Hasta La Gadget!

HTML5 beckons the world with its dashing logo and also, we suppose, all the clever little things it can do. Desktop notifications in Gmail and folder-dragging in Docs already refuse to work with anything less — and before long that will apply to the entirety of Google Apps. Come August 1st, you will find that Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Docs and Sites are all unsupported unless you’re using either the current or last major release of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome or Safari. An older browser won’t suddenly stop working with Google Apps, but it will begin a steady descent into oblivion. Hey, being popular means you don’t have to be nice.

Google Apps is moving on, you’ll need an HTML5 browser to go with it originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Jun 2011 22:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows Phone’s latest iteration (codename Mango) is all about keeping it in the hood. We had a chance to sit down with a Windows Phone rep before today’s big reveal, and they let us in on a couple of new features that will most definitely set the OS apart — at least when it comes to navigating the tangled web that is the internet. We did get a quick glimpse at IE9, but the new browser isn’t much of a game changer — it supports HTML5, but still won’t deliver Flash or Silverlight compatibility. The real news here is in the Bing-powered search function, which lets users surf the vast expanses of the web four different ways, with a focus on the local.

Clicking the dedicated search button from the Windows Phone home screen takes you to a familiar Bing page, offering the visual, audio, and voice options we heard rumored earlier this month, along with a city scape icon. That skyline represents Local Scout, a function that focuses your queries on the neighborhood you’re in, providing location-specific results that highlight important information about establishments and events in your immediate area. Clicking through on any link brings up general information as well as reviews gleaned from popular user-generated sites. That’s not all that’s new, however, as Mango also offers some nifty tricks in its visual search. Instead of just snapping a barcode, you can actually use a shot of the product itself to bring up information about pricing, availability, and relevant apps.

The demo we saw used the cover of The Girl Who Played With Fire, and supplied among the search results a link to the title in the Kindle app. This isn’t exactly groundbreaking technology — Google Goggles does much the same thing — but what’s truly different here is the tight integration of such functions in the operating system, as well as links to outside applications. Thus, the experience is a bit unlike any other in the OS atmosphere, upending our idea of what it means to search the internets without resorting to standalone programs. Whether it’s something users will take to is anybody’s guess, but we’re certain it’s enough to get folks talking. For a deeper (and very vertical) look at Local Scout, hop on past the break.

Continue reading Windows Phone ‘Mango’ search offers location-specific results, app integration (video)

Windows Phone ‘Mango’ search offers location-specific results, app integration (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 May 2011 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on March 11, 2010 by CyberNet.

Windows only
It’s always been interesting to watch which open source browser third-parties branch off of when they start offering up their own web surfing app. Up until recently Firefox was the popular choice mostly because it was, well, one of the only viable choices. Now that Google Chrome is on the scene and gaining market share that appears to be changing.

Many of you know Comodo because of their free firewall utility, and some may even be a proponent of their antivirus. Their newest creation, Comodo Dragon, is a Chrome-based web browser that doesn’t add much to the feature set already found in Chrome. I thought that maybe they’d make it interesting by having Comodo Dragon work hand-in-hand with some of their other products, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.

I wanted to see how this differed from Chrome, and went looking around for details on what “privacy and security enhancements” there actually were. I couldn’t actually find details on the changes they’ve made other than that they have removed the tracking capabilities Google embeds in Chrome. Aside from that all I have to go off of are the bullets they provide:

• Has privacy enhancements that surpass those in Chromium’s technology
• Has Domain Validation technology that identifies and segregates superior SSL certificates from inferior ones
• Stops cookies and other Web spies
• Prevents all Browser download tracking to ensure your privacy

The browser itself feels exactly like Chrome… except for the (much) uglier skin. I guess what intrigued me was not that Comodo is offering a browser, but rather that they chose to go with Chrome as their starting point. I know their are some other spin-offs, such as ChromePlus, but if all Comodo was looking to do was make a branded browser they could have easily gone with Firefox as well. It may not mean much now, but if this turns into a trend we could see it affecting Firefox’s market share… which has already been rather stagnant since the release of Chrome.

Comodo Dragon Browser (Windows only; Freeware)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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One of the world’s most (in)famous names has picked a side in the browser battles — last night saw the debut of a new Google Chrome commercial, starring Lady Gaga and her “little monsters.” Spanning a minute and a half of Gaga and her fans singing and gyrating their way through her latest single, the ad is intended to illustrate the power of the web and its creative new modes of interaction. To be fair, said interaction is mostly Lady Gaga saying “jump” and a crowd of YouTubers doing it without bothering to ask how high, but hey, the result is fun to watch. You just need to disable your sense of shame for all humanity and click past the break.

[Thanks, Daryl]

Continue reading Lady Gaga uses Chrome, and here’s the 91-second film to prove it

Lady Gaga uses Chrome, and here’s the 91-second film to prove it originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 22 May 2011 16:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

About a year after the debut of the first Android handset, Switched On discussed the threat that Chrome OS posed to Android. To reprise it briefly: Like chief rivals Apple and Microsoft, Google has two operating systems trying to bridge the rift between consumer electronics and traditional computing, but Chrome is different than Mac OS and Windows in an exceptionally important way.

Rather than trying to refine the traditional software experience (as Apple has done with the Mac App Store and other iOS-inspired developments in the queue) or move that experience forward to tablets (as Microsoft is doing with Windows), Chrome OS is not looking to carry forward any legacy beyond the browser.

Unlike with Mac OS vs. iOS or Windows vs. Windows Phone, the battle isn’t over which apps make sense, but rather the irreconcilable difference around whether apps to begin with. This makes Google’s suggestion that the two operating systems might merge at some point less credible, and sent a mixed message to developers about whether to focus their efforts on apps or the web. At Google I/O 2011, however, the company clarified its position.

Continue reading Switched On: Chrome alone

Switched On: Chrome alone originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 15 May 2011 21:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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