Google Chrome

In a surprise announcement made at the Chromium Blog today, Google announced that Chrome OS, Chrome, and Opera will use a new rendering engine titled ‘Blink’. Blink is based of the current rendering engine WebKit. Google states the change is “not an easy decision,” but the change is necessary due to a ‘slow down of innovation.”

Google seems quite apologetic in the blog post, noting it understands the change may have significant implications for the web, but hopefully, in the long run, it will improve the health of the open web ecosystem.

It noted that the change will have little impact in the short-term to developers and Internet users, but Google hopes that the removal of the “multi-process architecture” will simplify the engine’s code and ease the difficulty required to develop for Chrome and Chrome OS. Ultimately, Google also hopes the new engine will speed up Internet load times.

The full press release via the Chromium Blog is available below.

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Google has launched four new 15-second ads for Chrome that seem incredibly mundane compared to the high quality, inspirational fare we’ve grown accustom to. They are such a stark contrast to some of the better ads we’ve seen for any technology over the last few years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Aflrbwna44&feature=player_embedded

It goes downhill from here…
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Google made an announcement on the Official Chrome Blog to confirm that it is rolling out Chromebooks to new countries starting today. After successful launches in the United States and United Kingdom, Google has partnered with retailers in a handful of other countries to bring the latest Chromebooks from Samsung, HP, and Acer to new parts of the world including: Canada, Australia, Germany, Ireland, France, and the Netherlands.

Google will also expand the number of U.S. outlets offering the devices in the next few weeks to 1,000 Best Buy stores nationwide. The company didn’t mention its own, recently announced Chromebook Pixel model or whether it is available to purchase in the newly added countries.

Many of you around the world have told us you’re eager to get your hands on a Chromebook, so we’ve been working with our partners to make this possible. Today we’re happy to say we’re one step closer to making Chromebooks truly “for everyone” — or rather, pour tout le monde, für alle, and voor iedereen

Canada: In Canada the devices will launch through BestBuy.ca a Futureshop.ca with the Samsung ($269.99) and Acer ($249.99) models, while the $329.99 HP Chromebook will be available through HPshopping.ca.

Australia: Australians get access to the Samsung and Acer Chromebooks elect JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman stores, while the HP Chromebook will be coming soon.

France: Customers in France get access to the 299 euro Samsung Chromebook starting today through “Fnac.com, Ticketmaster, Amazon and Pixmania, as well as 10 Fnac stores in the Paris region.”

Germany: In Germany the Samsung model will sell through”-buyer, Amazon, Cyberport and Saturn on the Internet and in the Saturn store on Hamburg’s Mönckebergstraß.” The Acer model will sell through “Saturn, Cyberport, -buyer and Amazon.”

Netherlands: In the Netherlands the Samsung and Acer models will be available to purchase through  “mediamarkt.nl, saturn.nl and laptopshop.nl and in the store at all 41 Mediamarkt and Saturn stores.”

Google also announced that the Chromebooks will be available to businesses and schools in the new countries and explained in detail in a post on its Enterprise blog.

“To help improve computing for organizations, we’re rolling out Chromebooks to businesses and schools in these same countries as well. Learn more on our Enterprise blog.”

If the Pixel sparked your interest in investing in a Chromebook, but its absurd price turned you off, then the Acer C7 Chromebook may be what you’re looking for. Announced via press release this afternoon, the new-and-improved Chromebook C7 from Acer boasts a number of useful performance boosts.

First and foremost comes a much-needed battery update. The original C7 Chromebook’s battery capped out at 3.5 hours, today’s C7 update pushes that up to 6 hours. The update today also doubled the RAM from the original model to a more reasonable 4GB. The processor remains the same at 1.1GHz.

The Acer Chromebook C7 is available and will ship today from Amazon and other retailers for $279.99.

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Long before the Chromebook Pixel was released, I, and surely many other Chromebook users, begged Google to create a high-end laptop that would allow technology professionals to use the Chrome OS to its fullest. To really give it a run against our high-end MacBook Pros and PC workstations, Google would have to throw more than the repurposed netbook hardware that OEMs like Samsung, Acer, HP, and others were giving this operating system.

Google’s Pixel is that high-end machine, but does it stack up where it needs to? First, the good:
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Chrome version 25 was released with a new Web Speech API that allows web developers to integrate speech-to-text dictation into their web applications.

The other feature of importance on the new version is the removal of “silent extensions.” Silent extensions are web-browser extensions that install without your knowledge. From now on, every web extension installation must be manually approved.

The updated version is available here, but Chrome’s auto-update feature may have already installed it for you.

An extremely reliable source has confirmed to us that Google is in the process of building stand-alone retail stores in the U.S. and hopes to have the first flagship Google Stores open for the holidays in major metropolitan areas.

