Posted 11/02/09 at 07:46:08 PM by Jason Barry

Google CEO Eric Schmidt is ready to put the hard times behind him and his company to usher in a new crowd of technological innovators. On the Google blog today, Alan Eustace, senior vice president of engineering and research, made an open offer to anyone who thinks they can make a difference to seek out Google for employment.

In the entry, he cites the success of Google Earth, Android, and Google Chrome as reasons to be technical innovators. He quoted Schmidt saying, “Innovation is the technological pre-condition for growth.” Eustace reiterated that the Google Chrome was the last in a long line of Google projects to receive the Founders Award, a multimillion-dollar stock bonus to all team members. "(The) future is shaped by small teams of creative people who want to make a difference. We're on the hunt for these kind of people -- let us know if you think you're one of them" said Eustace.

This is a much different attitude from earlier this year when Google made job cuts or lost some employees who felt their career path were best suited elsewhere.

Do you think you have what it takes to create the next Google Earth? Chrome? Gmail? Check out the postings on the Google site, or duke it out with your competitors on the comment board.

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Posted 10/18/09 at 10:12:41 AM by Justin Kerr

Google poured some much needed optimism into the markets last week by announcing some stellar third quarter earnings, giving hope that advertising markets around the world might finally be on the mend. Google turned in a Q3 profit of $1.64 billion, with a very respectable earnings per share of $5.13, a 27 percent boost from the same period last year. During the conference call Google CEO Eric Schmidt also declared that the search engine giant would be on the prowl for new acquisition targets, and would consider any company be it large or small.

News like this usually gets analysts all fired up trying to figure out where they will strike first, but Schmidt clarified that Google is primarily interested in search engines that target specific verticals, or could help them refine how search is performed. Google apparently is also on the lookout for companies that can help them improve their display ad business, or with the development of Chrome. "We have historically done an acquisition, perhaps, one a month or so, and those are typically small, they're typically a complete offering, they're typically technology-intensive," said Schmidt on the call. "They're not very expensive in the scheme of things, and they bring some specific technology."

Schmidt also confirmed that Chrome OS is on track for a beta release later this year, claiming that internal demos have proven it to be a superior offering for netbooks, and far beyond anything offered by either the Microsoft, or Linux camps in both “speed and efficiency”.

So who do you think Google should buy?

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Posted 10/02/09 at 11:45:07 AM by Norman Chan

Web applications are quickly gaining popularity over desktop programs for day-to-day tasks like email and calendar management, but you have to run a web browser and be tethered to an Internet connection to take advantage of these services. Luckily for you, both Google Chrome and Firefox actually offer the ability to turn these web apps into desktop applications.

Hit the jump to find out how!

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Posted 10/01/09 at 06:00:25 PM by Jason Barry

Similar to the IE Chrome Frame that Google released late last month, Mozilla suspects that Google’s engineers would have Firefox suffer the same fate.

The “Chrome Frame” idea is that within a completely different browser, Internet Explorer for example, one can view the website as Google’s Chrome browser would render it. The site can also take advantage of Chrome's latest technologies without installing a new browser.

Mozilla’s VP seemed a bit peeved about the whole thing. While it is still speculation on whether Google plans to create the plug-in, Mike Shraver, VP of engineering at Mozilla, says “I hope they won’t.” The biggest argument against Google, from Microsoft and now Mozilla, is that it over complicates the browsing process and can break certain aspects of the browser. Further, that HTML5 (supported in Chrome) is not a specified standard, and developers should be wary about developing with something that is not yet set in stone.

Ultimately, one would think Google’s thought process on the plug-in might be “one browser to rule them all,” and we all know how that turned out.

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Posted 09/30/09 at 11:00:28 AM by Paul Lilly

Turns out Microsoft isn't the only one concerned about Google's Chrome Frame, an extension which embeds Google's Chrome browser in Internet Explorer. Emerging as an unlikely supporter in Microsoft's corner, Mike Shaver, VP of Engineering for Mozilla, added his thoughts in a blog post.

"Running Chrome Frame within IE makes many of the browser application's features non-functional, or less effective," Shaver wrote. ""These include private browsing mode or their other security controls, features like accelerators or add-ons that operate on the content area, or even accessibility support."

Shaver when on to say that the users would be "seriously hindered" in understanding the web's security model and how their browser operates. A better solution, says Shaver, is if Frame-friendly sites explained to users that their site worked better in Chrome.

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Posted 09/29/09 at 09:21:55 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Steve Ballmer recently sat down with Techcrunch to wax philosophical about browsers and their connection to the operating system. Ballmer was asked about the legal disputes over Internet Explorer bundling. Without missing a beat, he called the notion that operating systems can be independent of internet access “not a sensible concept”.

Ballmer went on to take a few swings at the upcoming Chrome OS, saying, “If you remember, [Marc Andreessen] said something like, Windows will just be a poorly debugged set of device drivers running Netscape… Now, that’s kind of basically the attitude expressed in Chrome Browser, Chrome OS.” He also called Chrome’s browser market share a “rounding error”, but noted that Firefox is having a real impact. Ouch for Chrome.

When asked about how Microsoft will fare against the continued onslaught of competitors, he answered like he’d been thinking about it a lot. Ballmer explained that Macs attack from the top of the market, and PC sales have gained a bit on Macs in the last year as people shied away from more expensive options. He went on to say that Netbooks were going to continue to be a big part of the Windows strategy.

Ballmer clearly lays out a world in which competitors are sometimes operating systems, sometimes browsers, and in the future may even be both. Even with all these new threats, he seems pretty sure Microsoft will stay on top. What do you think?

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Posted 09/17/09 at 05:27:32 AM by Andy Salisbury

Upon the release of version 3.0 for their web browser, Chrome, Google has stated that they’ve got some pretty sizeable goals for the fledgling application.

Google has reported that Chrome currently holds less than three percent of the browser market, but they expect that a year from now that number will grow to five percent. But, in two years Google is planning on that number growing twofold, and jumping up to ten percent. If it doesn’t, Google’s own Engineering Director of Chrome Linus Upson will be “exceptionally disappointed.”

Sure, the goals are a bit lofty, but between the advertisements running on both the Internet and TV and the soon to be released Mac version, Google should be able to make up some ground.

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Posted 09/16/09 at 07:35:07 AM by Paul Lilly

Google on Tuesday put the final coat of polish its Chrome 3.0 browser and has begun offering up the stable build to the general public. The release comes just two weeks after Chrome celebrated its first birthday and is the result of 51 developer, 21 beta, and 15 stable updates, along with 3,505 bug fixes, Google says.

As with every new major browser release, JavaScript performance takes center stage. According to Google, Chrome 3.0 is 150 percent faster in JavaScript chores than the company's very first beta, and more than 25 percent snappier since the most recent stable release.

In Chrome 3.0, you can now rearrange thumbnails of recently visited sites when you first fire up the browser, as well as pin thumbnails to a specific spot so they don't disappear.

Other additions include an improved Omnibox with an optimized presentation of the drop-down menu, additional HTML5 capabilities, such as the <video> tag, and support for Themes.

If your browser hasn't automatically updated yet, you can manually snag the latest stable build here.

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