Google's complete lack of account flexibility is really starting to irritate me

By David Gewirtz

 

I use a lot of Google services and I respect the company and its products. Last month, for example, I ran a very long series of how-tos for getting the most out of Google Voice. That said, I do not use Gmail as my primary email account and have been regularly snafu’d when trying to manage my various Google accounts.
It’s really starting to irritate me.


Today, I tried to set up a new YouTube account. I gave YouTube my email address, only to be told the email address in question had been previously tied to another YouTube account — one I’d created last year for my book, How To Save Jobs. Because the YouTube account HowToSaveJobs was tied to my email address, I can’t use that email address with any other account, including a YouTube channel of just my own videos.
The thing is, the HowToSaveJobs YouTube channel is meant to be operated by the nonprofit the book is associated with. I’d like to let someone else in the organization be able to upload videos and maintain the account. But because the HowToSaveJobs account is tied permanently to my personal email address, I can’t make that change.
I’d have to give a nonprofit volunteer the email address and password of my personal email account, just so they could upload videos. And that ain’t ever going to happen!
This sort of thing has happened in other areas of Google Accounts.
I once created a simple mail tracking account, but — prudently — Google asked for a backup email address in case I couldn’t log in. So I gave Google my personal email address for that, as well. Now, my email address is associated with that barely used (and weirdly named) Gmail account and I can’t reassign it.
Now, it’s entirely possible I’m missing a trick or Google changed its procedures and there is a way to reassign email addresses and consolidate accounts. I haven’t found a way, and from the many discussion board postings I’ve read, it doesn’t look like Google offers any form of account management.
I can’t begin to tell you how many random Google accounts I have for various things that I’d like to consolidate, normalize, and make sane.
While it’s always possible to just open up yet another Google account, that’s not a best practice approach. More to the point, this may be holding back some migrations to Google services.
I currently have my main email account on a hosted Exchange server and I’d love to move to Gmail. But until I can be sure I can control my accounts, manage them, and not have them tied to historical detritus, I’m not making that move.
I am not alone with this problem.
I got an email recently from a colleague, a woman who registered all her accounts with her married name, went though an acrimonious divorce, and still has to use her ex-husband’s last name on her Google accounts because she can’t change them back to her own last name. It makes her crazy and since she’s now doing professional business under her own name, it confuses everyone she works with.
She tells me that although she’d prefer to forget the tougher times in her life, because her email last name doesn’t match her real last name, she’s forced to recount her divorce story to almost anyone she gives her email address to. Apparently, now that she’s active on Google Plus, it’s even more annoying.
So here’s what I’d like to see Google do.
I’d like to be able to assign and reassign email addresses to various account names. I’d like to be able change account names. I’d like to be able to consolidate accounts, so if I have three of a similar account, I can combine them into one. In short, I’d like to have comprehensive account management for my Google accounts.
I don’t have any insight into why Google doesn’t make account management easy and account renaming possible. One reason might be that it has indexed all transactions based on the account name string. If that’s the case, well, that’s not exactly a best programming practice.
I certainly don’t know if that’s why Google is restrictive about renaming accounts, but if that is the reason, something will almost undoubtedly break in the future because name-based indexing often breaks.
In any case, consider this an open plea to the wizards of the Googleplex. C’mon guys, make it possible for us to manage our accounts better. Please? Pretty please, with sugar on top?

Article Source:  http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/googles-complete-lack-of-account-flexibility-is-really-starting-to-irritate-me/10678

Google vs Microsoft patent ding dong gets stuck on repeat

By Kelly Fiveash • Get more from this author

Microsoft and Google are still engaged in a war of words over what Mountain View has claimed is a "conspiracy" against its Android platform.
We at Vulture Central recommend you take ringside seats and bring a huge bucket of popcorn for this row, as it shows little sign of slowing down.

In the latest round, Microsoft's top flack Frank Shaw wrote a series of tweets addressing the most recent catty comments from Google general counsel David Drummond, who said the software giant had tried to divert attention from the real issue behind the spat with a "false 'gotcha'".

