Google Chrome

After being introduced in August, Google just announced improvements to its Gmail offline Chrome app. The first improvement, which the Chrome team called their favorite, is the ability to choose whether you want to synchronize 7, 14 or 31 days worth of mail. The second improvement includes attachment support, keyboard shortcuts, and enhancements when it comes to performance. You can download the Gmail offline Chrome application in the Chrome Web Store.

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The specifics of the agreement are not being disclosed at this time, but it is likely Microsoft’s latest license agreement with LG is similar to those signed with just about every other major Android vendor including Samsung, HTC, Huawei, Acer, and over 10 others. Microsoft is already collecting millions from Android vendors in patent agreements stemming from an original deal to collect a $5 royalty per device from HTC in May, and will now begin to profit off LG’s line of Android-based tablets, smartphones, and televisions as well.

Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of Intellectual Property Group Horacio Gutierrez made the announcement on the company’s website:

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC303x2XqWw]

Specs and price are similar to past models, but these are much better looking with an aluminum shell and thinner profile.

Perhaps most interesting (and fitting to the mission of Chrome) is the Chrome Box. It is a Mac Mini-looking ChromeOS device with two separate outputs for lots of Web browsing on up to two monitors.  You do not have to worry about losing an Internet connection on the ChromeBox because you are stationary and hard-wired to the Web. This is going to hit more of the target kiosk/corporate environment than the previous models of ChromeBook.  Samsung would not give a price but mentioned the loss of a display and keyboard/trackpad could save customers around $100.

All three hit stores in April, and we will be looking for a demo.

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Google announced on the Chrome Blog today that the latest Chrome Beta release rolled out with a number of new improvements to speed and security. When it comes to speed, the beta release of Chrome will now pre-render pages you visit most often. When typing a URL into the omnibox, URLs that auto-complete will now also start loading before you hit enter.

To get you where you want to go even faster, Chrome will now start loading some web pages in the background, even before you’ve finished typing the URL in the omnibox. If the URL auto-completes to a site you’re very likely to visit, Chrome will begin to prerender the page. Prerendering reduces the time between when you hit Enter and when you see your fully-loaded web page–in some cases, the web page appears instantly.

The release also includes a number of security improvements including updates to Chrome’s Safe Browsing feature that allows executable files, including “.exe” and “.msi”, files to be scanned after downloading. If the file is found to be malicious, Chrome will warn the user to delete it. Google further explained the matter below:

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The latest Android platform versions distributions chart was announced yesterday after the Android Developers’ website collected data for two weeks, and the share results reaped a few surprising figures.

Gingerbread gobbled 55 percent of the share, and Froyo landed at second place with 30 percent. However, according to last month’s results, Gingerbread increased from 50.6-percent while Froyo decreased from 35.3-percent. The statistical difference may be due to Froyo smartphones receiving an upgrade or Gingerbread smartphones seeing an increase in activations over the holiday season. Google recently announced it added 3.7 million devices on Christmas.

Android 4.0, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich, is making the biggest amount of noise with these latest results. Ice Cream Sandwich devices -only the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S for now- account for just .6-percent of the share of all of the devices that have called the Android market in the last two weeks.  If that total is near the 200 million that Google announced in November, that means over a million Galaxy Nexus Devices have been activated in the few weeks since release.

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Google searches for “browser” no longer reveal the Google Chrome homepage, because the globally popular search engine decided to apply a penalty against the browser’s website after coming under fire for its sponsored post campaign.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company actively fights paid links and junk content under its Webmaster guidelines. However, earlier this week, SEO Book’s Aaron Wall noticed a Google search for “This post is sponsored by Google” displays over 400 websites written by Google marketing campaigns.

Bloggers were found posting low-quality content related to Google Chrome to promote Google content, and at least one of the posts had a hyperlink to the Chrome download page. Hyperlinks can help a website rise in Google search results through Google’s PageRank algorithm.

