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thechromesource Daily: Links for 6/14/10

Posted on 14. Jun, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments

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. 0 Comments

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. 0 Comments

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. 1 Comments

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. 0 Comments

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. 0 Comments

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. 4 Comments

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. 0 Comments

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.

thechromesource Daily: Links for 5/14/10

Posted on 14. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments

Chrome OS screenshots? Jason Kincaid over at TechCrunch did some digging over the Chromium site to find an almost Apple-like interface.

The Chrome browser development channel has been updated to version 6.0.401.1 with minor bug fixes.

Those who have a .edu email account will now get priority in getting Google Voice invites, which is Google’s VoIP service.

Google held their annual stockholder’s meeting this week, and CNET has a good brief of the goings-on.

The Nexus One is going to be more widely available from now on, being offered in retail stores with an eventual web store phase-out.

thechromesource Daily: Links for 5/10/10

Posted on 10. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments

Total sales last quarter for Android phones have topped Apple’s iPhone sales for the first time, according to Business Insider.

Conan O’Brien’s performance at Google HQ has been posted on YouTube.

Aaron West has an article showing you how to debug Flash in Chrome now that it has been integrated into the browser.

With the speculation persisting that Google may buy ITA Software, here are six things that Google could do in the travel space.

Google’s response, plus analysis by our friends at ReadWriteWeb about the recent privacy issues the company has faced, especially with Buzz.

How Many Marketplaces Can Google Have?

Posted on 10. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 1 Comments

Back in March, Google announced its addition to Google Apps for outside developers called the Google Apps Marketplace. Now, that’s not to be confused with Android Market, which is currently only for smartphones. And it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with the Google Analytics Application Gallery, or even the Google Chrome Extensions directory. I’m sure that I have inadvertently left out some marketplace or directory that Google has, but it’s hard to keep track.

Do you see where I’m going with this? I understand the point of having places for developers to connect with the Google platform, but at some point this is going to start getting confusing for people. Really, why isn’t there just one name for the place that developers can offer up as well as sell their own Google-related apps, extensions, widgets or whatever? It seems like that might be a bit easier.

Apple, in contrast, has the iTunes App Store. They smartly decided that when Apps started to become big with the advent of the iPhone that they would just suffix “iTunes” with “App Store”. Inside the iTunes App Store, they sell everything, and my intuition is that as they continue to expand; they will go on selling everything inside one marketplace.

There should be one central spot for developers to hawk their wares, and this is the place from where users can download them. It’s understandable that perhaps Google is waiting until their paid model fully develops. But let’s hope for the sake of organization they give it one really great name, throw everything in there divided by app/service/media format and advertise the snot out of it.