The Googler claimed MS had defensively been herding patents away from Google and Android device-makers by waging a "hostile, organised campaign" against its platform with "bogus patents". He offered purported evidence that Google's three rivals in the game – MS, Apple and Oracle – were behind a consortium that purchased hundreds of patents from the Linux-loaded Novell.
"A joint acquisition of the Novell patents that gave all parties a licence would have eliminated any protection these patents could offer to Android against attacks from Microsoft and its bidding partners," said Drummond.
"Making sure that we would be unable to assert these patents to defend Android – and having us pay for the privilege – must have seemed like an ingenious strategy to them. We didn't fall for it."
Microsoft's top counsel Brad Smith had earlier claimed that the company had approached Google: "We asked them to bid jointly with us. They said no," he tweeted.
Following Drummond's update to his 3 August post on Google's corporate blog, Shaw once again took to Twitter to publicly unload his latest opinion about the brouhaha.
"Hello again David Drummond. This is going to take a few tweets, so here we go. Let’s look at what Google does not dispute in their reply," he wrote.
"We offered Google the opportunity to bid with us to buy the Novell patents; they said no.
"Why? BECAUSE they wanted to buy something that they could use to assert against someone else.
"SO partnering with others & reducing patent liability across industry is not something they wanted to help do."
In other words, the two companies are getting stuck on repeat with their arguments about who did what when.
Arguably, Google is on the ropes at the moment, given Smith's comment about inviting the Chocolate Factory to join hands with MS and bid jointly for the patents.
The world's largest ad broker has been silent on the issue for about 12 hours now. But it's unlikely this verbal, manbag-whacking fight is over yet.

Article Source:  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/05/microsoft_google_patent_war_round_100655967856894095/

Ofcom bows to Google lobby

By Andrew Orlowski • Get more from this author

The rubber-stamping of Ian Hargreaves "IP Review" and other news yesterday represents a lobbying triumph for Google, and shows the creative industries they need to learn some lessons.
Yesterday Ofcom pleased its political masters by repealing laws passed by Parliament. It may have repealed a dodgy law, but that's beside the point: it's not how our system is supposed to work. No matter how dodgy a law may be, it is not a quango's job to repeal it. It's the job of legislators. And a powerful regulator should be independent, and not heel to its political masters – although anyone who followed the history of the regulator will permit themselves a hollow cackle at that principle.

Ofcom repealed Sections 17 and 18 of the Digital Economy Act by expressing no more than an opinion: the justification to support that opinion is absent from its report. Ofcom could have set out its case in terms of explaining the legal framework, for example, but it didn't. It could have argued the costs and benefits of each approach to web-blocking – but it didn't, it hadn't even attempted to do that kind of empirical research.

