Web developer perspective of Chromium

Building Google Chrome: A first look

http://weblog.infoworld.com/fatalexception/archives/2008/09/building_google.html

EU justice chief welcomes Google privacy move

1 hour ago

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) — The EU's top justice official on Thursday welcomed a recent move by Google Inc. to cut the time it keeps users' search details.

Jacques Barrot, the EU's justice and home affairs commissioner said Google's announcement earlier this week was "a good step in the right direction."

He said however, Google's move to cut its retention of data logs from 18 months to nine should be trimmed further to six months.

Barrot said "awareness and compliance with fundamental human rights are of pivotal importance" for Internet service providers such as Google.

Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy adviser, said the company would work closely with EU data and privacy supervisors "to set the standard on respecting privacy."

Google announced Tuesday that it would apply the new privacy changes to its sites worldwide. EU data-protection officials have questioned the need for search engines to keep data on users' searches.

An EU report in April on search engines recommended changes to their practices to meet European data retention and privacy rules.

Google had long argued that its retention period complied with EU data privacy rules, but it moved in 2007 to limit data logged from searches to 18 months.

Competitors Microsoft and Yahoo have also limited the time they retain such data. Microsoft keeps search data for 18 months and Yahoo 13 months

Google Launches Satellite for Google Maps

GeoEye-1 will capture high-resolution earth images for exclusive use on Google Maps.

By K.C. Jones 
InformationWeek 
September 8, 2008 12:08 PM 

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has expanded its reach into space with the successful launch Saturday of a new satellite that will provide the company with exclusive images for its maps.

After an 11:50 a.m. takeoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the GeoEye-1 satellite relayed a downlink signal to a ground station in Norway, confirming that it had separated from its United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket and had begun to initialize its onboard systems.

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The satellite launch was coordinated by terrain mapping company GeoEye. "Based upon the data we saw, the satellite is performing properly and ready to begin the next phase towards meeting its mission requirements," said Bill Schuster, GeoEye chief operating officer, in a statement.

GeoEye said the 4,310-pound satellite required calibration and check-out period before the company would sell its images.

Although GeoEye did not mention Google in any of its announcements regarding the satellite, the search engine giant's name appeared on the satellite and company founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page attended the launch, according to reports.

GeoEye said it plans to sell the images to customers around the world, but a Google spokesperson said that Google has exclusive rights to the images for commercial maps.

"The imagery from GeoEye-1 adds to the quantity and quality of that currently provided by our IKONOS satellite, and together this magnificent constellation will enable us to meet world-wide customer demand," Matthew O'Connell, GeoEye CEO, said.

GeoEye-1 is part of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), NextView program, which aims to obtain timely and accurate commercial satellite imagery.

It will collect 0.41-meter ground resolution black and white images and 1.65-meter color images simultaneously. It can show objects as small as 16 inches. U.S. licensing restrictions limit commercial images to a half-meter ground resolution.

The satellite can capture the images from 423 miles above the Earth and travel about 4.5 miles per second.

General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems in Gilbert, Ariz., built the satellite, while ITT in Rochester, N.Y., developed the imaging system. ITT is building another imaging system for GeoEye-2, which is scheduled to launch in 2011.

GeoEye said it won a $500 million NextView contract four years ago, and it built and launched the satellite with no cost overruns. 

Google Navy?

Google launching its own navy?

Penguin deathwatch continues

By Cade Metz in San Francisco → More by this author

Published Monday 8th September 2008 21:46 GMT

About 70 per cent of the Earth is covered by water. So Google's thinking it had better build some data centers that can float.

With a recently-released patent application, the search giant cum world power seeks exclusive rights to what it calls a "water-based data center." This modular collection of processing, storage, and network resources would sit on a ship anchored somewhere offshore, using the crashing waves for both power and cooling.

Google's floating data center

Google envisions its seaworthy data center serving land-bound humans in times of emergency. "For example," the applications reads, "a military presence may be needed in an area, a natural disaster may bring a need for computing or telecommunication presence in an area until the natural infrastructure can be repaired or rebuilt, and certain events may draw thousands of people who may put a load on the local computing infrastructure.

"Often, such transient events occur near water, such as a river or an ocean. However, it can be expensive to build and locate data centers, and it is not always easy to find access to necessary (and inexpensive) electrical power, high-bandwidth data connections, and cooling water for such data centers."

Famously, Google has already patented data centers that tuck inside standard shipping containers, and these mobile modules would serve as building blocks for its water-based compute center.

Sergey and Larry might hoist their shipping containers onto that anchored ship. Or they might set them up on dry land, not too far from the waves. In either case, power could arrive from so-called Pelamis machines, Scottish-designed contraptions that convert waves into electricity. And seawater cooling units could keep all that shipping container-ed hardware from overheating.

Naturally, Google isn't the first to dream up such a thing. A company called IDS is working on its own floating hardware - though it sees things a bit differently. "IDS floating data centers will be anchored in port the majority of the time, whereas [Google's] will be positioned out at sea," reads a blog post from the company. "There [are] also some significant differences in the way sea water is used for cooling, and obviously some differences in power generation."