The mission of the stores is to get new Google Nexus, Chrome, and especially upcoming products into the hands of prospective customers. Google feels right now that many potential customers need to get hands-on experience with its products before they are willing to purchase. Google competitors Apple and Microsoft both have retail outlets where customers can try before they buy. Google’s retail move won’t be an entirely new area, however.

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Google Chrome pop-up stores

Google currently has Chrome Store-within-a-store models in hundreds of Best Buys in the U.S. and 50 PCWorld/Dixon’s in the U.K. These stores have Google trained employees who demonstrate the value of Chromebooks and can answer the multitude of questions people have before making a purchase. Our source told us the new Google Stores would be a much broader play. The Chrome SIS employees don’t have sales targets, and they are there mostly for educating. Best Buy and Dixen’s also handle product and monetary transactions, not Google.

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Google and Virgin also ran a limited test run of Kiosks in five major Airports, including this one at SFO  (Image Scott Beale)

My understanding is that these new stores will operate independently and make direct sales to customers from Google like the Nexus online store does currently. It might also make sense for Google to sell its apparel and other Google-branded merchandise in these stores as well, but that’s speculation on my part.

The decision to open stores, I’m told, came when drawing up plans to take the Google Glass to the public. The leadership thought consumers would need to try Google Glass first hand to make a purchase. Without being able to use them first hand, few non-techies would be interested in buying Google’s glasses (which will retail from between $500 to $1,000). From there, the decision to sell other Google-branded products made sense.

Along with Glass, Google will have an opportunity to demonstrate other upcoming and Google X projects like driverless cars and mini-drone delivery systems at its stores.

There are small bits of anecdotal evidence that Google is looking into retail. It is hiring folks to develop Point of Sale systems, for instance. We’re told, however, that most of the ramping up of these stores will be done by an outside agency.

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently told analysts that Apple Stores were more than just stores—but rather the face of the company.

“I don’t think we would have been nearly as successful with iPad if it weren’t for our stores. It gives Apple an incredible competitive advantage. Others have found out it’s not so easy to replicate. We’re going to continue to invest like crazy. The average store last year was over 50 million in revenue.”

Google may now understand that if it wants to roll out a new product category like Google Glass, it is going to have to dive into retail.
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We posted a leaked spec sheet late last month that showed off what appeared to be an upcoming 14-inch Chromebook from HP. HP has officially announced the new Chromebook today. While it might have a 14-inch display two inches wider than any other Chromebook, it also happens to be more expensive than Samsung’s latest offering at $329. That’s significantly more than Samsung’s latest $249 model.

HP offered up full specs on the device that is available to order through the company’s website now. Not only is the HP Pavilion 14-c01us Chromebook more expensive, it’s also heavier than Samsung’s offering at 4lbs compared to 2.5lbs. Battery life is unfortunately the same story with an approximate 4.25 hours quoted compared to the 6.5 hours Samsung’s Chromebook offers. If you can get past that, the new HP device packs in a 14-inch diagonal HD BrightView LED-backlit (1,366-by-768-pixel), 1.1GHz Intel Celeron 847 processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB SATA SSD, HDMI, USB 2.0, as well as an Ethernet port.

The Samsung Chromebook has been the top-selling laptop on Amazon since it launched; Acer reported that Chromebooks make up 5-10% of US shipments; and in the first two months of 2013 Google announced two new devices from two new partners, Lenovo and HP. In the Enterprise, Google just announced 2,000 schools have deployed Chromebooks and businesses like Kaplan, Dillard’s and Quality Distribution are using Chrome devices as well.

HP’s hoping consumers will opt for the larger display, keyboard, and additional ports for the extra $80, but we’re not too excited about the battery life.

Samsung has unveiled a new version of the Series 3 Chromebox this afternoon, a Mac mini-like device offering quick-and-easy access to Chrome OS. We plan to get a closer look at CES 2013 next week, but for now we know the new version of the Chromebox is pretty much the same hardware as the 2012 version, just featuring a new coat of plastic. It features a 1.9 GHz Intel Celeron B840 processor, Intel HD graphics, 4GB of RAM, 16GB SSD, 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, 2W mono speaker, 6 USB 2.0 ports, a DVI port, headset jack, and 2 Display Ports. The 2013 model is now available in the UK for 279 GBP ($453.50), with no word on a US release. However for those who cannot wait, Amazon offers the 2012 model for $315. We’ll have more soon, but in the mean time you can find a photo of the back arrangement after the break. It moves away from the Mac mini look, eh? [Samsung via Liliputing]

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NORAD, the self-touted official Santa Tracker, went with Bing Maps instead of Google Earth this holiday season, but Google isn’t getting left in the dust, as the folks in Mountain View launched its own count down to Christmas Eve with Google Santa Tracker.