Instead, on page 43, we learn that: "It is our current belief that the blocking of discrete URLs, or web addresses, is not practical or desirable as a primary approach." What's practical is not defined, what's "desirable" is well beyond Ofcom's remit.
Now, I'm on the record as being opposed to web-blocking – for a variety of reasons. In a healthy market, with bags of choice, nobody needs to go to http://dodgysite.wz. And in a healthy market, if you were a serial user of http://dodgysite.wz, you'd eventually expect to get dinged – just as you'd get dinged for driving up and down the motorways at 150mph. A healthy market has some kind of backstop of enforcement for the few determined piss-takers or joy-riders.
And poll after poll shows this is the rational, popular view. There are plenty of people who feel uncomfortable about it all, which is understandable. The focus on enforcement first makes the copyright industries look lazy and backward-looking. But when you peel back all the arguments, only a tiny handful of cranks and obsessive nutters openly state that a creator's rights should not be enforced online. Saying you support creators' rights in principle but then recoiling in horror when they are exercised in practice is not a supportable, long-term position. It's like saying you "support gay marriage" but want to forbid gay couples from ever getting married. So in short, I believe the copyright-holders are entitled to have some tools for enforcement, as a backstop, and these must include something far, far smarter than website-blocking.
But back to Ofcom. Imagine the uproar if a quango had interposed itself to block significant primary legislation: Britain's entry into the Common Market for example, or the minimum wage. All are quite complicated issues, after all. The blame isn't entirely Ofcom's; the regulator was permitted to do this because ministers wanted to find a way to bury the Sections without Parliament formally repealing them. Again, this is dishonest, and not the way laws are made or unmade. Ed Vaizey has been trying to get industry to agree to self-regulation which would allow him to announce their imminent repeal (most likely in the next Communications Act).
But Ofcom has embarrassed everyone by producing a report in which the rationale plainly has no supporting evidence – and this has exposed some quite ugly backroom politics, and lack of accountability. Not wishing to pour oil onto burning water, at all, we must note that Ofcom derives its revenues from Big Telco. So we can be sure this isn't the last you'll hear of the story. Google's open door into government will now be under greater scrutiny than ever.
But Ofcom is only part of a bigger picture.
Quite ironically, the Hargreaves review had a few things to say about lobbying.
"Lobbying is a feature of all political systems and as a way of informing and organising debate it brings many benefits. In the case of IP policy and specifically copyright policy, however, there is no doubt that the persuasive powers of celebrities and important UK creative companies have distorted policy outcomes," it states.
The prejudices are clear, here. When creative industries knock on Minister's door to make their case, they are "lobbying". When Google does it, it's bringing rainbows, freedom, and bottles of unicorn's tears. Ministers seem oblivious to accusations that it's too cosy to the American giant. They were oblivious to ties to Murdoch, too, I recall, for quite a long time.
What the "Google Review" has achieved is to highlight the prejudices of our permanent bureaucracy, which like academia, detests creators' rights. It's a standing joke that the intellectual property part of the civil service is a bit like the Church of England, where it's a handicap to believe in a supreme deity, and quite a help if you're an atheist. To get on in the IP establishment, you have to loathe the creative industries, and seek to weaken creators' rights at every opportunity. You must insist they are oppressive, anachronistic, stifling... in fact, nothing at all to do with Britain's really quite successful IP businesses, which range from games to music to TV formats. One of our most senior civil servants has privately stated that copyright is like taxation: the more you do away with them, the more economic benefits you get. But this is a complete inversion of reality.
Hargreaves delivered an intellectually sloppy piece of work, which boils down to a collection of lobbyist's whinges and an angry academic's mad rant. The passages on parody and collection societies came straight from the Chocolate Factory. Many of the figures touted as economic benefits have simply been plucked out of thin air. (The main one was chosen because it is one half of 1 percent of GDP – that's scientific).
Elsewhere, Hargreaves makes recommendations that fail to acknowledge well-known potential problems. (I highlighted one here) A competent IP review would have proposed format shifting – everyone wants it, and it's long overdue – and also the various methods of complying with EU law to ensure it's legal – and compensation is paid. It is instead going to pretend it doesn't have to pay compensation, which the European Court of Justice is quite clear about. So the government will either wake up in time and do nothing, or get mown down in an expensive European court defeat. All this is known about. The previous government looked at format-shifting, and parody, three years ago. If a simpleton like me can see this looming, why weren't ministers warned? Because their civil servants didn't warn them, perhaps? Now, why would that be?
Answers on a postcard, please: along with bottles of joy and unicorn's tears. Perhaps you can also riddle me this:
The Conservatives came to power vowing to abolish Ofcom, and declaring war on what they saw as Leftish academic poseurs, and business-hostile bureaucrats. They now seem to be at the mercy of all three. How on Earth did that happen?

Article Source:  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08/05/hargreaves_review_trouble_ahead/

Gmail calling now in 38 languages, lowered rates

Google has started offering Gmail calling outside the US in 38 new languages. You can now buy calling credit in your choice of four currencies (Euros, British pounds, Canadian dollars, or US dollars). Furthermore, there are no connection fees: you only pay for the time you talk. Google is also lowering its calling rates to over 150 destinations around the world; see the International calling rates for specifics.

Over the next few days, Google is rolling out the new feature. If it's available in your country, you'll see a little green phone icon show up at the top of your chat list (to start making calls, you'll need to install the voice and video plug-in if you haven't already). If you're a Google Apps user, your domain administrator must have Google Voice and Google Checkout enabled in the administrator control panel in order to be able to use this feature.

The search giant launched Gmail calling back in August 2010, making it possible for Americans to call any mobile phone or landline directly from Gmail. Now the feature is finally available outside of the US. As of five months ago, the company made phone numbers clickable in Gmail, thus advertising the new feature to all users who haven't tried it yet. You can start using Gmail calling on Windows, Mac, or Linux by navigating to Google.com/Chat/Voice.
Before 2010 was over, Google extended free calling to all of the US and Canada until December 31, 11:59PM 2011. We recommend you take advantage before Google starts charging you next year.