According to The New York Times, Google penalized JC Penney, Forbes and Overstock last year due to paid links and similar guidline violation issues. Search Engine Land suggested that Google should penalize its own Google Chrome download page to be fair.

Well, that is exactly how Google responded.

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A new application available on the Android Market called “ICS Browser Plus” adds a bit more functionality to the Galaxy Nexus’ stock browser. ICS Browser Plus is currently available in beta on the Market and includes two main features. The first feature, as you can see above, adds a quick launcher to the side of the screen where you can reload the page, open a new tab, stop the page from loading, and add the page as a bookmark, and more. For those of you who have used Honeycomb, this will feel very familiar.

The second feature will allow you to change the user agent of the browser. In other words, you can tell a website you are loading the page from an iPad, rather than a Galaxy Nexus.

ICS Browser Plus is currently only available on the Galaxy Nexus and other devices that support Ice Cream Sandwich. The developer hopes to continue adding more features, but in the mean time you can download the free app.

Update: Google provided the following official statement to All Things D:

“Google never agreed to anything more than online ads. We have consistently avoided paid sponsorships, including paying bloggers to promote our products, because these kind of promotions are not transparent or in the best interests of users. We’re now looking at what changes we need to make to ensure that this never happens again.”

Google has not officially responded to accusations that they are going against their own paid link policies by running a sponsored ad campaign promoting Chrome. Now, the company apparently behind the campaign has spoken to All Things D to clarify the matter.

We told you about a discovery made by SEO Books yesterday, detailed by Search Engine Land, that Google appeared to be sponsoring over 400 pages of content promoting Google Chrome. The content is revealed through Google search for the phrase “This post is sponsored by Google.” As Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan pointed out, the campaign goes against Google’s own policies on paid links and it is attached to the type of poorly generated content they are trying to combat.

Google has not officially responded, although Vice President of Chrome Linus Upson commented on Sullivan’s Google Plus post claiming he was unaware of the problem and would investigate the issue:

“News to me. Looking in to it…”

Scott Button CEO of video advertising firm Unruly —Google’s ad company behind the campaign– claimed the only thing wrong is “one link in one post that was not marked nofollow.” Here is what he said regarding the matter:

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SEO Books (via Search Engine Land) discovered today that a Google search for “This post is sponsored by Google” reveals that Google may be sponsoring over 400 pages worth of publications who have written about Google Chrome. This is interesting, because Google has never allowed paid links inside their search results. The discovery has not been confirmed with Google — probably due to most of the Google staff being off today for the holiday — but this seems to be real nonetheless.

Search Engine Land pointed to one page where there is a direct link to download Chrome, and a link that poses as a video that connects to Google Chrome’s download page. Under that, you will find a “Sponsored by Google” disclaimer. We will keep you posted.

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Developer Robert Muth successfully ported MAME to run natively inside of Google Chrome’s Native Client, after it saw a similar port run on the iPad roughly a year ago. For those unfamiliar, MAME is an emulator application that can recreate vintage video games to make them playable on newer platforms. Finally, you will be able to get your PacMan to load within Chrome.

Muth was able to achieve the port in a matter of four days, but explained that it was rather challenging. Head to Google Developers and learn the technical details regarding how this was achieved. In addition, for those unfamiliar with Native Client, Google breaks down the basics for executing the code. (via Engadget)

The port of MAME was relatively challenging; combined with figuring out how to port SDL-based games and load resources in Native Client, the overall effort took us about 4 days to complete.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDPJ-o1leAw]

Just a few years ago, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer owned the browser market with three quarters share and the only real alternative was Mozilla’s Open Source Firefox.  However, in 2008, Google noticed Apple’s WebKit Browser engine and built their own Chrome browser.  In late 2009, Chrome started to break out of the “other” category in StatCounter’s figures and started its rise to what will likely to be the world’s most used desktop browser in 2012.

