expected to happen with the advent of Adobe’s Flash player being baked into Chrome, and this is a logical step forward since these files are ubiquitous on the web. At the forefront of this move are issues with security. There have been problems (and McAfee has pointed them out) with suspect PDF files causing havoc on machines.

In the Computerworld article linked above, a McAfee security specialist recommended sandboxing Adobe Reader files, something that is now being done by the Chromium team to further enhance Chrome’s overall security in the future.

With Google supporting Adobe’s formats (OK, two of them) they legitimize them on the web. There’s nothing wrong with that, other than the fact that they are tacking a stance that further differentiates them from Apple. It seems only logical to think that with Flash already being in the fold that supporting Adobe Reader’s PDF file format to be complementary to what has already been done with integration. Despite Apple’s concern everyone uses Flash and Reader so instead of chucking it out, why not find ways to solve the problem at hand?

At the same time, what is wrong with simply integrating PDF files into the web the way it’s done with Srcibd? This may just be another move for Google to pre-empt that company, just like purchasing YouTube gave them the defacto platform for video. Integrating PDF files gives Google the platform for enabling documentation that may have all sorts of importance to people that want to publish on the web yet still retain some degree of control.

This is starting in Chromium with the dev build, and surely will soon move to the beta and stable releases of Chrome.

Chrome 6 Versus Safari 5

Posted on 16. Jun, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey.

Safari 5 just came out last week, and Chrome 6 is still in development. Which one is faster?

thechromesource Daily: Links for 6/14/10

Posted on 14. Jun, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey.

Asus is working on an ARM tablet that will run either Android or Chrome OS and will be released by its AGAiT subsidiary.

A Google Executive has thrown in his opinion on the AT&T limits on data the company is imposing.

It appears that a Google Music service could be coming this fall, with some exciting features to compete with Apple.

Mobile devices that blur the line between smartphone and computer heat up the competition between Qualcomm and Intel.

Google sure does have a lot of money in its coffers to invest in or acquire companies with.

thechromesource Daily: Links for 6/11/10

Posted on 11. Jun, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey.

Extension syncing – which will allow individual extensions to share data with one another - appears to be coming to Chrome browser.

The plans that Google had to launch a desktop application to compete with Skype may be shelved indefinitely.

The FCC is promising increased regulatory scrutiny for both Apple as well as Google.

Is there merit to the claim that Google Apps lacks the requisite security needed to be used in the enterprise?

Potential Chrome OS competitor HyperSpace, whose operating system boots in ten seconds, has been purchased by HP.

thechromesource Daily: Links for 6/9/10

Posted on 09. Jun, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey.

Chrome OS will run legacy PC applications using a process unofficially called ‘Chromoting’ according to the Register.

In a partnership with HP, a launch of cloud-enabled printers will be coming soon allowing your printing to be wireless in the cloud.

The Dell Linux team has updated their build of Chromium, specifically for its line of netbooks.

Interestingly, Apple has been credited with spotting some bugs in the Chrome browser.

ZDNet asks, what will be the effects of Android and Chrome OS on the release of Linux distributions?

Google Knows that Their Growth Requires Outside Developers

Posted on 28. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey.

The barrage of information that came out of last week’s Google I/O conference is still hard to swallow, but one thing is clear that developer conferences for Google are going to become a focal point for the company going forward. Giving away the new Sprint HTC Evo phone certainly shows where they want folks to concentrate on, but anything that developers not employed by Google create is a win-win situation for both parties.

At one point, Eric Schmidt referred to the developers at the conference as customers, and rightly so. Not only are they customers, but they are part of the Google growth engine. What many naysayers who slam Google for their disruptive efforts don’t seem realize sometimes is that a great deal of wealth has come from what they have been able to do in search, advertising and most recently the mobile phone.

The fantastic business environment from creating new technology platforms that are less like Microsoft and closer to the Apple model is going to pay off for those who plug into them. Therefore, opportunity is beginning to trickle down into outside developers with all of the APIs that are being released by Google to allow for increased innovation, a level at which only those outside the company can foster for added growth beyond the company’s internal efforts to create new services.

That’s because being inside of a big company like Google now requires a lot of scrutiny and approval to get new ideas from within to the mass market. With the legal issues and public criticism the company has faced in 2010, don’t be surprised to see Google spend more time developing platforms and interfaces to develop upon as opposed to working on individual services/features that can now easily be done by those outside of the walls of Mountain View.

thechromesource Daily: Links for 5/24/10

Posted on 24. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey.

Google’s Adsense program keeps 32% of publishers’ revenue from content advertising, and 49% from search ads, it was released today.

Will Apple be able to keep up with Android’s frenetic progress?

Although it was not optimized for tablets and lacks (legitimate) access to official apps, Android slates are coming, hints NVIDIA’s CEO.

Partnering with Current Cost, Google will allow people to send their energy usage to its PowerMeter service to monitor usage stats in real-time.

