Google hasn't had much luck with the social web. Somehow, its approach so far has failed to provide any meaningful products. But social is the future, at least that's how it looks right now, and, with Facebook becoming stronger every day, Google is worried. After so many misses, it now hopes to score a hit, and is launching Google Buzz, which we got wind of earlier today, a sort of FriendFeed for Gmail with a few Google twists. The way Google sees it, the social web today is like the plain, old, regular web was 12 years or so, too much noise, too little relevance. Back in 1998, though, a small startup came along and changed that... [read more >>] It looks like Facebook isn't the only one to get Twitter envy, Google seems to be catching it too as there are reports that it's launching a tool which will enable users to view status updates and shared links from their friends inside Gmail. The WSJ claims (subscription required) that the feature may be coming as soon as this week. This ties in nicely with the announcement of a Google event later today, 10 a.m. PST, where Google says it will be "unveiling some product innovations in two of [its] most popular products."
The new Gmail feature will add a news feed of sorts to the webmail client which will help users keep up with ... [read more >>] For a few years, the biggest single advantage Firefox had over its competitors were the highly popular add-ons, which bolt on functionality to the basic browser. Granted, for most of this time, it didn't really have any competitor. Internet Explorer was the de facto browser for most people not by choice but simply because it came bundled with Windows. With Google entering the browser market with Chrome a year and a half ago, things are finally starting to heat up. And since Google Chrome very recently got support for extensions, first in the beta channel and now in the stable build, there wasn't a better time for an add-on stand o... [read more >>] Add-ons, or extensions depending on the naming convention, have become crucial for any web browser thanks in no small part to the popularity the feature has enjoyed on Firefox. Google has finally launched an online extensions repository for Chrome in December and recently has enabled extension support in the Chrome stable branch. Perfect timing then for a little round up to see how Google's implementation stacks up to Mozilla's. In part one we'll look at the Chrome extensions, in part two at the Firefox ones and there will also be a conclusion and analysis, so stay tuned. And what better topic than the ubiquitous weather g... [read more >>] With the completely 'unexpected' launch of the Apple iPad, there was some hope that things would quiet down on the tablet front. If anything, just the opposite happened, even more people started to talk about it, every other news story was either about the iPad or inserted some reference to it regardless of its subject. Now, even Google is adding fuel to the fire. After some speculation of whether Chrome OS will have touch support or not, it looks like we've already got our, more-or-less official, answer in the form of mock-up pictures and a video showing Chrome OS used on a tablet device. Keep in mind that these are just c... [read more >>] The hype around Google Chrome OS has died down a bit now that Google unveiled its first operating system (not accounting for Android on the mobile front). Scheduled to debut in time for holiday season 2010, Google still has a lot of work ahead of it and, while we have a general idea of what the company has envisioned, a lot of the details are still lacking. One feature that got pushed into the spotlight recently is 'touch' thanks to the overhyped Apple iPad launch. Some people have been asking if Chrome OS gets touch, or maybe even multitouch, support and they've not gotten some sort of answer. The official version is '... [read more >>] The Google Books controversy is stirring up again as the deadline for submitting objections to the revised settlement proposed by Google and the book author and publisher groups passed yesterday. While people had been critical of the updated version of the settlement, its fiercest opponent, at least judging by the big names behind it, the Open Book Alliance (OBA) waited until the last moment to file its objections. As expected, the group backed by Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo among others, not exactly members of the Google fan club, was unconvinced by the latest iteration of the settlement, calling it a "paltry proposal" and an attempt by G... [read more >>] The Oracle - Sun merger was finally made official yesterday after several months in the making. Oracle announced that it planned to acquire Sun for $7.4 billion in April 2009, but the deal was blocked off by regulators until very recently. Oracle said the acquisition was a done deal and also laid down some plans for the two companies. The tone was very optimistic and Oracle seems determined to integrate Sun technology with its current products but also to make the company profitable within a year, quite a task considering that Sun has been lingering in past years and had $2.2 billion in loss in 2009.
For starters, most Sun employees hav... [read more >>] With HTML5 getting a big boost last week, after both YouTube and Vimeo rolled out versions of their sites based on the proposed web standard, some people were wondering why neither of them work on Firefox. It has to do with the codec both sites use, h.264, which is patented by the MPEG-LA and not with the broader HTML5 support in Firefox which is actually pretty advanced.
Mozilla argues that, because of its proprietary nature, h.264 is not a real option for the open-source browser or the web at large for that matter. Over the weekend, several Mozilla people spoke out arguing their choice and explaining why h.264 is a bad choice and why ... [read more >>] This seems to be HTML5 week, when it comes to video at least, and barely a day after YouTube announced that it was starting to support the emerging standard in a number of videos, Vimeo has done the same thing. In fact, it raised the bar as the new HTML5 player is available for all videos on the site as an option and it's actually better than the Flash-based one.
"We are committed to providing our users with high quality viewing options," Andrew Pile, Vimeo VP of Product and Development said. "Many of our members asked for HTML5 support and we listened. We look forward to seeing the results of this beta test."
"The additional pl... [read more >>] | 
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