Article Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/44931-gmail-calling-now-in-38-languages-lowered-rates.html

Black Ops gets fourth, all zombie map pack 'Rezurrection'

Call of Duty: Black Ops fans have yet another map pack to look forward to before Modern Warfare 3 launches later this year. Called ‘Rezurrection’, Activision says this DLC is different than the previous three releases as there are no dedicated multiplayer maps but rather only zombie maps.
Black Ops map packs have traditionally featured four new regular multiplayer map packs and only a single zombie map. ‘Rezurrection’ will feature five zombie maps and almost all of these new maps are remakes of maps from Call of Duty: World at War. Only one all-new map is being released, called Moon.
Furthermore, those that bought the Hardened or Prestige editions of Black Ops already have the four World at War maps. A new zombie soundtrack and a Moon Xbox 360 theme will also accompany the 360 release.

Currently there are five zombie maps available for standard Black Ops owners: Five, Kino der Toten, Ascension, Call of the Dead and Shangri-La. The last three were bundled with previous map packs First Strike, Escalation and Annihilation, respectively.
The new map pack is scheduled for release exclusively on Xbox 360 on August 23 and for PS3 and PC sometime in September. The Xbox DLC will sell for the usual 1200 Microsoft points ($15) but is available free of charge to Hardened and Prestige edition owners.
Modern Warfare 3 is the next title release in the Call of Duty series and is due November 8.

Article Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/44962-black-ops-gets-fourth-all-zombie-map-pack-rezurrection.html

Google Realtime Search Without Twitter?

From devastating disasters to celebrity slips, a single mention on Twitter can turn into a trend in a matter of minutes. That’s why the micro-blogging site has been credited as the source for major breaking news stories and hundreds of high-profile rumors. Like it or love it, Twitter is a force to be reckoned with, so how is Google going to provide real-time news without it?
Last month, Google removed their Realtime search option after failing to come to an agreement with Twitter. They were still able to pull in posts from Facebook, but let’s be frank and say that Facebook isn’t exactly a bastion of breaking news.
Now, Mashable is reporting that Google is “actively working” on bringing Realtime back, only with Google+ as the main source of data. As the article reads, Google’s Amit Singhal didn’t say they wouldn’t be courting Twitter, but it doesn’t sound like it’s a high priority, which is understandable when you have your own micro-blogging source in-house.
The hitch is that even once (if) Google+ becomes heavily trafficked, it’s likely that the postings will resemble those you find on Facebook. Google already admitted, that Facebook wasn’t very effective as a real-time news source, so how is Google+ going to be any better?
If I give them some benefit of the doubt, there is the fact that Google+ is more business and tech oriented, so it could be a better source than Facebook for industry specific news. Outside of that, I don’t see it.
The real test will happen when the next big news story breaks. I’m not wishing a major disaster on any area of the nation, but it’s going to happen and how the Google+ community responds will be very telling.
In May, Sysomos did an impromptu survey of the rise in Tweets after the death of Bin Laden. Some of the first mentions appeared on Twitter and within 12 hours, there were 2.2 million Tweets about Osama Bin Laden. That’s news in real-time. That’s what’s happening now. I just don’t see how Google can move forward without that kind of speed and clout.

Article Source: http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2011/08/google-realtime-search-without-twitter.html

