Google has announced that Chrome OS laptops are now available to consumers through a pilot program for early adopters who prove themselves to be "right" in various ways. A Chrome Web Store has also launched to allow an easier way to run web apps within the Chrome browser itself. NOTE: See First Day Review: The Google Chrome OS Cr-48 Notebook The news all came out during a special press conference and launch event that Google held today in San Francisco. Below you can watch how the information was unveiled, through my live blogging. It's 10:15 Pacific Time, event starts in about 15 min [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Chrome | Google: Chrome OS | Top News

Google is having a press event tomorrow and it's focused on Chrome. There will likely be discussion of the Chrome browser app store. However much more interesting is the possibility that we'll see the first Chrome OS netbooks "in the flesh," so to speak. There has been conflicting information about whether these netbooks would appear this year or next, despite the original goal of having them out "for the holidays" in 2010. However, since November 2009 when we were at the last Chrome event, the market has changed pretty radically because of the iPad and now the host of iPad challengers [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Business Issues | Google: Chrome | Google: Chrome OS

At the recent Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco Google CEO Eric Schmidt seemed to suggest that Chrome-based netbooks wouldn't be available for holiday shopping (or even before the end of the year). A year ago, however, Google said it was aiming for the "holiday season" with the intended release of the first Chrome-powered machines. (There's lots of conflicting information around release timing.) It's unclear what's causing the delay but in the intervening year the iPad arrived and the first viable Android tablets are starting to appear, led by the appealing but flawed-and-too-costly Galax [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Google: Browsers | Google: Chrome | Top News

Flipping through my Los Angeles Times newspaper today, I came across an unusual ad -- one placed by Google, to push its Chrome browser: The Chrome Ad Google's "20 Things" Book In particular, the ad covers one of the 20 "things" that are part of the "20 Things I Learned About Browsers And The Web" ebook that Google released earlier this week: The ebook, which you can find here, is especially designed for the non-tech savvy consumer, to explain to them how browsers work and why "modern" browsers are important: Google: Upgrade Your Browser! The book itself doesn't overtly pu [...]

Related Topics: 1 | Channel: Content | Google: Chrome | Top News

Google has released a Chrome browser extension that simplifies and encourages spam reporting. Earlier today, Matt Cutts, Google's web spam chief, tweeted about the Google Webspam Report extension. The extension adds a "Report spam" link (or button) in four places: under each listing in Google's search results pages (seen above) your Google search history your Chrome browser history next to Chrome's address bar The link leads to a short form that the extension will pre-populate when it can. It seems to function almost exactly as requested by Steve Plunkett in the first comm [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Chrome | Google: SEO | SEO: Spamming

Dell, which already has Android-based smartphones in China, will reportedly be releasing a ChromeOS "laptop" in the not-too-distant future. That future is likely "holiday 2010," when the first ChromeOS netbooks/laptops in general will be out. Dell says it wants to be "one of the leaders" with Android and Chrome devices. The previously announced ChromeOS hardware partners are Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments. You can now add Dell to that list. (Dell, currently the number two global PC maker by a hair, has a "default search"/toolbar deal with Microsoft. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Chrome | Google: Mobile

Daniel Crawrey reported that Google said their operating system, Chrome OS, will be launching officially in the fourth quarter of this year. Google's VP of product management, Sundar Pichai, made this announcement at the COMPUTEX technology forums event yesterday. In light of yesterday's story on Google banning Windows OS this makes this announcement a bit more interesting. I personally do not see Google as the company to ban Windows OS for competitive reasons. It reminds me of the rumor (maybe fact) that Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, banning iPods and iPhones from Microsoft e [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Google: Chrome | Google: Desktop

It's not unusual for other search engines like Yahoo, Bing or Ask to advertise on Google. But I've never seen Google run an ad on another search engine until now. I did a search this evening on Bing for Google Chrome. To my surprise, there was an ad right at the top of the page advertising Chrome, apparently from Google: What's that big box below the ad? That's Bing doing a special "Best Match" unit. It's completely editorial and not connected with the ad. But above it is definitely an ad -- that's why it says Sponsored Listing. I also see the ads if I search for just chrome or br [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Google: Chrome | Google: Marketing | Top News

Google announced they added universal search results directly in Google Suggest and a "quick scroll" feature as a Chrome extension. Here is a picture of weather results, a form on Universal Search, directly in the Google Search box: I personally do not see it yet, but I am sure it will show up soon. The Quick Scroll Chrome extension will help you locate the keywords on the page you clicked on from the Google search results page. Here is a picture of how that looks: [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Chrome | Google: Universal Search | Google: Web Search

Wow. Asa Dotzler, community coordinator for Firefox marketing projects, is urging the world to add Bing to Firefox and dump Google, over comments Google CEO Eric Schmidt made about privacy. Does this mean Bing will finally be allowed into Firefox as a default choice for users? Hey Firefox – Let Us Pick Our Own Search Engine! from me last year covers how Firefox has consistently excluded Microsoft's search engine as a built-in option for their users. The most current version that I run doesn't include Bing. Heck, even Google's competitor to Firefox -- Chrome -- includes Bing as a built-in [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Features: Analysis | Firefox | Google: Chrome | Google: Critics | Top News