Of course, IDS isn't blanketing the planet with its very own built-from-scratch internet. We can safely say that Google is building its ownservers, its own Ethernet switches, its own underwater comms cables, its own worldwide collection of brick and mortar data centers, and its own truck-em-anywhere-you-want mobile data centers. And now it looks like the company is well on its way to floating its own Data Center Navy. When we accused Larry and Serge of killings penguins, we didn't known the half of it. ®

Google fixes Chrome vulnerabilities--but won't say which

Updated 1:44 p.m. PDT with details that Chrome automatically updates itself with no notification or choice for the user.

Google has quietly begun releasing a hastily prepared update to its Chrome browser to fix some security problems.

The new version, 0.2.149.29, replaces the 0.2.149.27 that was released when Google launched the Chrome beta version last week. Google started releasing the update Friday, initially to a small number of users, but didn't make much of an announcement about the change.

To check if an update is available, click the wrench icon in Chrome's upper-right corner, then select 'about Google Chrome.'

(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET News)

"149.29 is a security update and we released it as fast as we could," said Mark Larson, Google Chrome program manager, in a mailing list posting on Sunday. "We would've liked more time to prepare things, but some of the vulnerabilities were made public without giving us a chance to respond, update, and protect our users first. Thanks for being patient as we work out the kinks in all of our processes."

However, Google isn't revealing details yet about what security issues it's fixed.

"All users have not received the update yet, so we cannot discuss the details of the security issues that were addressed, but we plan to disclose more information once the update has reached all of our user," the company said in a statement Monday.

To check if an update is available, Chrome users can click the wrench icon in Chrome's upper-right corner, then select "about Google Chrome." That will show both the version number and a message indicating whether an update is available.

Google knows best
Without a manual check, Chrome will update itself automatically, Google said. "Google Chrome will automatically checks for updates approximately every five hours. If an update is available, it will be downloaded and applied at the next browser restart," Google said.

Google believes it's best if Chrome applies security updates not only without a description of what's changing, but also without an opportunity for users to decide whether to accept the patch.

"Users do not get a notification when they are updated...When there are security fixes, it's crucial that we update our users as quickly as possible in order to keep them safe. Thus, it's important for us to not require user intervention," the company said in a statement."There are some security fixes that we'll keep quiet because we don't want to disclose security vulnerabilities to attackers."

The automatic update policy applies to security and bug fixes. "For major version updates, when feature changes are involved, we'll explore options for providing users with more details about the changes," Google said.

Microsoft and Mozilla encourage users to download and apply updates automatically to Internet Explorer and Firefox, respectively, but users can chose not to do so.

Automatic updates can cause indigestion in corporations where internal administrators often want control over what software is running or not for compatibility, security, and other reasons. But browser browser vulnerabilities loom larger as more applications move to the Web and more people rely on those services, and automatic updates can help nip attacks in the bud.

Open-source redactions
Don't look for clues about the vulnerabilities in the Chrome source code. The open-source Chromium project haspublicly available mailing lists and source code, but many recent changes to the code base are redacted to show only a blank page rather than the detailed changelog notes of other changes.

"Most of the changes are visible, aside from security changes, which we must keep private in order to keep users safe," Google said of the changelog.

Programming fans also won't be able to glean any insights from the Chrome update plug-in, which is proprietary.

"We use this updater and the server architecture it interfaces with to update across many of our products, some of which are not open source," Google said. "It's not that we are trying to hide anything; rather, it's just that this update infrastructure is not intended to be used by others who may distribute their own versions of the browser based on Chromium code."

Reported vulnerabilities
One security problem found in Chrome version 0.2.149.27 is a carpet-bombing vulnerability that could help an attacker install malicious software on a user's computer without giving the user a chance to accept or reject the download. Google assigned the problem a top priority.

Another reported issue in Chrome 0.2.149.27 is a buffer overrun that could allow an attacker to run arbitrary code on a user's computer and thereby take control of it, according to Bach Khoa Internet Security.

The company was willing to discuss some other details about the update, though. For one thing, the company updated a JavaScript problem that could cause problems using Facebook. For another, it fixed a problem that would crash the entire browser if a person typed "about:%" into the address bar. Google called the problem "non-exploitable, but very annoying," reflecting the removal of the "security" label from the bug report.

Google aims to digitize more old newspapers

Search and advertising giant Google Inc. plans to add “millions of pages” of old newspapers to online archives that can be searched.

Mountain View-based Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) already collects and organizes news stories at its Google News web site, but now plans to add archives of regional papers like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which users will be able to see not just as text, but as images of the pages of the newspapers themselves, complete with ads and photographs.

Material from major national papers like the New York Times and the Washington Post has already been put up by those papers themselves, and Google has helped index those files.

One of Google’s partners on the project is the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph, a paper that has been publishing for 244 years.