Google VP of Engineering and head of Android Andy Rubin talked to Gizmodo about the short-term future of the operating system.

thechromesource Daily: Links for 5/21/10

Posted on 21. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey.

The Google-AdMob deal has been approved by the FTC, citing competition with Apple’s iAd platform in the mobile market.

Lilliputing has a review of the Compaq Airlife 100, a netbook that ships with the Android operating system.

Left out of a lot of I/O coverage was Google’s release of its Prediction API, which analyzes historical data to predict future outcomes.

Will Google and Rupert Murdoch eventually work together on a pay model for publishers on the internet?

Is Google’s decision to open source On2’s VP8 video codec with the WebM initiative going to create a big mess?

Google I/O Day 2: Android 2.2, an In-Depth Look at Google TV

Posted on 20. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey.

Some big platform changes were announced today at the second day of the Google I/O developer conference. Many exciting things were shown with the new version of Android, dubbed Froyo, as well as Google TV which is running a version of Android, along with some other technologies. Some exciting things were annpounced with Froyo along with some good humor ribbing against Apple.

Android

Some key changes for Android, shown off of the conference on a Nexus One, included the ability to send intents from the Chrome browser over the your mobile device. With this, there is an extension that runs in Chrome that allows you to send an “intent” over to your phone. This is all done with a new cloud to device API that Google will soon be offering.

The Google folks also showed off a method by which you can stream your music from your home computer to your smartphone, possibly showing off what will become an iTunes competitor.

Big changes are coming to the Android browser, with the V8 JavaScript Engine being ported over to make what is being called “the world’s fastest mobile browser”. Also, tethering from the phone was presented. I’m not sure how the wireless carriers are going to feel about all the bandwidth that could possibly be used (UPDATE: they will make the decision to enable it or not), but they showed off the Nexus One as a mobile hotspot with an Apple iPad connecting to it.

Google TV

Built with Android, Chrome and Flash this is an entirely new platform that allows all of the greatest features ported to TV. With these three technologies, you get fast browsing, Android applications and interactive content that works with Flash such as the video site Hulu.
Three reasons Google TV is being launched, in terms of current television limitations:
1. In the past, the web was “dumbed” down for TV.
2. TV is a closed system.
3. Right now, you must choose between TV and the web.
Instead of having to scan through guides on a traditional set-top box, Google TV will allow you to search for programs  much like you would via the web using a keyboard:

Search results are then displayed, and you can see how this will be able to be integrated into search for the web on your television as well, breaking down the barrier between the two:
As you can see, you are able to choose the source of the video you want to see, where you can utilize a traditional video channel, or you can go to a specific web site. The great thing about using the web video (possibly with the help of Chrome) is that sites are already capable of showing video on Google TV; they do not have to do anything special:

This can then be run in full screen from Amazon’s site:

Of course, YouTube will be a big player in Google TV, offering nontraditional programming right in your TV:

You can go back and watch what you want, whenever you want, and an example of this was the State of the Union address directly from the White House website:

Plus this uses all the existing content that is already available on the web. You can even use your android phone as a remote – and talk to it to define your search terms. There is so much information on this new development, there will be more posts to come on this.

It is expected that Google TV will be coming through DISH Network, Sony, Logitech and Best Buy. The platform will also be open source in the middle of 2011.

Nexus One Availability Shows a Shift for Google to Retail Stores?

Posted on 16. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey.

Well, at least the Nexus One web store experiment was interesting.

The recent announcement from Google’s Andy Rubin, VP of Engineering that the Nexus One will slowly migrate to retail outlets still shows us that they are not afraid to take risks in market disruption. It was a test worth watching: could Google single-handedly upend the traditional mobile phone market by selling phones through their own channels? Initial complaints with the web store were that when problems arose with the Nexus One, there was no real way to get customer support on the phone. This coupled with low sales numbers made it really hard to expect this model to work on a mass-market scale.

But there is a unique twist to all of this and one that bodes well for future hardware that runs on Google’s operating systems. Instead of having an online store, the idea is to replace that with a showcase-type web portal where people can get a handle on the different devices that run Android. In the future, that will also include devices that run Chrome OS whether they may be netbooks, smartbooks or tablets.

But a showcase can only display pictures, videos and specifications. What is really needed are physical stores.

Let’s not forget that a major engine of growth for Apple in the past decade has been their entrance into the retail market with their own stores. Even Microsoft now has their own retail shops in some test markets. The reality is that people who are early adopters in technology (like the Nexus One) don’t need to go to a traditional store to check out gadgets, but a large majority of people want to be able to see, touch and interact with a device before they buy it.

With Google, there are already so many Android smartphones available from a large swath of companies that it makes sense to have a showcase, quite possibly with their own branded locations. Eventually they will also have Chrome OS devices on display as well and at the same time will need to compete with Apple and Microsoft in this space, who are already ahead of them in this regard.