According to the official Google blog, a team of dedicated Google Maps engineers developed an algorithm to track Santa’s annual trip around the world this Christmas:

On his sleigh, arguably the fastest airborne vehicle in the world, Santa whips from city to city delivering presents to millions of homes. You’ll be able to follow him on Google Maps and Google Earth, and get his stats starting at 2:00 a.m. PST Christmas Eve at google.com/santatracker.

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The Chrome team has announced a new addition to the Chromium (beta version of Chrome) browser this afternoon, changing the way many users will search for content online via Google and other search engines. Google is testing/experimenting with an added search box to the new tab page, a page that has historically just listed recently viewed websites, and the new search box will not only include Google search but will also be accompanied by Yahoo, Bing and others. Google said the reasoning behind the change is: “we’ve found that many people still navigate to their search engine’s home page to initiate a search instead.”

Google is also allowing search engines to display what a user has searched for right in the omnibox, potentially doing away with a second search box on the actual search page. Additionally, Google has made a new Embedded Search API available so other search engines can implement what’s new. The features outlined today are available for testing from the Chrome Developer Channel that includes a select few Chrome OS and Windows users (Mac will be coming soon). Sadly, Mountain View gave no word on when the features will hit an official build.

Source: Chromium Blog

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Google today announced on Google+ that it is introducing a new Chrome extension that will allow users to save content from on the web directly to their Google Drive account. Using the new Chrome extension, users will be able to select which part of a webpage they want to save, such as “an image of a page, the HTML source code, or a Web archive.” Once installed, users will also get an option to save images, links, or files directly to Drive when right clicking.

Google also explained it has made enhancements to the photo viewer in Google Drive that allows users to zoom, fit to page, and comment:

We’ve also added a few new ways to work with images that are already stored in Drive. You can now zoom by scrolling or using the new fit to page and 100% buttons. And if you have something to say about a specific part of an image, you can select a region and add a comment to it.

The Google Drive Chrome extension is available from the Chrome Web Store here.

Google just revealed more than 1,000 schools have adopted Chromebooks in classrooms, and it is now working with DonorsChoose.org to “help budget-strapped classrooms across the country.”

DonorsChoose is an online charity that, as Google coined it, connects public school classroom to donors, and the Google partnership will subsequently allow teachers to request the Samsung Series 5 Chromebook at a discount price of $99. The special price is only for the holiday season and includes hardware, management, and support.

Google explained the details on the official Google blog:

If you’re a full-time public school teacher in the U.S., visit DonorsChoose.org and follow the instructions to take advantage of this opportunity by December 21, 2012. Your request will be posted on DonorsChoose.org where anyone can make a donation to support your classroom. When you reach your funding goal, you’ll receive your Chromebooks from Lakeshore Learning, DonorsChoose.org’s exclusive fulfillment partner for this program.

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Chromebooks may finally be getting voice recognition. Google Plus user François Beaufort discovered (via CNET) references to Google Now in the latest Chromium build yesterday that said “creating a skeleton for Google Now for Chrome implementation.” It’s not clear how long it will take for the new feature to roll out, but the code hints to Google Now’s features appearing in Google Chrome’s notification cards.

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TL;DR: This is the first Chromebook effort that fulfills the ChromeOS mission: good quality, excellent (MacBook Air-like) design, low cost and functional, and easy to use. It won’t replace a mid-high end machine, but, for people with basic needs or who want an inexpensive second computer, this is a no brainer at $250.

Background:

Google’s Android and ChromeOS  represent two different visions of the future of computing from inside the same company. The Android vision is a touch-enabled platform with apps that has been in vogue since the iPhone was released in 2007. The ChromeOS is the realization of the decades-old network client computer—which is just a browser as a user interface for a bunch of cloud services.

Android has clearly been popular on both phones and now tablets, but Chrome sales have been pretty lackluster until now. From my point of view, that’s due to a couple of reasons. For one, the devices, made by Samsung and Asus, were lackluster in speed compared to the Windows and Mac counterparts. ChromeOS devices should be faster than comparably equipped Macs and PCs because there is no overhead—it is just a browser. Yet the CR-48 and again with the second-generation Chromebooks weren’t noticeably faster than cheap netbooks. That’s the other problem: Chromebooks weren’t cheap – compared to similarly specced PCs, anyway. Often, you’d be able to find a cheaper Windows PC on sale that otherwise was the same or better.

So, to break it down: Chromebooks were overpriced and slow (and the design wasn’t very inspired).

Then came the third generation…

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