Google joins a growing stampede of efforts to put musty old documents online. Some local businesses, like Octavo in Oakland, have been making searchable, photo-realistic copies of old books like Shakespeare’s sonnets, Isaac Newton’s Opticks or Galileo’sSidereus Nuncius available for nearly a decade.

These versions have photos of pages that can be enlarged enough even to see tiny worm holes in the pages, yet the text visible on the screen can also be searched.

Amazing chrome: Pull out a Tab into a Browser and Put it back

Chrome lets you do pull tabs.

Chrome asks you if you need to restore in case of system refresh

Chrome lets you put a tab back, while moving tab, it shows the metatag, context and visuals.

Chrome lets you do an update while you still work

Chrome browser buffers old plugin state

Try installing adobe macromedia flash movie plugin, u wont get it on Chrome making you believe that the plugins are not working. 

However the reason, Chrome is faster is that the buffers wont see a new plugin even though its there.

Chrome unlike IE allows you to upgrade its version, while you just work, incredible isn't it, well google is targetting the basics of upgrades methodology and buffer logic of yesteryears like Microsoft

Beta Chrome, sweet or not set to fight IE in India

http://infotech.indiatimes.com/quickiearticleshow/3441195.cms

Having launched its browser on Tuesday, Google will now go all out in a war against Microsoft's Internet Explorer by sewing up distribution agreements for its browser Chrome beta with cyber cafe owners in countries like India to take on Microsoft's OEM bundling strength. 

This was stated by Sundar Pichai, Google's vice-president for product development and incharge of Chrome development. In a chat with Indiatimes Infotech over video-conferencing from Google's Mountain View headquarters late on Tuesday night (US time), Pichai said Google recognised Microsoft's strength in the browser space as it is the browser of choice for most desktop vendors worldwide. 

The company will also work pro-actively with the enterprise users and developers alike. 

http://weblog.infoworld.com/robertxcringely/archives/2008/09/chrome_sweet_ch.html

Chrome sweet Chrome?

It's all Chrome, all the time, here on the InterWeb. Does Google's browser beta live up to the hype? Well, yes and no. Cringely has more.

TAGS: Great Googley Moogley, Microsoft Madness

Google finally enters the browser business (finally fulfilling years of rumors), and you'd think there was nothing else going on in the world -- no political conventions starring pistol-packing ex-beauty queens with pregnant teenage daughters, no hurricanes turning the weather over the southeast into the world's biggest daiquiri machine. Nope, nothing but all browsers all the time.

Everyone and their dog is doing back flips trying to review the browser before anyone else. So there's a lot of Chrome out there on the Web today, some of it more polished than others.  

But first, a question. Before it made the Chrome beta available, Google felt compelled to publish a comic book describing its many technical wonderments. So: Why is it everyone feels the need to generate comic books to explain things to us? (Or, for that matter, why Hollywood would be dead without Marvel or DC Comics?)  Have Americans grown into such dim bulbs that we need pictures to understand anything?

Having watched two weeks of political conventions on TV, I'm thinking the answer might be yes.

Now, the browser. I spent the first 10 minutes using Chrome feeling rather dim myself because I could not locate the friggin'  "home" icon. Then I discovered why: Google hid it. You have to go to Chrome's Options menu to turn it on. So it seems the wattage coming out of Google isn't as high as it used to be either.

Otherwise, though, Chrome is amazingly nimble and stable, page loads are lightning fast, and it runs rings around Firefox and IE in terms of system resources. I opened 25 tabs at a time, trying to see when it would hit the wall. It didn't. And total memory usage was still under 100MB, though it's hard to tell exactly since Chrome seems to open separate executables for each tab. That also means if one page crashes, it doesn't take your whole browser with it (at least, theoretically).

I've never managed to open more than 10 tabs or windows inside IE without it bringing my system to its knees. I can do more than 20 in Firefox, but then it starts to waddle like Rosie O'Donnell carrying a 30-pound Butterball between her thighs. So Chrome lives up to the hype in that regard.

Now for the downside. As Infoworld's Paul Venezia notes, it still lacks plug ins for Java and Shockwave. Technologizer's Harry McCracken also notes that Chrome is innovative and impressive, but woefully incomplete: It doesn't support RSS or even the Google Toolbar (hmm, shades of Microsoft there). The always list-happy PC World offers up seven reasons to love Chrome and seven reasons to hate it -- with the biggie being #5 on the hate list: by using Chrome, you're handing yet another slice of your privacy over to Google. And once they finally turn evil -- fahgeddaboutit.

Of course, Chrome is an early beta that will add plug ins and features over time. I'm sure the warts will also grow more obvious.

Some analysts are saying Chrome is the dagger that will strike Microsoft in the heart. (Though I'm pretty sure you need to kill vampires with a wooden stake.) I think they got the plot right but the characters wrong. If any one is going to get thrown under Google's Chrome wheels, it will be Firefox. Internet Explorer is still protected by Newton's Third Law of User Inertia: As long as it still works, most people will be unmotivated to change. It's why AOL is still around after all these years.

