Google Archive

Rumour after rumour and story after story talk of Google wanting a piece of the netbook pie, the only pie in the computer hardware business that still tastes any good. They are supposed to bring Android, the phone operating system based on Linux and a modified version of Java, to netbooks in order to compete with Windows. Analysts are torn about whether or not Android would have a chance.

It might seem like a New Zealand-only story, but the recently proposed law in New Zealand that would force internet service providers to cut off web access for those accused of violating copyright law has led to an interesting statement from Google about the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The Google Chrome team has pushed out the beta release of the Chrome 2.0 web browser release. In addition, they have also opened the beta update channel, so if you're running the beta you'll get continuous updates keeping you up to speed with Chrome 2.0's development tree. Apart from speed improvements, Chrome 2.0 delivers several other interesting new features.

It's not very surprising as we've all speculated a full-fledged Google OS for years, then Google's mobile OS hit the phone market, and now we've seen it (Android, of course) already installed and working dutifully on netbooks. It's not rock-solid, but Google's CEO has hinted that there'll be subsidized, Android-powered netbooks backed by Google or its partners arriving to the netbook scene soon.

Developers willing to dish out the $400 required for an unlocked Dev Phone 1 won't be happy to find that access to paid market applications has been disabled by Google. It was possibly done to sloppily patch up a loophole that supposedly gave users of the unlocked phone the ability to download all applications for free. What little information Google would give as to why they made this decision included, "These phones give developers of handset software full permissions to all aspects of the device... We aren't distributing copy protected applications to these phones in order to minimize unauthorized copy of the applications." What makes this more interesting is that, at least according to Engadget, an unlocked original G1 doesn't have this limitation. It's rather ironic that a developer using said phone won't be able to access his or her own paid app. Let's hope Google remedies this quickly as you never know when an angry mob of app-deprived developers will storm the Googleplex with torches and sporks.

"Last night we had a geek outing with our favorite hacker, Brian Jepson, who you may remember from our feature on Hacking the XO laptop. This time around Brian got a hold of a development G1 and hacked around with cupcake. Included in the video is a demonstration of the on-screen keyboard, prettier transitions, some fun in the Linux shell, and more. We also have some photos (the video was a little blurry) of the skateboarding androids–which come up as you hack–and the obligatory Snake game on the Android OS."

Earlier this morning, you may have been surprised to see that every Google search you performed resulted in links to sites which were, according to Google, potentially harmful to your computer. As it turns out, Google's malware detection system got a little trigger-happy - due to a human error.

For the last quarter of 2008, Google followed the example of Apple and IBM, not Microsoft and Intel, reporting financial results above financial estimates amid a grim economic environment. "Google performed well in the fourth quarter, despite an increasingly difficult economic environment. Search query growth was strong, revenues were up in most verticals, and we successfully contained costs," Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said in a statement. "It's unclear how long the global downturn will last, but our focus remains on the long term, and we'll continue to invest in Google's core search and ads business as well as in strategic growth areas such as display, mobile, and enterprise."

After far too long a wait, today, Google released the first beta of Picasa for Mac. Picasa is a free, powerful photo management tool that includes many photo editing operations that the Mac native iPhoto lacks. In addition, Picasa is tightly bound to Picasa Web Albums, the first 1GB of which is also free, in contrast with Apple's MobileMe, which runs $99/year.

Netbooks run either Windows or Linux, and both are readily available in shops all over the world. The Linux variants chosen by several netbook manufacturers are usually derived from desktop distributions, and obviously, Windows is a desktop operating system as well. However, netbooks have small displays, and both Windows and GNOME/KDE and some of their applications aren't always suited well for such an environment. Enter Android, Google's Linux-based phone operating system. It is suggested that Android-based netbooks will appear on the market in 2010, maybe even sooner.

It was recently announced at the Android project website that the said mobile system would be receiving an update bringing to light many new features and various bug fixes. The Android team has already begun putting the new code on the public repositories under the "cupcake" branch. Some of the more notable new features and fixes include plentiful email and browser fixes, new video support, and even "basic x86 support," though we're not quite sure just where they're headed with that one.

After just 100 days, Google has lifted the veil of betaness off its web browser, Chrome, by releasing version 1.0. When Chrome made its first public appearance earlier this year, it was met with positive reveiws due to its JavaScript performance, as well as its robust multithreaded model. Now that the beta label has been ripped off Chrome, Google can't hide itself anymore: Chrome will now have to take Firefox and Internet Explorer head-on.

It's official, Google has Open Sourced Android. The initial release of the source code is available via Google's Git repository with bugs, FAQs, documentation, etc. handled via Android's Google Code project page. Android's licensing structure and project organization seems to be trying to create something akin to the Eclipse Foundation, mixing individual and commercial interests into a development pot for the collective benefit of the platform on a whole.

"Since its release a few weeks ago, curious developers have been sniffing through the source code for Google's new Chrome web browser. Chrome's source is interesting for a variety of reasons: there's the new V8 JavaScript virtual machine with its boasts of near-native code performance, the WebKit rendering engine that does all the hard work of understanding and displaying web pages, and (last but not least), Chrome's secure sandbox designed to minimize the impact of any security flaws that might exist in both the browser and plugins alike. It is this secure sandbox that has piqued the curiosity of some observers, and for a reason that many may find surprising. From reading the source, it looks as though Google has reverse-engineered Windows, and that's explicitly prohibited by the Windows EULA."