Google Chrome

I'm trying out the new Google Chrome browser that Google has created. You may ask yourself why do we need another browser? Google created this video just to answer that question.



According to this video, Google has redesigned the browser to take advantage of the media, the richness and the speed that users require for accessing the internet, as well as security and personalization. Do we need another browser? Well, before we used to have Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer. We now have Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Apple's Safari, and now Google Chrome. It always doesn't hurt to have more competitors, it can only help consumers. And it seems that Google Chrome is much faster in loading pages than the other browsers I've been using.

Google Chrome is open source and can be downloaded here. There's also an interesting comic book about Google Chrome as well. As with all new software, Google Chrome has not escaped bugs, there are some early security vulnerabilities as indicated in PC World magazine.

In my opinion, what will make Google Chrome a success is its openness to developers wanting to write plugins for this browser. I see many developers and techies flaunting to try new things, but what about the average joe user? They are already happy and know how to use Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer, what will be the compelling reason for them to change? And I don't know if Google Chrome will support ActiveX because many web sites use ActiveX plugins like Microsoft's download sites and Windows Update. The only time I use Internet Explorer is to have to use Windows Update to check my computer for the latest updates since it won't work with Firefox.

What do people think? Are people using the Google Chrome browser, what are your experiences with it? Is it good that Google is creating another browser, are they dominating the web with their presence, is this part of the Google empire?

On Technorati: Google Chrome

Goosh: A Unix-type interface to Google

Well someone either is a hard-core computer science person, has too much time on their hands, is doing this for a project, or all the above. This person has created a Unix-type interface command shell to Google called Goosh (Google shell named appropriately). It has all the same commands that you would issue to Google in a web browser or using the Google search API. This would make a good Computer Science web programming project, as all I can see is that this is just an interface that makes calls to the Google Search API and presents the results in a command-type interface.

On Technorati: Goosh,Google shell

Facebook and business

Everybody knows that Facebook is the social network out there. It's not just for teens or students anymore, as Facebook has opened its platform to developers and to anyone out there. This is great that Facebook has done that because now, we have seen so many applications written for Facebook, one of the more popular ones is Scrabulous which is addictive but doesn't require both people to be online at the same time to play. Other social networking applications and companies out there are competing with Facebook, not Google. Google has not gotten close to what Facebook has done, although they are getting into the social networking game with their OpenSocial API. And then there's word that Google wants to create a social graph of all your networks. Of course the term social graph has been used before in Computer Science even though Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook has used this term.

Anyways, what am I trying to get at? Facebook IS useful and increasingly so according to Harry Chen from UMBC. He talks about why people should be using and joining Facebook. He specifies three reasons for this:

1. Interact with friends who you don’t see often
2. Gain new competitive advantages
3. Learn by playing

This means that businesses need to be getting on board which many are by tapping the social networks within Facebook by writing Facebook applications.

On Technorati: Facebook, Google, OpenSocial

Google going green

I just read an article about Google's push into renewable energy resources which is based on Google's ambitious announcement on Tuesday that it intends to generate one gigawatt of electricity--the equivalent of a few power plants--from renewable-energy sources. Many people that this is a distraction and this is a PR thing in order to generate news about Google and make them feel like energy stars. However, I think that this is a good move on Google's part and shows that they are taking the lead in addressing environmental issues and global warming. Tech companies should not just be doing things in tech, I mean sure tech is the core business, but it should also lead by example in other philanthropic areas. Google has the money anyways, so it should spread the wealth.

On Technorati: Google, renewable energy

Google's OpenSocial API

It looks like my thoughts as to why Google hasn't explored the social networking space is now answered. Besides having Google creating a large social network graph (according to Eric Schmidt), Google is also creating APIs to allow applications to easily use social networking information. Google has something called the OpenSocial API, more information from one of Google's employees on their blog. It seems Google has quite a number of partners on board using their API. This is something to definitely look at, as you can't reckon with a force like Google.