Those who seek alternatives like Firefox will naturally be attracted to the open source Chrome, which bears more than a fair resemblance to it. And Mozilla gets nearly all of its revenues from a search deal with Google. I can't imagine the G-men continuing to do that once Chrome comes out of beta (my prediction: 2012). After that, well, buh-bye Firefox, it's been nice knowin' ya.

Now: When they start selling 2-pound notebooks with just Chrome on them as an OS and everything in the cloud, that's when Microsoft needs to worry. I'd certainly line up to buy one. Wouldn't you?

Is Chrome a Windows killer? Or are we all suffering from browser fatigue? Post your thoughts below or email them to me: cringe (at) infoworld (dot) com.

Posted by Robert X. Cringely on September 3, 2008 07:40 AM

Google Chrome Browser 0.2.149.27

http://evilfingers.com/advisory/google_chrome_poc.php?tag=mncol;txt lists the first security flaw of google chrome

Google's Orkut Updated with More S60 Support

Google's Orkut is a social networking service that's optimized for mobile phone use. A web-enabled mobile and data plan is enough to connect with friends and family whether they are on a mobile or laptop device.
This latest version of Orkut adds an optimized experience for Symbian Series 60 (3rd Edition) phones. The ability to upload images right from the mobile, in addition to create mobile-friendly galleries, highlight these optimizations.
As with many other Google offerings. Orkut is a free service. To learn more and see the latest features, visit http://m.orkut.com via any mobile phone browser.

Microsoft vs. Google

November 21, 2005 (Computerworld) -- Are Office Live and Windows Live Microsoft's response to Google? 
Microsoft's announcement of these new online services was interesting, and there are implications for IT folks. 
The speculation about these services being a reaction to Google isn't totally off the mark, given the fact that Google is making use of Microsoft's own Windows platform and applications to extend its reach. For example, Google's toolbar for Internet Explorer, Google Desktop (which works well with all of Microsoft's desktop applications), Google Earth (Windows only) and Blogger for Word all leverage Microsoft's stuff. 
Office and Windows Live are Microsoft's acknowledgement of these attempts to co-opt the traditional Microsoft space with new offerings built around Web 2.0 technologies. There's been a lot of buzz about using Ajax for rich Web development, and Microsoft wants to be part of that buzz. At the same time, Microsoft knows that a rich-applications-and-operating-system model still has a lot of life left in it. It's not about one vs. the other for Microsoft; it's about both working together. The new services recognize the importance of connectivity and the near-ubiquitous nature of high-speed access but also combine those with the richness that you get from a traditional model. 
These aren't replacements for Office or Windows but extensions of them. If you're looking to replace Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook with these offerings, you're looking in the wrong place. Likewise, this isn't about a retreat from Windows as the core operating system platform. 
Overall, this strategy makes sense to me. It's a way for Microsoft to participate in the next generation of Web applications while furthering the reach of its core business for Windows and Office. Look for this extension to continue as we get closer to a real beta of Windows Vista. This move also repositions MSN as a content portal and allows the MSN technologies to tie directly into the Windows brand, which may give them more allure for both business and consumer end users. 

The bottom line is that the new Live strategy is about the fact that Microsoft faces very different challenges today in both the business and consumer markets than it did in the '80s and '90s. A skirmish with Google may seem similar to battles Microsoft fought against the likes of Netscape or Novell, but it's not the same at all. Google is also a very different company than Netscape was; there are far more business users and consumers using Google than ever used Netscape, and most of them see no need to switch to anything else. Google has evolved into a verb. When was the last time someone said they were going to "MSN Search" you? 
Live is a critical strategy to leverage the traditional power of the desktop operating system and applications model and extend it to the next generation of Web technologies. This is only the first phase. Look for more offerings for small and midsize businesses when Office Live is launched in 2006 and the next version of Office ships. Microsoft's news was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of Web-based service offerings. It's time to take a closer look at what Microsoft has done to get a glimpse of where it's going.

Google leads with 61.5% share of search market, gains 0.4

comScore Releases July 2008 U.S. Search Engine Rankings

 

RESTON, VA, August 21, 2008 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly comScore qSearch analysis of the U.S. search marketplace. In July 2008, Americans conducted 11.8 billion core searches (up 2 percent versus June) as Google Sites slightly extended its lead in core search market share by 0.4 percentage points.


July 2008 U.S. Core Search Rankings

Google Sites led the U.S. core search market in July with 61.9 percent of the searches conducted, up from 61.5 percent in June, followed by Yahoo! Sites (20.5 percent), Microsoft Sites (8.9 percent), Ask Network (4.5 percent), and AOL LLC (4.2 percent). 

 
comScore Core Search Report*
July 2008 vs. June 2008
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch 2.0

Core Search Entity 
Share of Searches (%)

Jun-08 
Jul-08 
Point Change 

Jul-08 vs. Jun-08

Total Core Search 
100.0% 
100.0% 
NA

Google Sites 
61.5% 
61.9% 
0.4

Yahoo! Sites 
20.9% 
20.5% 
-0.4

Microsoft Sites 
9.2% 
8.9% 
-0.3

Ask Network 
4.3% 
4.5% 
0.2

AOL LLC 
4.1% 
4.2% 
0.1


* Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

 

 

Americans conducted 11.8 billion searches at the core search engines, representing a 2-percent gain versus June. Google Sites handled nearly 7.3 billion core searches (up 2 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.4 billion and Microsoft Sites with 1 billion.