Google offers workshops to lure Android developers

Google is launching a series of workshops designed to grab developers who can create high-quality Android apps.
Set up by the folks at Google's Android Developer Relations, the Android Developer Labs (ADLs) will try to show developers how they can optimize their apps for Android tablets, according to an Android developers blog.
Dubbed "Optimizing Honeycomb Tablet Applications," the ADLs will cover how to develop apps for the screen size and user interface of Honeycomb tablets and how to migrate apps from mobile phones to tablets.
The sessions are for experienced developers only, specifically those who have already published apps to Google's Android Market.
"The goal is to bring your app to the ADL, and leave equipped to make it into one that makes Android tablet users smile," according to the blog.
The first workshop kicked off yesterday in Bangalore, India. The next two workshops will run in Seattle on August 15 and 16. Those will be followed by two workshops in New York City, one on August 23 and another on August 24. The series will wrap up with a final session in Los Angeles on September 2.
Anyone with the necessary qualifications can register, according to Google, but only a small number of people will be chosen to attend based on the quality of their existing Android apps.
Trying to drum up developer interest in Android is of course only one of many factors that could push more business toward Android tablet makers. But even that may be difficult. A recent study from mobile analytics firm Flurry found that mobile developers are inching back toward Apple, the iPad, and iOS following earlier excitement over Android.
Despite the flood of Android tablets that have hit the market this year, Apple's iPad still holds its dominant market share. CEOs at such companies as Dell and Nvidia said they believe Android tablets could eventually outsell the iPad. Some reports have pointed to the iPad already losing customers to the combined might of all the Android tablets on the market.
But most analysts agree that Google and its tablet partners face a tough time trying to take a huge enough bite out of Apple's sales. Speaking with CNET on Monday, IHS iSuppli analyst Wayne Lam said that Google is unlikely to catch up with the iPad and iOS anytime soon. Lam feels that Android's makers still can't match the design of the iPad since, among other reasons, Apple controls both the operating system and the hardware.

Read more: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19736_7-20087468-251/google-offers-workshops-to-lure-android-developers/#ixzz1Tz3jrMnz

Article Source: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19736_7-20087468-251/google-offers-workshops-to-lure-android-developers/

25 Million Google+ Users, Does It Matter?

The number of users on Google+ has reached 25 million, and most are in the U.S. and India, according to Tuesday data from comScore.
Those numbers mean Google+ made it to 25 million users the fastest among the top social networks, but fastest might not always be best, Andrew Lipsman, vice president of industry analysis at comScore, said during a recent conference call. "Facebook took the longest and is currently the most stable," he said.
It took Facebook and Twitter more than two years to reach that milestone, while MySpace was just under two years, according to stats from comScore. While Google+ is off to a fast start, Lipsman urged industry watchers to "keep it in perspective." Facebook still dominates U.S. social networking and LinkedIn, Twitter, and MySpace (sort of) still have established positions, he said.
Broken down by country, the U.S. leads in Google+ usage with about 6.44 million unique visitors, Lipsman said. That's followed by India with 3.62 million and Canada with about 1.1 million. The U.K. also has about 1 million visitors, while Brazil, France, and Taiwan all have between 500,000 and 1 million. It also has a small presence in Turkey and Spain.
In the U.S., Google+ is still a bit of a boy's club; 63 percent of its users are male compared to 37 percent female. The biggest age group using Google+ is 25 to 34 with 35 percent, followed by 18 to 24 with 23 percent. The top Google+ markets in the U.S. are Austin, the Bay Area, and Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Google+ fans are apparently loyal to the brand; 59 percent access Google+ via the company's Chrome browser, 25 percent use Firefox, and 23 percent use Internet Explorer.
Last week, Experian Hitwise made headlines with the report that said Google+ usage had declined 3 percent in the previous week; stats that were disputed by Google. Lipsman found that engagement on Google+ is still increasing, just not as quickly as in prior weeks. Engagement was up 39 percent between July 10 and July 17, for example, but up 11 percent between July 17 and July 24.
During a July earnings call, Google said its service had more than 10 million users, who shared about 1 billion items each day, including 2.3 million uses of the "+1" feature. But Google's Larry Page didn't elaborate on when Google passed that milestone, or by how far. In late July, data from Ancestry.com founder Paul Allen put the Google+ user base just under 18 million.

Article Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2390356,00.asp

Google Chrome

The bottom line: Google Chrome 12 comes with a full range of competitive features, and is one of the most standards-compliant and fastest browsers available. It lacks some of the fine-tuning customizations in Firefox, but Chrome's minimalist interface, fast page-load times, and support for extensions make the browser appealing to the average user as well as to Google fanatics.
Review:
Google Chrome continues to mature from a lightweight and fast browsing alternative into an innovative browser on the precipice of a potential browsing revolution with the just-released Chrome OS. The browser that people can use today, Chrome 12, offers highly competitive features, including synchronization, autofill, and standards compliance, and maintains Google's reputation for building one of the fastest browsers available.
Chrome 12 represents a major milestone for the browser, but those expecting to see dramatic changes in major-point updates will be disappointed. For a while now, Google has been pushing features over what it calls milestone numbers, which means that as soon as new features are usable in the beta version of Chrome, Google will likely push them to all users in the stable edition.