On Technorati: OpenSocial, Google, social network

Google hints at social network plan

I've been wondering when Google would start to think about social networking and how it could be used. So far, Yahoo has been the leader in social networking, with Flickr and Upcoming and Yahoo My Web Beta. Google's Orkut still does not compare in the same calibre with Facebook or MySpace, huge social networking web sites. However, Google is now beginning to hint how they will use social networking data in their own web search and to share the social data with others. According to Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, from this article from NY Times, Google has something up its sleeve.

Will Google be able to top Yahoo and other social networking sites like Facebook? Only time will tell.

Mashups and Twitterlicious

Mashups are the craze these days, and this week was Mashup Camp in Mountain View. What's a mashup? Basically, it's a fusion of different data sources to create a web application using public APIs. Mashups before were started by the geeky developers. The first type of mashups were those based on Google Maps API, like for example, there is a mashup of TTC stations that are mapped in Toronto. In a way, just like open-source software where people tinker with the code and modify it, mashups are in a sense open-web applications, they really open up the web, and the sky is the limit as to what type of applications you can write.

Now apparently, the big businesses are getting into the game, especially the big three of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Google has something called Google Mashups Editor that allow you to create mashups visually in a GUI interface on the web. It's in beta and right now is only limited to a small number of developers. Ever since Google started with Google Maps, they've been speedily enabling desktop applications on the web, like Google Docs and Spreadsheets and Gmail. Yahoo also has a mashup tool called Yahoo Pipes, check out my blog entry about that. Of course, it was inevitable that Microsoft would have a mashup tool (they always come late into the game in almost every new product, but in the end do give a run on the competition). Their mashup tool is something called Microsoft Popfly.

What is Popfly? It's a catchy and cool word. Basically Popfly is a way for non-developers to easily create web applications without having to write code. It's only by invitation only as it's in Alpha. You have to click a button to join and then if you're accepted, you'll get an e-mail back to allow you to login. I did that last week. I haven't really went through the time to test Popfly, being busy with the PhD and finishing writing up the camera-ready of a conference paper. Hopefully, I'll be able to test drive Popfly.

So anyways, back to MashupCamp. Here's a pretty neat mashup, it's called Twitterlicious and as you might guess it uses Twitter and del.icio.us. What it does is that you can browse Twitter feeds on your phone but since it's difficult to browse URLs associated with Twitter posts, you can create clips of the URLs as del.icio.us bookmarks which you can view later on your PC. A video of this is shown here from MashupCamp.

On Technorati: mashup, twitterlicious, twitter, mashup camp, del.icio.us, Popfly

Google 2.0

This article from Time Magazine shows that Google today has unveiled an upgrade to their popular search, called "universal search". The idea here is that when you're searching, instead of searching for video using videos.google.com or images like images.google.com, you just enter the search in the box, and all relevant search results will be categorized accordingly. If it's an image, the image will be shown, and if it's a video, then a video will be shown.

I just tried going to Google now, but it's still the same Google, I guess they haven't initiated the change quite yet on the google.ca site. Google is still the king of search having a commanding 64% of the search market, Yahoo with 22% and MSN with 9%. However, this begs the question how far can Google have the lead? Remember how Palm used to have a commanding lead over Microsoft? Now, Palm is not the disputed leader in PDAs. Same for Windows NT or for Internet Explorer, Microsoft seems to always catch up. However, Microsoft is having a tough time competing in the search space, so it'll be interesting to see how Microsoft will try to combat Google. Yahoo is going real strong into social networking, and I wonder when Google will start to realize that social networking will power searching, that sometimes you want to find things through your social network. But it seems so far, the Google search is king, even if you can't find your search result within the first 5 results.

On Technorati: Google, search

Google TiSP

Google just announced a new product on April 1, 2007 called the Google TiSP. It's a new in-home wireless broadband service.

What will Google think of next?

On Technorati: Google TiSP