 

 
comScore Core Search Report*
July 2008 vs. June 2008
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch 2.0

Core Search Entity 
Search Queries (MM)

Jun-08 
Jul-08 
Percent Change 

Jul-08 vs. Jun-08

Total Core Search 
11,541 
11,753 
2%

Google Sites 
7,096 
7,273 
2%

Yahoo! Sites 
2,416 
2,405 
0%

Microsoft Sites 
1,056 
1,045 
-1%

Ask Network 
501 
531 
6%

AOL LLC 
471 
499 
6%


* Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

 

July U.S. Expanded Search Rankings

In the comScore July 2008 analysis of the top properties where search activity is observed, Google Sites led with 9.9 billion searches, a 4-percent increase versus June. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 2.5 billion searches, followed by Microsoft Sites with 1.1 billion and AOL LLC with 814 million.

 
comScore Expanded Search Query Report
July 2008 vs. June 2008
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch 2.0

 

Expanded Search Entity 
Search Queries (MM)

Jun-08 
Jul-08 
Percent Change 

Jul-08 vs. Jun-08

Total Expanded Search 
16,668 
17,158 
3%

Google Sites 
9,601 
9,945 
4%

  Google 
7,277 
7,463 
3%

  YouTube/All Other 
2,324 
2,482 
7%

Yahoo! Sites 
2,570 
2,546 
-1%

  Yahoo! 
2,530 
2,510 
-1%

  All Other 
40 
36 
-10%

Microsoft Sites 
1,102 
1,090 
-1%

  MSN-Windows Live 
1,069 
1,058 
-1%

  Microsoft/All Other 
33 
32 
-3%

AOL LLC 
792 
814 
3%

  AOL Search Network 
430 
452 
5%

  MapQuest/All Other  
362 
362 
0%

Fox Interactive Media 
457 
547 
20%

  MySpace  
448 
539 
20%

  All Other 
9 
8 
-11%

Ask Network 
506 
535 
6%

  Ask.com 
341 
364 
7%

  MyWebSearch.com/ All Other  
165 
171 
4%

eBay 
444 
435 
-2%

Craigslist.org 
342 
340 
-1%

Facebook.com 
157 
173 
10%

Amazon Sites 
152 
166 
9%


 

To request more information on comScore qSearch 2.0, please visit http://www.comscore.com/contact

 

About comScore 

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and the preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/boilerplate

 


Contact:
Andrew Lipsman
Senior Analyst
comScore, Inc. 
312-775-6510
press@comscore.com

Medio Systems Inc. to benefit deal between Google and Verizon

Telecom company Verizon Communications Inc. is nearing agreement with Google Inc. on a wide-ranging deal to boost internet searches by cell phone users, according a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Verizon (NYSE: VZ) considered other possible partners for the mobile search deal, including Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), of Redmond, Wash., the report said.

A Seattle startup, Medio Systems Inc., may benefit from a Verizon-Google tie-up. Medio Systems already handles digital content searches for Verizon and would manage an enhanced search service in the event of a Google deal, The Wall Street Journal said.

Verizon, of New York, and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), of Mountain View, Calif., are still negotiating key issues and the deal isn’t final yet, the report said.

Android phone may launch with T-Mobile this fall

The first Android-enabled phone may be hitting the US market within the next couple of months, if recent buzz ends up being accurate. The device will be made by HTC and available through T-Mobile sometime before the holiday season, possibly as early as October. Assuming all goes smoothly, Google will live up to its promise of delivering Android during the second half of 2008. 
Google says Android still "on schedule" for 2H 08 launch
T-Mobile and Google cozy up with Android
Why Google chose the Apache Software License over GPLv2 for Android
App developers grow impatient with lack of Android updates

The news of T-Mobile's Android launch comes by way of "people briefed on the company's plans" who spoke to the New York Times. The launch date of the device is up in the air due to uncertainties in the Federal Communication Commission's timing—the Commission must first approve both the hardware and software for use on US cell networks before it can be sold to customers. Reportedly, executives at all three companies (Google, HTC, and T-Mobile) plan to announce the phone in September in order to benefit from impending holiday season sales. Our own sources within T-Mobile acknowledged that an Android phone is on the way, but declined to answer any questions regarding a launch date.  

The HTC device in question is nicknamed the "Dream," and various sightings of it have been making the rounds on the Internet, as it's one of the first (and one of the most impressive) Android devices that anyone has seen. A video of someone using the device and its Android software popped up on YouTube late last week, but it's not as if HTC's involvement with Google was ever a huge secret. The Android-capable HTC Dream, with its large touchscreen and slide-out keyboard, was even demoed at the Google I/O conference earlier this year. 

