Posted 11/19/09 at 03:00:12 PM by Will Smith & Norman Chan

Google pulled the wraps off of Chrome OS today, and while there isn't a general availability announcement today, they spoke briefly about the Chrome browser (Linux and Mac versions due this year, along with support for extensions) before diving into the nascent OS. You can expect to see Chrome ship in about a year, and showed the first glimpses of the new OS, details about the architecture, the hardware it will run on, and gave us the first hints about what the Google Cloud OS will really look like.

Here's why Chrome OS won't be replacing Windows anytime soon. 

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Posted 11/19/09 at 01:30:28 PM by Norman Chan

 This morning, Google gave the first public demonstration of the Chrome OS they announced earlier this year. We'll have a full recap of the presentation later today, but Google has also released a 3 minute video explaining the basics of their netbook-targeted operating system. The basics: Chrome OS is Chrome web browser, built on top of a Linux kernel, which only runs web apps (ie. primarily used when you're connected to the internet). And it's being designed with specific hardware specs in mind. 

Hit the jump for the full video!

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Posted 11/13/09 at 06:00:50 PM by Paul Lilly

Google's lean, mean, browsing machine called Chrome is pretty darned zippy, but the search giant envisions a much faster Web. Enter SPDY, pronounced "SPeeDY," an early-state research project that is part of Google's effort to supercharge Web.

"SPDY is at its core an application-layer protocol for transporting content over Web," Google wrote in its Chromium blog. "It is designed specifically for minimizing latency through features such as multiplexed streams, request prioritization, and HTTP header compression."

Google is toying around with SPDY as a successor to HTTP. So far, it has only tested SPDY in lab conditions with some pretty impressive results. According to Google, it saw "significant improvement" when downloading the top 25 websites over simulated home network connections, with pages loading 55 percent faster.

"Thee is still a lot of work we need to do to evaluate the performance of SPDY in real-world conditions. However, we believe that we have reached th stage where our small team could benefit from the active participation, feedback, and assistance of the Web community," Google added.

Intrigued? Hit up the following links:

Early stage documentation
Curret code
Chromium Google Group

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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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