Google Archive

Finally! After pioneering sandboxing of Javascript and tabs in the browser, Chrome is now finally busy moving Flash into a sandbox. Windows users of the dev channel have been fed the new release with Flash sandboxing already.

The European Commission has decided to open an antitrust investigation into allegations that Google has abused a dominant position in online search, in violation of European Union rules. The Commission will investigate whether Google has abused a dominant market position in online search by allegedly lowering the ranking of unpaid search results of competing services which are specialized in providing users with specific online content such as price comparisons (so-called vertical search services) and by according preferential placement to the results of its own vertical search services in order to shut out competing services.

Earlier this year, Google finally did what many of us hoped it would do: release the VP8 codec as open source. It became part of the WebM project, which combines VP8 video with Vorbis audio in a Matroshka container. The product manager for the WebM project, John Luther, gave an update on the status of the project - and it's doing great.

That is without a single shred of doubt the most awesome headline I ever got to put on OSNews. This headline is so awesome I don't even need to write anything else, because it would just detract from the awesomeness. Cue Johnny Guitar, with a lone wanderer riding his horse towards a Mojave sunset, after just having... Wait, where were we? Right. Yes, Google has sued the US Department of the Interior because its Request for Quotation regarding a messaging solution demanded the use of Microsoft software.

Interesting little digging from TechCrunch's MG Siegler: as it turns out, Google's Chrome OS is nearing completion. The company is currently testing a release candidate build, and has reiterated that devices running Chrome OS will arrive later this year.

Google's big Android chief Andy Rubin has given an interview to PC Magazine, in which he touches on some interesting topics. Sadly, PC Magazine didn't ask about the patent situation and why Google is seemingly letting its OEMs fend for themselves, but there's still a lot of other interesting stuff in there.

A few days ago I dove into the lawsuit filed by Skyhook against Google, and came to the conclusion that Skyhook's case - while an entirely plausible sequence of events considering Google is a big company and hence prone to abuse - simply wasn't a very good one. Google's CEO Eric Schmidt has given a rather generic-looking statement on the matter, but however generic it may be, there's a hint in there.

TechCrunch held a little in-promptu poll a few days ago, asking its readers why they chose to go with Android instead of something else. Most people stated they choose Android because of "openness". The author of the article calls this "a load of crap", arguing that because carriers can do with Android as they so desire, the reality now is that Android isn't open. Clearly, the author doesn't get openness.

"Google is celebrating Chrome's second birthday by releasing a new stable version of its rapidly evolving browser, offering a slightly simpler user interface, an automatic form filler, and the ability to synchronize extensions and form data across machines."

"Gmail voice and video chat makes it easy to stay in touch with friends and family using your computer's microphone and speakers. But until now, this required both people to be at their computers, signed into Gmail at the same time. Given that most of us don't spend all day in front of our computers, we thought, 'wouldn't it be nice if you could call people directly on their phones?' Starting today, you can call any phone right from Gmail."

"The long wait is over and Linux users can finally use the Gmail Videochat! The GMail team recently announced the availability of voice and video chat on Linux. This feature is currently supported on Ubuntu and other Debian-based Linux distributions. RPM Support for Fedora Linux and other Red Hat based distributions (like CentOS) is going to be added soon." Some screenshots of GMail Video Chat on Linux in action

If you only have one e-mail account with Google you may not realize how annoying it can be for those of us who have multiple accounts to have to constantly sign in and out of Google services to check e-mail or information. There are ways around it (extensions, Greasemonkey scripts, using separate browsers for each account, etc), but why shouldn't Google support multiple user logins? In fact, if screenshots posted on the Google Operating System blog are to be believed (and they have been in the past), Google is currently testing a new feature which will lets users easily switch between multiple accounts easily. The feature isn't available to the public yet, but we can't wait to test it out.

This could very well be another attempt by Google to establish itself as a successful social network under the title 'Google Me' after Orkut and Google Buzz. The seed to this rumor was originally a Tweet by Kevin Rose, Founder of Digg.

Google announced late Tuesday night that China will not renew its Internet Content Provider license - a key authorization scheduled to expire Wednesday--unless Google stops redirecting Google.cn visitors to Google.com.hk.