Google Chrome

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…

Expand
Expanding
Close

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.”

Expand
Expanding
Close

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.”

Expand
Expanding
Close

[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.

Expand
Expanding
Close

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.

Expand
Expanding
Close

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.

Expand
Expanding
Close

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!

Expand
Expanding
Close

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.

Expand
Expanding
Close

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?

Expand
Expanding
Close

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?

With the recent changes to the design of Google Reader, some of you may be delighted to hear about a new plugin called Reeder for Chrome. Reeder for Chrome uses inspiration from the Reader Mac and iOS apps (not the same developer) to give Google Reader a nice, new, slick look.

The plugin is almost exactly like the Reader apps. It has an All Items tab, Starred Items tab, and a section showing all of your groups. When you click a story you’re brought to how much of the content the source provides, and then you can click the link to open a new tab. Of course you can also add feeds. Sadly, it doesn’t load the story inside of the Reader window like Reeder for Mac does. Download here.

Expand
Expanding
Close

.

The key here is that these Chromebooks are easy to maintain and won’t put a burden on hospital staff.  If Microsoft wanted to give away computers, it would be quite a bit harder to train up staff.

Full press release follows:
Expand
Expanding
Close

Google has released a new extension this weekend for Chrome fans. Chrome Remote Desktop Beta (what a mouthful) allows you to connect to other computers across the network in a Chrome window.

Where we can see this coming the most in handy is with a Chrome OS laptop. Being able to connect to your main computer when you’re away from it is definitely necessary for numerous tasks. When it comes to security, each session has to be granted each time you connect.

Interested in how this all works? Check it out after the break:

Expand
Expanding
Close

Confirming previous reports, Conceivably Tech has uncovered a post that Google Chrome will soon be making its way into Android. A post on the Chromium Message Boards tells us that Android’s version of Chrome will have the same features as the desktop version — tabs, Skia 2D graphics library, and maybe a combined search and website bar?

Sadly, there’s no word on when this new browser will hit.  Now we’re not drawing any conclusions, but perhaps this will be announced at Google’s (and Samsung’s) event October 11th? For those of you who haven’t heard, Samsung and Google are rumored to announce the Nexus Prime and Ice Cream Sandwich. While this tour didn’t show it, let’s hope Chrome is bundled into ICS.
Expand
Expanding
Close

As noted by The Next Web, Google’s VP of Product Bradley Horowitz, told Wired in an interview that Google+ will soon be Google. “Be Google?”, you’re probably thinking. What he means is that Google+ will soon not be its own product, but rather tied into almost every service offered by Google. You may remember when Google+ was sort-of tied into YouTube, but Horowitz says it will go deeper than that.

“Until now, every single Google property acted like a separate company. Due to the way we grew, through various acquisitions and the fierce independence of each division within Google, each product sort of veered off in its own direction.

… But Google+ is Google itself. We’re extending it across all that we do—search, ads, Chrome, Android, Maps, YouTube—so that each of those services contributes to our understanding of who you are.”

Google+ will soon be tied into ads (which has already happened), Chrome, Android, Maps, and more. This will begin to make a definitive Google product, leaving Google+ no longer acting as a separate company. This should make it easier on the non-technical folk, unlike you or me.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Just look at the Graphs.  As Google puts it:

When the sun goes down, the tablets come out to play
Expand
Expanding
Close

From some slides of an internal presentation given by Google, it appears that where there is now Google Docs, there will soon be ‘Google Drive’.  Most of the functionality, like uploading files of any type, of the mythical Google Drive now lies in Docs Hopefully, with this upcoming rebrand, Google allows more storage (let me buy it) and also has some utilities like backing up the home folder on Windows or Mac.  Seriously, what better way to get users to adopt your system than to offer to sych your files to the cloud.

Oh, now that we have all of your files, you might as well get a Chomebook.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Trying to get in before the October 4th flood perhaps, today AT&T announced their Galaxy S II varient would hit shelves on October 2nd.  We’ve talked extensively about the Galaxy SII here (read).  As a refresher, AT&T’s is closest to the international version with the same 4.3 inch display – contrasted with the 4.5 variety that T-Mobile and Sprint are carrying.  Interestingly, it will also have NFC, which Sprint’s surprisingly doesn’t.  Sprint is a partner in Google’s NFC-based Wallet initiative.

This is an amazing phone but it is interesting that AT&T is squeaking it in before the iPhone announcement.  On the other hand, it says something that AT&T is going with the Galaxy SII moniker rather than something like “Captivate 2”.  It seems like Samsung’s Galalxy S line can stand on its own.  T-Mobile called its 4G Vibrant model the Galaxy S earlier this year so it appears to be a trend.

Expand
Expanding
Close