Many are expecting the first Android phone to rival Apple's iPhone in a number of ways. For one, it will be another major mobile operating system that isn't provided by one of the Old Guard (Nokia, Motorola, etc.), and from the looks of it, it could end up being pretty slick compared to most other mobile offerings. Google claims the platform will be open to third-party developers—a rarity among mobile phones in general and a stark contrast with Apple, which has made headlines for its new development platform. On the flip side, Apple's iPhone SDK and App Store make for a very smooth buying experience from the consumer perspective, and the process for distributing software to Android devices hasn't been revealed yet. 

In June, it was rumored that the first Android phones would be delayed and hit the market later than originally planned. A number of mobile phone operators that planned to roll out Android-equipped devices claimed that they had run into roadblocks that could hold them back until the end of the year, if not 2009. In fact, sources within Sprint stated at the time that the company wanted to launch an Android phone this year, but was no longer able to do so, thanks to Google's plans with T-Mobile. 

Google insisted that everything was still on track for an Android launch during the second half of 2008, and that's still technically true—as long as a single Android phone is available before the end of the year, that goal will be met. It's looking more and more like that phone will now be the HTC Dream from T-Mobile, which will no doubt be hailed as a major step for Android.What about the others? Hopefully, those that are experiencing delays will be able to follow shortly after T-Mobile's launch, and carriers in the US (and around the world) will be able to offer a device that will have a mass appeal similar to that of the iPhone.

Nokia and apple: Come Google announces open-source mobile phone OS

Robotripping: hands on with the Android SDK beta

By Ryan Paul | Published: August 19, 2008 - 10:20PM CT 

Google has announced the availability of the first Android SDK beta and also disclosed the roadmap for the upcoming 1.0 release. The platform has improved significantly since the early prereleases, and the API is now richer and more complete. 
App developers grow impatient with lack of Android updates
Android struts its stuff with new features, more integration
Google talks up Android: open ecosystems lead to innovation
It's official: Google announces open-source mobile phone OS, Android
Android applications and user interface 

The user interface has been completely redesigned, with a strong focus on attractiveness and usability. The new home screen provides a loose grid for placing icons and small widgets, such as a digital clock and search bar. Users can drag application launchers to the home screen directly from the main menu. The widgets and icons are organized across three separate home screen panes that the user can flip between with a dragging gesture. 

The main application menu flies up from a tab at the bottom of the screen and displays launchers for all of the installed programs. The home screen background image is now configurable through a wallpaper selector that is activated from the hardware menu button. The top row of the screen has a status bar with a clock and notification icons. Dragging down that bar will provide access to the notification pane, which shows information about missed calls, recent messages, and other application-specific notices.  


The applications included with the platform have been improved, too. The entire set of software exhibits a uniformly high level of usability. The dialer and address book are pretty much what one would expect, but everything is a lot more polished now. The mapping software got some new features, including support for Google Streetview, but still has a few bugs. For instance, switching between modes on the map will clear an active search, and there is no way to have street view and satellite view enabled at once.  
   


The application with the most impressive improvements is the web browser. I recently gave Opera Mobile 9.5 a rave review, and I consider it a pretty strong mobile browser. Android's built-in browser delivers all of the same features but with a cleaner and less clunky user interface.  
   


Android offers a flawlessly desktop-like browsing experience with excellent support for JavaScript and modern web applications. When the user zooms in and out of the page, the text automatically rewraps to fit the screen. The fonts are beautifully crisp at most zoom levels and the text is very readable. Users can open multiple pages at once and switch between them using a thumbnail grid view. Android provides a browsing experience that is easily comparable to that of the iPhone, which is unsurprising—both use the WebKit rendering engine. 
Application porting 

The SDK is still extremely easy to install and configure. The user just has to download and decompress the SDK, install the Eclipse plugin, and then provide the plugin with the path of the SDK. If you already have Eclipse installed, it's really a five-minute operation. Keep in mind that you have to have at least Eclipse 3.3 in order to use the plugin (Ubuntu is being lame and still doesn't have it). 

One of the biggest improvements in the Eclipse plugin is the new visual preview feature for XML user interface files. This displays a graphical representation of the UI so that developers don't have to run their program to see how the layout looks. It still has some limitations and doesn't properly display some of the more complex widgets, but it's good enough for basic forms. 

The API has changed significantly since the early prereleases. The simple Twitter test program that I wrote with the first SDK release and then updated for the second release couldn't easily be ported to the new version. Some of the packages I was using (DateUtil, for instance) are no longer included, and I haven't been able to figure out yet exactly what I'm supposed to be using instead. Google has published extensive documentation to describe the differences between this version and the previous one, so it's really just a matter of investing some time and doing the research. 

I suspect that some of the more sophisticated programs will have to undergo major refactoring and rewrites. Unfortunately, the API changes were not publicly documented incrementally, and Google declined to make new SDK releases available to the general developer community until now, so developers will have to make a big adjustment all at once. 

