The Google Chrome team has released beta versions of its browser for the Mac OS X and Linux platforms. You can download the latest versions from the Chrome website.
In addition, there are now over 300 extensions that are available for the Windows and Linux platforms for extending the browser’s functionality.
Google has thrown their hat into the realtime search arena, joining other services such as Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook. Although those Web2.0 websites have had real-time search for some time, Google has been surprisingly absent until now. Google announced this today at their Search Event conference.
However, at this point in time, not every single Google account has the realtime feature turned on. To check whether you have this feature, visit Google’s main search page, and enter a search term. Once the results appear, click the Show Options link at the top, at which point you will (or won’t) have the “Latest” option in the time parameters section. The search results will now start updating automatically in a very similar fashion to those on Facebook or Twitter.
If your Google account does not have the realtime feature, you can see a video captured by TechCrunch:
No, don’t get too excited. This only lasts until Jan 15th 2010.
No, not a release of the much blogged about Chrome OS, but a webcast given by a VP of Product Management, Sundar Pichai. He starts off by talking about Chrome, the browser, then gets into Chrome OS itself.
Perhaps the biggest news of all is that the Chrome OS has been open sourced. Kudos again Google. Just one little detail, the open source version is called Chromium OS.
If you don’t know what Chrome OS is, then take a look at this entertaining video which explains what it is, and more importantly why.
Michael Arrington of TechCrunch is reporting that a Google Phone is imminent, possibly in early 2010. However, it may be a data-only VoIP ‘phone’ but what would be cool is if Google issues Google Voice phone numbers to those phones.
About the only bad piece of news here is that it may end up initially only on AT&T with other GSM carriers being maybes.
The hardware would in all likelihood be produced by some other hardware vendor but only have Google branding.
I’ve spent my own share of time criticizing Microsoft for their buggy software and unethical business practices, but I’ve got to give them kudos for this move. They are exchanging free (1-time use) WiFi service for just a single search on Bing, their new search engine. Pretty smart.
The goal is to get more people familiar with Bing and hopefully get them using it. The Bing team is working with JiWire which works with 60-70% of the WiFi market for airlines and hotels.
This is probably going to cost MS some dough, but they have it and it can potentially reap significant rewards. However, they’ll need to keep running creative ad programs like this if they want to really dent Google’s market share in search.
Google Dashboard is being labeled a ‘privacy tool’ by the media. I don’t understand why.Sure, it’s a nice tool that shows you on one page all of your Google accounts/products and their latest statuses.
Ok, so there are links on many of them so you can see the privacy policies, but not really much you can do about the policies! And this isn’t unique to Google. Pretty much every company out there has similar one-way privacy policies.
Folks (as herded by the media) are up in arms because they are being led to believe that Google is (becoming?) a big bad company that will take your private information and use it for nefarious schemes that will directly impact you. Well then, don’t give out your private information or opt out of using these products. Your government has more information on you and probably takes worse care of it than a Google does.
Remember, if you signed up for a Google account, no one twisted your arm, (except perhaps your geek friends!). Own up to your responsibilities and stop blaming the company(s) that are giving you useful, and in many cases free, products.
In another step towards the future, a page on the past is closed: GeoCities is being shuttered today by Yahoo, which purchased the free website host in 1999.
GeoCities circa 1996:
In a move that puts more emphasis on the bottom line, Yahoo is nudging new customers to its paid hosting service.
Of course, there’s another giant that still has a free, although not as well-known, hosting service: Google.
RIP GeoCities.
Keep your eyes peeled for this new Google Search feature. If your result pulls up a PDF file, then look for the “Quick View” link – that’ll open up the PDF doc as a Google Docs document which previews the PDF nicely without you having to download it and open it up in your computer’s PDF viewer. Great improvement over the HTML view of PDFs.
Got it? Confusing. Just try it – here’s an example: IRS Form 1099. Strangely not all PDF results get this treatment. Yet, I hope.
Google’s PowerMeter is going to see the light of day in a slightly different environment: coupled with a power-usage measuring device made by Energy Inc. Initially geared for analyzing the data from ‘smart’ power meters, Google’s software tool will now be usable with the same goal in mind.
The Energy Inc device will run about $200.