First Look: Chrome still shines, 10 versions later

There are no single big changes in Chrome 12; instead there's a series of smaller updates that are still worthwhile changes. Six weeks ago, Chrome 11 saw the debut of an HTML5 speech API that converted your speech into text via a microphone. Chrome 12 offers hardware acceleration improvements and better in-browser security, and notably removes support for the now-defunct offline tool Google Gears.
Please note that there are at least four versions of Chrome available at the moment, and this review only addresses the "stable" branch, intended for general use. Chrome beta (Windows | Mac), Chrome dev (Windows | Mac), and Chrome Canary (Windows | Mac) are respectively progressively less stable versions of the browser, and aimed at developers.
Installation
Chrome's installation process is simple and straightforward. If you download the browser from Google's Web site, it will ask you if you'd like to anonymously submit usage statistics to the company. This can be toggled even after the browser's installed by going to the "wrench" Preferences menu and choosing Options, then Under the Hood, and checking or unchecking Help Make Chrome Better. Depending on your processor, the installation process should take less than 2 minutes.
Interface
Google's Chrome interface has changed remarkably little since its surprise debut in September 2008. Tabs are still on top, the location bar--which Google likes to call the "Omnibar"--dominates the minimalist design, and the browser has few visible control buttons besides Back, Forward, and a combined Stop/Reload button. Although some users may not like having the tabs on top, we find it to be aesthetically preferable because it leaves more room below for the Web site we're looking at.
One change has been to remove the secondary Page Options button and combine it with the Preferences wrench icon to create space for extension icons to the right of the location bar. As it currently looks, it could be better organized. Some controls, such as page zoom, are readily available. Others, such as the extension manager, are hidden away under a Tools submenu.
Chrome's extensions are fairly limited in how they can alter the browser's interface. Unlike Firefox, which gives add-on makers a lot of leeway in changing the browser's look, Chrome mandates that extensions appear only as icons to the right of the location bar. The benefit is that this maintains a uniform look to the browser, but it definitely limits how much the browser can be customized. Chrome doesn't support sidebars, either, although other Chromium-based browsers (such as Comodo Dragon) do offer the feature. There is an option in Chrome's about:flags, a series of experimental features, that lets you move the tabs to a sidebar.
A minor change in Chrome 11 was to move settings pages to their own tab, rather than a dialog box. Chrome 12 extends that configuration to Chrome's synchronization feature.
Even with its limitations, the interface design has remained a contemporary exemplar of how to minimize the browser's screen footprint while remaining easy to use and versatile.
Features and support
Chrome 12's features are accessible from the Preferences menu via the wrench icon on the right side of the navigation bar. The browser offers a complete range of modern browsing conveniences. The basics are well-represented, including tabbed browsing, new window creation, and a private browsing mode that Google calls Incognito, which disables cookie tracking, history recording, extension support, and other browsing breadcrumbs.
Chrome is based on WebKit, the same open-source engine that powers Apple Safari, Google's Android mobile platform, and several other desktop and mobile Web-browsing tools. However, Chrome runs on a different JavaScript engine than its WebKit cousins, and there are other changes as well.
In Chrome 10, the biggest improvement was to Chrome's JavaScript engine. The new Crankshaft version of Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine, Google claims, was 66 percent faster than the one in Chrome 9. The importance of JavaScript performance has grown dramatically in the past year as developers have been writing not just Web sites but full-featured Web applications in JavaScript. Check out CNET's own benchmarks of the browser below in the Performance section.
Chrome 11 gave us the aforementioned HTML5 speech-to-text API. The input is recorded as text, and the browser automatically inserts the text into the available form field. At the time the feature was launched, it was only officially available on the Google Translate page when translating from English into another language. That's expected to change as developers begin to incorporate the API into their sites.
You can test it by going to Google Translate and clicking the microphone icon in the lower right corner of the text field. At the time of writing, the voice-to-HTML feature appears to work only with English.
While the feature is interesting to find in a browser, there's more behind Google's decision to include it. By gaining a speech-to-text feature, Chrome OS instantly provides a modicum of accessibility for users who have difficulty with keyboards. When the browser is the operating system, making it so people can speak to the computer and have the computer know how to interpret that speech is a quick way to ensure a broader appeal.
Along with hardware-accelerated 3D CSS in Chrome 12, we also get some interesting security improvements. You can now delete Flash cookies from inside Chrome, which makes sense given that Chrome comes with Flash built in, and there's a new Safe Browsing protection against downloading malicious files. Chrome's Web app support, which debuted earlier this year, now includes the ability to launch Web apps from the location bar. This gives keyboard jockeys a bit more power to avoid mousing around, more readily apparent in Chrome OS but nevertheless good to have in the regular old Chrome browser.
