Google Archive

One of the more controversial features of Google's Chrome/Chromium web browser is the way it handles updates. Contrary to other browsers, updates on Chrome are installed silently and automatically, without asking for the user's consent. While convenient and effective, it was also a security risk and sometimes it slowed people's machines down. Google now proposes a fix called Courgette.

"Want to give Google Android a try, but don't feel like buying a T-Mobile G1? LiveAndroid lets you download a LiveCD disc image of the Google Android operating system. Just burn the image to a disc, stick it in a CD-ROM drive, and reboot your computer and you can check out Android without installing it or affecting any files on your PC. You can also use the disc image in a virtualization application like VirtualBox or Microsoft Virtual PC if you want to try the operating system without even rebooting your computer."

We're having a very slow newsday today, since basically everyone and their cow is compulsively pushing out articles on a product that doesn't even exist beyond an announcement Google's Chrome OS, with none of them being particularly interesting. What is interesting is the news that Intel has been aware of Chrome OS for a while now - in fact, Intel is working with Google on this new operating system.

Chromium/Chrome, everyone's favourite web browser that descended from heaven to take us by the hand and guide us to the promised land of web browsers (that's how I look at it, anyway, but I'm insane) has been steadily evolving its Linux port. The latest feature addition? The first signs of native themeing.

From NYTimes: "In a post on its company blog, Google said the operating system would initially be aimed at netbooks, the compact, low-cost computers that have turned the PC world on its head. It said the open-source software, called Chrome OS, would be available in the second half of next year. Read more for a quick observation on the announcement.

It almost sounds like a joke, but it's true enough. Ever since Gmail was instituted in April of 2004 with the invitation scheme, it and many other of Google's Apps have been wearing the beta tag. At long last, however, Google's ripping it off like a bandage.

We've been talking a lot about ARM-based netbooks, and when they're going to come. We've also been talking about Android on netbooks. Well, at Computex, analyst firm Gartner took a look at ARM netbooks running Android, compared them with Atom notebooks running Windows 7, and concluded that the interface on the former felt snappier.

Google has quietly announced Fusion Tables, a new online database designed to sidestep the limitations of conventional relational databases. Fusion Tables, announced on Google's Research Blog, has been built to simplify a number of operations that are notoriously difficult in relational databases, including the integration of data from multiple, heterogeneous sources and the ability to collaborate on large data sets, according to Google. Under the hood of Fusion Tables is data-spaces technology, a concept has been around since the early 1990s and that Google has been developing it since it acquired Transformic in 2005.

One of the defining features of Google's Chrome web browse is its sandboxing feature. You probably won't realise it's there, but from a security point of view, sand-boxing is one of the most impotant factors in browser security, as it severely limits the amount of damage a security hole can do: sure, you've got a hole in the browser, but thanks to sandboxing, you're pretty much locked in - until you break out of the sandbox, of course. Sandboxing on the Windows variant of Chrome was a "complicated affair", says Chromium developer Jeremy Moskovich, but for the Mac version, it's all a bit easier and more straightforward. On Linux, however, it's a mess.

Qualcomm showed off a previously unannounced Eee PC running Android at Computex in Taipei. The machine has a 10-inch screen, built-in webcam, and a universal 3G radio that supports all UMTS and CDMA networks on all frequencies used around the world. The 'smartbook' runs on Qualcomm's Snapdragon, a 1GHz ARM processor core that marks a shift away from Intel Atom x86-based netbooks. A second Android-based netbook -- a prototype by contract hardware maker Compal Electronics -- was also demoed at the show. Google, meanwhile, declined to discuss what steps it is taking to adapt the smartphone OS for laptops.

Google will add scripting capabilities to Google Docs, allowing organizations to customize its online applications and automate tasks. Google plans to sign up about 1,000 customers over the next few weeks to test the feature, called Google Apps Script. It will be tested initially in Google Spreadsheets and extended to other Google Docs applications over time.

After about 8 months of work, Google has "released Chrome 2" to the general public. Technically, this just means they moved the version of Chrome in the beta channel up to the stable channel. "We're referring to this as Chrome 2, but that's mainly a metric to help us keep track of changes internally. We don't give too much weight to version numbers and will continue to roll out useful updates as often as possible." There's lots of decent goodies in Chrome 2.

The first major update for Google's Android platform, based on the Cupcake development tree, was released today in source form at the project's git repository. Now it's up to the OEMs and carriers to deploy it, and the community to port it to other platforms. Dig in for a list of new features.

We've already seen numerous rumours about Google's Android making a move into netbooks, only fuelled by companies expressing serious interest in the concept and by Google's CEO making some hints about it not too long ago. Well, the rumours are now no longer rumours, as a Chinese company is now the first to offer an Android-based netbook, at USD 100-200.