Google Archive

"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.

Take a step back in time to use Google in your command line interface. GoogleCL "streamlines tasks such as posting to a Blogger blog, adding events to Calendar, or editing documents on Google Docs." Aside from Blogger, Calendar, and Docs, it also provides CLI access to your Google Contacts, Picasa, and YouTube. Whether you're in it for the sheer joy of feeling like it's 1984 again or for the ease of doing a load of tasks in a batch or even incorporating it into your scripts for uber functionality and friendliness with your other apps, this nifty little program is for you. The app is native to Linux, but Mac and Windows users can use it with a bit of fenangling-- all you'll need is Python 2.5 or 2.6, and Windows users will need to add Cygwin to the mix.

We don't get too many details when it comes to Google's Chrome OS, but this tiny little tidbit dug up by The Register is certainly quite interesting. It looks as if Google is working on implementing remote desktop-like functionality into Chrome OS so you can directly control applications running on other computers within the browser.

This was inevitable. AdMob founder and CEO Omar Hamoui has responded to Apple blocking AdMob from the iOS ecosystem. Unsurprisingly, Hamoui isn't particularly amused, claiming that not only is it bad for competition, it will also hurt developers and users alike.

There are numerous ways to improve your browser experience if you're somehow still using Internet Explorer. You can download a modern browser with proper standards support, like Firefox or Chrome, but there are numerous scenarios where this isn't possible. One of those is in corporate scenarios, where a lot of people still rely on Internet Explorer. A solution here is Google's Chrome Frame, which just went into beta.

Google said Wednesday it is planning to release its Chrome operating system, seen as a rival to Microsoft's Windows system, for free in the autumn. "We are working on bringing the device later this fall," said Google vice president of product management Sundar Pichai at CompuTex Taipei, Asia's biggest IT trade show. "It's something which we are very excited by ... We expect it to reach millions of users on day one," he said.

Fragmentation. You'll often hear people say this is a major problem with Google's Android platform; there are many devices running multiple different versions of the mobile operating system, leading to fragmentation. Dan Morrill, Android's open source and compatibility program manager, addresses this issue in a blog post, and details what Google is doing to fight it. The gist: it's a non-issue - according to Google, that is.

Looking at the past few week of Google news, you'll be forgiven for thinking Google doesn't do anything else beyond making Android. While there's sexier stuff going on within Google, the company is also still trying to improve its core user service: search. They've launched encrypted search today, and it will be rolled out across the world in the coming days.

"Today, I'm happy to announce that Google Chrome for Mac is being promoted out of beta to our stable channel. We believe that it provides not only the stability, performance and polish that every Mac user expects, but also a seamless native Mac application experience that Mac users will feel instantly at home with." Update: The Linux version is out too.