Google hosted something of a formal "status update" on Chrome the operating system in Mountain View on Thursday. There we discovered the company is open-sourcing the code. We also found out it's intended as a netbook OS (for now) and that Google is working with several hardware partners to create a better netbook experience (full-sized keyboard, slightly larger screen). We also learned it's intended to be a secondary or supplemental machine, not a primary computer. That positioning is very important. Google Product VP Sundar Pichai wouldn't discuss the hardware partners involved with Chr [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Features: Analysis | Google: Chrome | Google: Mobile | Top News

What is it? Google's answer to Twitter? Email and IM replacement? Personal communications and collaboration platform? These were questions and characterizations that emerged as Google announced Wave at the company's May developer event in San Francisco. (Here's a bit more context from my related post at the press conference.) It's a shapeshifter, a new species and something of a rorschach test for people because it crosses boundaries and isn't easily defined. Google Wave's API has recently become available to developers. And now some first "hands on" impressions are out. Ben Rometsch wr [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Google: Apps For Your Domain | Google: Chrome | Google: Labs | Google: User Interface

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google's founders and CEO didn't see eye to eye on building out the Chrome browser or OS, at least, not initially. Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, said that initially when Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google's co-founders, brought the idea of building a browser or operating system to him six years ago, he was not interested. Schmidt said recently, "At the time, Google was a small company." "Having come through the bruising browser wars, I didn’t want to do that again," he added. But when Schmidt saw what a Googler (previously Firefox developer) built, he [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Google: Browsers | Google: Chrome

Late yesterday Google announced (or finally admitted) that it had developed an operating system, called Chrome OS, not to be confused, exactly, with the related Chrome browser. Everyone and their grandmother seems to have an opinion about it. Here's a sampling of the reaction, positive, negative and in-between: The fans, boosters and generally positive takes: TechCrunch, BetaNews, Computerworld, Mashable, BuzzMachine, Ars Technica, Bloomberg, ArsTechnica, Google Watch, MediaMemo, Linux-Watch.com, Google Operating System, The Register, TheNextWeb.com, Black Web 2.0, BloggingStocks, Gadge [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Features: General | Google: Chrome | Google: Content Central | Google: Other | Google: Partnerships | Microsoft: Business Issues | Microsoft: General | Top News

Ars Technica posted earlier that Google is to unveil its long rumored computer operating system, and now Google confirms this is true in a blog post: Introducing the Google Chrome OS. The company says that the OS will be released later this year (likely in the fall, I'm told) to developers, designed primarily for netbooks but not limited to them. Then in 2010, it expects it will be available to consumers (though no doubt, many enthusiasts will try it on their own machines). From the company's post: Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targ [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Google: Chrome | Google: Other | Top News

I'm at the Google I/O conference, where it is being opened by Google CEO Eric Schmidt. He's welcoming the audience and saying it's great to be in front of programmers and saying, "it's time. it's time for us to take advantage of the amazing opportunity before us ... it has been 20 years trying to build a programming model that's the right one." Internet programming is the right way. Have the network, the programmers to build the right types of opportunities out there. Expects Android to have a strong year, thousands of apps and lots of hardware partners who are innovating to take phon [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Features: General | Google: Chrome | Google: Code Search | Google: General | Google: Marketing | Top News

It used to be common wisdom that Google never did consumer marketing. That's changed over the past few years, with Google doing everything from billboards to radio ads to bus "wraps" to push particular Google products. Now it boldly goes into that final frontier, TV ads in the United States. It's a first for Google. The company has never directly advertised one of its products on television in the US, though they have been mentioned in conjunction with ads from Google partners, such as T-Mobile pushing its "G1 with Google" Android phone. Now, Google's using TV to promote its Chrom [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Video | Features: Analysis | Google: Chrome | Google: Marketing | Google: TV | Top News

Over the past couple of years Microsoft and Google have become increasingly intense (maybe even bitter) rivals. Most recently the two companies used Yahoo as something of a pawn their game. It may be somewhat unfair to all involved to characterize Yahoo as a "pawn." But Microsoft tried to buy Yahoo primarily as a way to better compete against Google in search and online advertising. And Google offered Yahoo a paid search deal in part to help Yahoo develop a credible alternative to Microsoft's offer and keep the property away from Redmond. When the Microsoft offer/acquisition failed, it succ [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Google: Business Issues | Google: Chrome | Google: Legal | Google: Outside US | Microsoft: Business Issues | Microsoft: General | Microsoft: Outside US

One of the key features of Google Chrome is how it will list the sites you regularly visit on your home page when the browser starts. Now Google has brought that to Firefox, via the latest Google Toolbar update now available. With the update, if you open a new blank tab in Firefox, the sites you visit most often will be listed. Of course, not everyone will like having all the sites they regularly visit showing up this way. I find it annoying in Chrome that this cannot be disabled. But Google tells me this can be disabled using the Google Toolbar's Settings option. And if you clea [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Google: Chrome | Top News

As was reported yesterday, Google's browser Chrome is coming out of beta -- a mere 100 days after it was introduced. When I commented to Sundar Pichai, Product VP, that this had to be one of the fastest exits from beta for Google in recent memory he explained that "Google has a very traditional approach to our client software products," meaning it accelerates the process of getting them to a general release. There were suggestions on the TechCrunch blog that third parties were potentially exerting pressure on or encouraging Google to hurry up the general release of Chrome. I asked Pich [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Features: Analysis | Google: Browsers | Google: Business Issues | Google: Chrome | Microsoft: Partnerships