The API is very rich and it provides a very diverse selection of controls. In addition to the conventional buttons, checkboxes, combo-boxes, and toggle switches, the toolkit also includes some nice extras, like controls for an embedded WebKit renderer and an image selector. There is also a comprehensive notification API for displaying application-specific notices to the user and for adding icons to the status bar. 

Some nice aesthetic features are available, too, like support for 3D transitions, blurring an application when displaying modal dialogs, and other similar visual flourishes. Media playback controls and OpenGL support are also included in the SDK. To see a bunch of the supported controls and other API features in action, check out the API Demos program that is included in the emulator. 

One pretty major disappointment is that there is no API for creating home screen widgets. Some comments posted by Google engineers in the Android Google Group seem to indicate that they are still working on addressing widget security issues and could add an API for it later, after the 1.0 release. 
Openness still in question 

Google has repeatedly touted the inclusiveness of an open platform as the primary quality that differentiates Android from competing mobile operating systems. Unfortunately, mismanagement and market pressures have largely undermined that advantage and disenfranchised some of the Linux enthusiasts in the third-party developer community. 

Although the availability of an updated SDK will satisfy some of the critics, it doesn't undo the mistakes that Google made during the development process. Android is still an insular stack, created through a closed development process in a complete vacuum, with input only from the carriers, handset makers, and a small group of handpicked developers. So far, there has been no evidence of the transparency and inclusiveness that Google promised when the platform was announced. 

The abandonment of this commitment during the development process is frustrating, but will likely be forgiven in the long term if Google gets it right after the hardware hits shelves. Ultimately, the most important test will come later this year when Google finally opens the source code. At that time, Google will have the opportunity to restore its credibility as an open platform provider by adopting a participatory governance model, accepting third-party patches, and allowing the community—and not just the carriers and handset makers—to influence the future of the platform. If Google just does a code drop and then continues ignoring a majority of third-party developers, it's not going to help much. 

Google has already taken some important steps to improve the transparency of Android development. A developer roadmap has been published with a schedule of upcoming releases and some details about naming conventions and compatibility. Google aims to have release candidates ready next month and will do the official 1.0 release in the third quarter of 2008. Devices will supposedly be available by the fourth quarter, which is when Google will open the code base. 
Coming soon 

The most significant area where Android has an advantage over the iPhone right now is in the potential for hardware diversity. Users who want a mobile device with a hardware keyboard, full Bluetooth support, a microSD slot, and any number of other similar features that haven't been blessed by His Steveness, will not be inclined to buy an iPhone. The iPhone's one-size-fits-all approach is conducive to a great user experience, but necessarily locks the product out of large segments of the market. Android, on the other hand, can be shipped on a wide range of hardware devices that are designed to cater to the needs of specific audiences. That alone will give Android a big boost in the competitive mobile phone market. 

During the months leading up to this release, the lack of public information about Android progress significantly deflated my own enthusiasm for the platform and left me with the impression that it was falling into the vaporware trap. The latest release has renewed my interest and demonstrated forcefully that Android is not vaporware. We also have word that an Android-based handset from T-Mobile is going to be coming soon. 

For more information, check out the official announcement at the Android web site.

google buckles to pressure: the blog on toxicwriter removed.

Blog has been removed

Sorry, the blog at toxicwriter.blogspot.com has been removed. This address is not available for new blogs.

Shame on google to prevent free speech!

Google Faces Defamation Lawsuit in India

MUMBAI -- A small Indian construction-equipment company is demanding that Google Inc. disclose the name of a person who used its blogging service, in a case that could change the way the Internet giant does business in India.

Google's Indian subsidiary, Google India Private Ltd., is being sued in Bombay High Court by Mumbai-based Gremach Infrastructure Equipments ...

An Indian construction company is trying to force Google to divulge the name of a blogger who wrote negative things about its business.

Gremach Infrastructure Equipments & Projects has filed a lawsuit against Google’s Indian arm, Google India, for hosting the writings on its public blog site, according to Indian news sites. Gremach says the blogs campaigned against its Africa-based mines and, it claims, constitute defamation. The blog was titled “Toxic Writer.” 

Interestingly, reports indicate Gremach first went to the Mumbai Police to try to track down the blogger’s identity. Google India, however, refused to cooperate, the reports say — which is believed to have led to the new legal action.

Indian lawyers tell Silicon India that this is the first blogging platform-related lawsuit in the country’s history. It could, thereby, set a strong precedent for future protection, or lack thereof.

The case brings to mind the recent controversy over an American blog under fire for its critical remarks about the Memphis Police Department. The department subpoenaed AOL last month to try to get the identity of the person behind the MPD Enforcer 2.0 blog. That, in turn, sparked a free speech fight being spearheaded by the Public Citizen Litigation Group. That battle is still ongoing.