Mac users now get a warning window when using Command-Q to close the browser. And finally, Google Gears support is removed in Chrome 12 in preparation for a new offline option for Google Apps. How this will work remains to be seen. Although it could be tied to a Chrome version of Internet Explorer's site-specific pinned tabs feature, that's mere speculation at this point.
Chrome's tabs remain one of the best things about the browser. The tabs are detachable: "tabs" and "windows" are interchangeable here. Detached tabs can be dragged and dropped into the browser, and tabs can be rearranged at any time by clicking, holding, dragging, and releasing. Not only can tabs be isolated, but each tab exists in its own task process. This means that when one site crashes, the other tabs do not. Though memory leaks are a major concern in Chrome when you have dozens of tabs open, we found sluggish behavior and other impediments weren't noticeable until after there were more than 30 tabs open. That's not an immutable number, though, and different computers' hardware will alter browser performance.
Some of the basics in Chrome are handled extremely intuitively. In-page searching works smoothly. Using the Ctrl-F hot key or the menu option, searching for a word or phrase will open a text entry box on the top right of the browser. Chrome searches as you type, indicating the number of positive results and highlighting them on the page.
Account syncing is another area where Chrome excels. Using your Gmail account, Chrome will sync your themes, preferences, autofill entries, extensions, and bookmarks. You can toggle each of those categories, too. It does not yet offer password syncing, although the password manager offers a smart show-password option that keeps it visually separate from the site it's associated with.
Chrome also offers a lot of privacy-tweaking settings. In the Options menu, go to the Under the Hood tab. From here, you can toggle and customize most of the browser's privacy and security settings. Cookies, image management, JavaScript, plug-ins, pop-ups, location information, and notifications can be adjusted from the Content Settings button. This includes toggling specific plug-ins, such as the built-in Adobe Flash plug-in or the Chrome PDF reader (which is deactivated by default).
Like Firefox, Chrome gives broad control over search engines and search customizations. Though this doesn't sound like much, not all browsers allow you to set keyword shortcuts for searching, and some even restrict which search engine you can set as your default. Chrome comes with three defaults to choose from: Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
The Chrome extension manager, bookmark manager, and download manager all open in new tabs. They allow you to search their contents and throw in some basic management options like deletion, but in general they don't feel as robust as their counterparts in competing browsers. For example, URLs in the bookmark manager are only revealed when you mouse over a bookmark, and you must click on one to get the URL to permanently appear. That's an extra click that other browsers don't require.
Two other low-profile but well-executed features in Chrome are autoupdating and translation. Chrome automatically updates when a new version comes out. This makes it harder to revert back to an older version, but it's highly unlikely that you'll want to downgrade this build of Chrome since this is the stable build and not the beta or developer's version. The second feature, automatic translation of Web pages, is available to other browsers as a Google add-on, but because it comes from Google, it's baked directly into Chrome.
Chrome is also a leader in HTML5 implementation, which is uneven because of the continuing development of HTML5 standards. This will become more important in the coming months and years, but right now it doesn't greatly affect interaction with Web sites.
The jump from Chrome 12 beta to stable also brings 14 security changes, including five marked as high-risk. These fixes mostly cover potential risks such as "use-after-free" issues with cursors and float handling. The bottom line is: Chrome continues to get safer as threat vectors are discovered and patched.
In the realm of security, besides allowing you to disable JavaScript, Chrome will autoblock Web sites that are known to promulgate phishing attacks and malware threats or are otherwise unsafe. The usefulness of this depends on Google's ability to flag Web sites as risky, though, and so it's recommended to use an add-on like the Web of Trust extension or a separate security program to block threats.
Performance
Based on the open-source WebKit engine and Google's V8 JavaScript engine, Google Chrome debuted to much fanfare because of its rocketing rendering speeds. Two years down the line, that hasn't changed, and the stable version of Chrome remains one of the fastest stable browsers available. The less stable versions, with their more recent improvements and bug fixes, are often faster.
Note that to effectively use hardware acceleration, you must make sure that your graphics card drivers are up-to-date.
Nevertheless, Chrome remains one of the fastest browsers available, and its rapid version update rate ensures that it is consistently competitive.
Conclusion
It's hard to tell which is faster, user adoption of Chrome or its development. Certainly the two are linked, and due in no small part to Google's ability to lay claim to the "fastest browser" title, even when it may not be strictly true. The rest of Chrome's appeal lies in its clean, minimalist look, and competitive features that justify its still-increasing market share. Chrome is a serious option for anybody who wants a browser that gets out of the way of browsing the Web.