A few months ago, Chrome passed Firefox and if you look at the slope of the graph over time, it looks like Chrome’s rise is still accelerating.  Even if it only grows at its 2011 rate and IE continues to fall at its 2011 rate, Chrome will pass Internet Explorer in late Summer 2012 according to Statcounter’s numbers.  Below, I have extrapolated IE and Chrome’s 2011 numbers over the first half of 2012…

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Google celebrated its 1oth anniversary in Canada by doubling its staff and indicating hopes to have an even larger presence in 2012.

The company currently has 300 employees in four Canadian offices, in Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa, and Montreal. Google’s global headcount was listed at 32, 353 in the third quarter of 2011.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based search engine first moved north in 2001, and Head of Mobile Advertising Eric Morris was one of the first Google Canada employees to start work for the  North American sect.

“Canada is one of the fastest growing markets for Google and it’s one of our big bets corporately,” said Morris. “It’s a market that Google is very committed to and investing in heavily in terms of resources and growing very, very quickly.”

In 2002, according to Morris, Google projected that 70 percent of Canada’s population would be online by 2017. Canada reached 79 percent in 2010.

“In 2010, 93 percent of households with three or more people, as well as those with at least one member under the age of 18, had home Internet access,” reported a recent Canadian Internet Use Survey. “By contrast, 58 percent of one-person households had home Internet access.”

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Google renewed its search bar collaboration last week with Mozilla, effectively keeping Firefox in business, and the transaction has caused a Chrome engineer to come forth and defend the alliance.

According to The Mozilla Blog, Google paid just shy of $300 million per year to be the default choice in Mozilla’s Firefox browser. The total amount is almost $1 billion, a large leap from its previous arrangement, due to competing interest from both Microsoft and Yahoo.

Chrome engineer Peter Kasting spent Christmas Eve posting a Google Plus “rant” to discuss how misunderstood the transaction is amidst a firestorm of media reports that accuse the search engine giant of funding a web competitor.

Referencing MG Siegler’s Google Plus post on the matter, Kasting felt compelled to respond.

“People never seem to understand why Google builds Chrome no matter how many times I try to pound it into their heads,” wrote Kasting. ” It’s very simple: the primary goal of Chrome is to make the web advance as much and as quickly as possible. That’s it.”

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZHZVVJQwJLU]

Google announced on the Chrome Blog that they are adding more console quality games to the Chrome Web Store that take advantage of the Native Client. The Native Client, according to Google, will allow developers to “build web applications that seamlessly execute native compiled code inside the browser”. In other words, gaming experiences on par with native applications and quickly approaching the quality of console titles.

While Square Enix planned to drop the first Chrome Web Store title to take advantage of Native Client with a port of 2009’s Mini Ninjas, but it looks like award winning RPG Bastion beat them to it. However, that is not the only console quality game available in the Chrome Web Store as of today. You can also check out Sleepy Jack, Cordy, Pirates of New Horizons, Star Legends, Running Fred, and Pocket Legends.

Other games also received updates for the approaching holidays, including a new HTML5 version of Bejeweled, Angry Birds with updated Christmas themes, and Cargo Bridge received a Christmas level edition.

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Google rolled out a nice little update for Google Cloud Print support today. While mentioning a number of new features added to the service such as the ability to control printer access, save to Google Docs, and a new tablet-friendly UI for the management page, they also announced site owners can now add the print button element for smartphones and tablets to their sites.

Other new additions to Google Cloud Print– those using the latest release of Chrome on Mac, Windows, or Linux can print any webpage, and Chromebook users will now have access to print preview. Google also notes they look forward to rolling out the service across products and platforms.

These features continue the rollout of GCP, which has connected more than 6 million printers since launch, and added a number of new supported products from companies like HP, Epson, and Kodak. You can get a full list of supported products here, and check out Chrome extensions and apps that currently have access to the service.