The Gremach lawsuit, incidentally, is the second India-based lawsuit announced against Google today. A doctor in India is also suing Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft over the so-called “sex selection” content displayed through their platforms. India does not permit services that let people influence the sex of their unborn children and the doctor wants the online content blocked.

Supreme Court sends notice to Yahoo, MSN and Google

Sex selection related online advertisements by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have invited unwanted trouble to the software giants. Yahoo India, Google India and Microsoft have been issued notices by the Indian Supreme Court to stop serving advertisements promoting sex selection.

According to Indian PC-PNDT Act (Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostics Techniques) determination of the sex of unborn baby is illegal. The 1994 act was amended in 2003 to stop female feticide.

The PC-PNDT Act states that Prohibition for any advertisement, in any form, including internet, regarding facilities of the prenatal determination of sex or sex selection before conception available at such center, lab, clinic or some other place.

In India more preference is given to the male babies. Many couples using the sex selection technique know in advanced the sex of their unborn child and in most cases if the result is the female sex they go for an abortion. Even with the PC-PNDT Act in place there are still many couples and doctors who follow the sex determination process secretly.

Dr. Sabu Mathew George had filed a written petition regarding the gender selection ads which was clearly violating the PC-PNDT Act. Minister of Communication & IT and Ministry of Health & Family welfare were also dragged into as they were informed about the ads but failed to take any action against the software giants.

Sex determination techniques though banned in India are legally allowed in many countries. Online advertisement use the geo targeted technique determining the country from the users IP address. The ads can also be targeted for specific country. The process is completely automated based on algorithm and there is no guarantee that a perfect country can be determined from the IP address.

Into the future: Pros and cons of a Google world

Peter Bazalgette, media consultant, investor and former producer of Channel 4's Big Brother

As the channels of communication become more complex, and the TV schedule dies, the search to find a particular piece of content becomes more important. I'm all for less regulation, but search will be an Ofcom issue in the future. I'll be interested to see what Google does in the next two years to address society. Will it take on any additional public service responsibilities? Google is brilliant and a great public utility but don't assume it is going to be totally dominant in the future. It's going to face competition from companies that allow you to search for things in a different way. There will be increasingly sophisticated search engines that provide more informed, less broad-brush results. So Google may not be as dominant but it will still be a healthy business.

Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK

We have long-standing concerns about Google regarding the way it is betraying its own principles in going against established international norms around freedom of information. When you go on a Google search engine in London and look for a picture of Tiananmen Square, you get that iconic picture of a man standing in front of a tank. If you go to google.cn and do the same search you'll get a picture of happy smiley tourists. Specific words such as Tibet, democracy, Tiananmen Square are heavily censored. We think that filtering process should be transparent. The rest of us who know that we're using Google in an uncensored fashion have a duty to stand up for people who don't have that access.

Jeffrey Chester, director, Center for Digital Democracy, Washington

Google will be the most powerful media company in the 21st century, and they are really owed tremendous credit for that. But they are so well integrated into everyone's existence, and questions should be raised. They are expanding into mobile communications, which adds a whole new dimension - not only do they know your interests but they know where you are. Strong privacy policies enacted by the EU and the US are urgently required. Competition authorities should investigate Google's growing role as an online advertising gatekeeper. Our democratic future depends on the structure of the new media.

Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive, WPP advertising group 

Copyright and fair payment for content are going to become more of an issue in the future. Also, as Google has become more and more dominant, people are becoming increasingly concerned about its market position. There are very few media owners that have 70 or 80 or 90 per cent market share, which they would if the Google-Yahoo! link in America becomes a reality. The most interesting thing is who will be the son or daughter of Google, and whether that will come from a Stanford or a Bangalore or Beijing. I think it's more likely to be the latter. Google's big challenge is the law of big numbers: can a $160bn company become a trillion dollar company?

Ashley Highfield, former director of BBC Future Media & Technology and BBC iPlayer mastermind, now CEO Kangaroo

People are terribly peripatetic in the online world; there is very little loyalty, particularly to search brands. If somebody else comes up with a better mousetrap then the audience will use that service instead of Google's. The web world shows that products do go through generations, and I think you could argue that Google's now looking quite Web 1.0 and maybe hasn't embraced a number of the emerging Web 2.0 features. The future's going to be in layering on top of Google more understanding of the context of the user and the question - the 'semantic web', without getting too cyberbollocks about the whole thing.

Adam Curtis, director of TV documentary on terrorism, The Power of Nightmares

The millions of searches that engines like Google record and store reveal the shifting desires and fears of individuals. They're leading to a new fragmented sensibility among millions of people in the way they see and experience the world. Machines like Google know something about us as human beings that we really don't want to know - that we are not individuals: 'If you like this then you will like that...'. So Google is a paradox. It gives us the feeling we are wild and free individuals, powerfully reinforcing an idea of us as heroic figures in the consumer age. Yet at the same time it is powerfully proving the opposite - that we are completely predictable. Out of that is going to come some very interesting political ideas of how to organise society and also new artistic ideas. The really interesting question is whether it is really a cult....