Read more: Google Chrome - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com http://download.cnet.com/Google-Chrome/3000-2356_4-10881381.html#ixzz1Tz30BDQD

Article Source: http://download.cnet.com/Google-Chrome/3000-2356_4-10881381.html

internet explorer IQ research a hoax

A report which suggested Internet Explorer users had a lower IQ than those relying on other browsers has been shown to be bogus, using a freshly set-up site and staff images copied from another company. The data, which faux-firm ApTiquant claimed had been gathered from 100,000 web users and included IQ testing and software surveys, has in fact apparently been fabricated, the BBC reports.


Suspicions were raised after it was noted that the ApTiquant site had only been up and running for a month, though the company claimed to have been established in 2006. Further investigation showed that the site had copied all of its staff profile photos from a French business, research firm Central Test, which has denied any knowledge of the hoax.

“With just a look at the graphs in the report, it comes out pretty clear that Internet Explorer users scored lower than average on the IQ tests. Chrome, Firefox and Safari users had just a teeny bit higher than average IQ scores. And users of Camino, Opera and IE with Chrome Frame had exceptionally higher IQ levels” ApTiquant

“I believe these figures are implausibly low – and an insult to IE users” Cambridge University stats professor David Spiegelhalter told the BBC, though security researchers failed to find any phishing or malware payload in any of ApTiquant’s content. No record of the “psychometric consulting company” exists at the address the URL is registered to.


Article Source: http://www.slashgear.com/internet-explorer-iq-research-a-hoax-03169302/

Google+ Draws 25 Million Visitors in a Month, ComScore Says

By Brian Womack

(Updates with closing share prices in last paragraph.)

Aug. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc.’s new social-networking service drew about 25 million visitors in less than a month, outpacing Facebook Inc. and MySpace in their early days, according to market researcher ComScore Inc.

The Google+ service had 6.44 million visitors in the U.S., its biggest market, through July 24, said Andrew Lipsman, ComScore’s vice president for industry analysis, on a call hosted by Lou Kerner, an analyst at Wedbush Securities Inc. That was followed by India, with 3.62 million, ComScore said. The figures don’t include mobile usage.

Google+, started in late June, is the company’s latest effort to compete in social networking with Facebook, which has more than 750 million users. Google+, which lets people connect with and manage groups of friends, added about 5 million visitors in less than a week to reach about 25 million, according to ComScore.

Engagement on the site is also increasing, Lipsman said. The average number of days per week that U.S. visitors used the service rose 39 percent in the seven days ending July 17. For the week that ended July 24, usage rose 11 percent.

Google, based in Mountain View, California, fell $14.37 to $592.40 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares are little changed this year.

--Editors: Jillian Ward, Lisa Rapaport
To contact the reporters on this story: Brian Womack in San Francisco at bwomack1@bloomberg.net;
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net

Article Source: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-08-02/google-draws-25-million-visitors-in-a-month-comscore-says.html