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Google has officially rolled out the next stage of their redesign with the an all new Google bar enabling users to quickly switch between services using Google menu, a drop-down list of Google services baked into the Google logo. The new bar, which replaces the old black toolbar, will also provide access to search and Google+ tools as highlighted in the video above. As part of the update, the new Google Menu will also be accessible when not signed into your account, providing quick links to Google services for everyone. Goog breaks it down:

Above each of Google’s products, the gray bar has three main regions. On the left, the Google logo contains a drop-down menu with links to Google services that displays when you hover over or click on it. The central area contains a search box for the Google service you are currently using. The right side features a share box and notifications to participate on Google+ from any Google page.

The roll out is happening now, but it might take a bit of time to reach all users. Until then, you can learn everything you need to know about the new Google bar here.

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To honor the ongoing Cyber Monday, Google is now offering $1.99 albums for select artists on Google Music for U.S. users. The deal includes albums from top artists like Coldplay, Rihanna, Drake, Justin Bieber, David Guetta, Mary J. Blige, LMFAO, Florence and the Machine, Lady Antebullum, and more. The deal even includes Lady GaGa’s ‘A Very Gaga Holiday’, to start getting you in the Holiday spirit.

Go ahead and take advantage of these deals while you can!

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Speaking at a conference in Liverpool (via Develop), Google’s Paul Kinlan revealed a few of the company’s plans in regards to making more additions to Chrome in 2012. The changes he outlined include the browser supporting plug-and-play gamepads, a cool feature that would give gamers a better way to game through Google+ games. Kinland also said the browser would be receiving the open source WebRTC platform.

Google is to add plug-and-play gamepad, webcam and microphone support to its Chrome web browser early next year, Google’s Paul Kinlan has revealed.

Speaking at Develop Liverpool, Kinlan also claimed that the search engine giant would be adding open source video and voice chat application WebRTC to its web browser.

Both additions would allow Google to offer more cloud and gaming services. We’re sure these are the first changes of many for the year of 2012.

Pictured above: A Series 5 Chromebook by Samsung

Chromebooks are currently being produced only by Samsung and Acer, the former having multiple Series 5 models on offer and the latter just one base model, the AC700. Market source from Asia, however, told DigiTimes today that handset maker HTC could be developing a Chrome OS device of its own:

HTC is evaluating the feasibility of combining the advantages of Chrome OS and Android for use in Internet-access devices, products between tablet PCs and netbooks.

The statement is a bit ambiguous in and of itself. Granted, HTC has been rumored to consider alternative operating systems before, but their mission statement-like video posted on YouTube today is a portrayal of a mobile devices company specialized in phones, tablets and personal digital assistants. There’s no reason as to why HTC wouldn’t evolve its product line and throw notebooks/netbooks into the mix.

However, it’ss a crowded space with slim margins offering little incentive unless you’re Apple. On a final note, the “products between tablet PCs and netbooks” part could mean many things, not necessarily a Chrome OS netbook from HTC. Perhaps an Internet-connected portable media player akin to Apple’s iPod touch or Samsung’s Galaxy Player. It could also be a niche gadget such as Samsung’s Galaxy Note as well as a tablet/netbook hybrid with the capability to boot into Chrome OS or Android.

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In an interesting move by Google, the company has begun advertising their new Chrome sale right inside of Chrome’s ‘New Tab’ page. The ad, as seen above, says, “Get a Chromebook for the holidays: the computer powered by Chrome.” This comes after Google announced this afternoon a $50 price slash on both their Chromebooks. Things must be really bad in the Chromebook department to push an ad like this..

Am I the only one seeing this?

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Just in time for the holidays, Google has announced a price drop for both the Samsung Series 5 and Acer AC700 Chromebooks. Both are now being dropped to $299 from $349, which still seems a little steep for what you’re getting. So why the price drop? Most likely Google isn’t seeing the type of sales they were looking for with Chrome OS and hope sales will help boost that.

Shouldn’t Google be going a little lower in price with these?