Hasta La Gadget!

It hasn’t been that long since we first saw Google’s web store — mid-May, to be exact. An updated version is currently being showcased on stage at the Chrome event. The UI looks much more refined, and those who are itching to try some out yourself, it seems some of the web apps are already available, at least partially: NPR, The New York Times, Amazon Windowshop. If you ask us, they feel a lot like iPad apps for browsers and mice / keyboard. Audio can run in the background even if you move to another tab. There’s offline mode, too. App purchases are tied to your Google account, naturally. There’s some gaming, but from what we’ve seen so far (“you pop it!“), it’s nothing you’re gonna be focusing a lot of time on. We’ve been trying to access the web store (via the Chrome browser, naturally), but it’s currently hiding behind a “coming soon” redirect — it’s rolling out later today, though, at least for the US, so keep an eye out.

Google demos Chrome Web Store, rolling out later today to US originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 13:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hey, Adobe’s finally figured out how to make Flash secure — have Google do it! The guys behind your favorite search engine have updated their latest Dev channel release of Chrome to include a new sandboxing facility for Flash Player content. It’ll serve to limit access to sensitive system resources and make Flash’s operation a generally less threatening proposition than it currently is. This also marks the fulfillment of a longstanding promise from Google to give Flash the same treatment it’s afforded to JavaScript and HTML rendering for a while, and should be welcome news to Windows users eager to minimize “the potential attack surface” of their browser. Sorry, Mac fans, you’re out in the unsecured cold for now. Of course, the Dev channel itself is one step less refined than beta software, so even if you’re on Windows it might be advisable to wait it out a little bit.

Chrome sandboxes Flash Player in latest Dev channel release for Windows originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Dec 2010 05:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s not often that a web browser makes into our HWYC lineup, but it’s also a rare occurrence for Microsoft to issue an entirely new web browser. Internet Explorer 9 Beta has been in the wild (and thus, on your PC) for a few months now, and seeing that the browser wars are raging harder than ever these days, we felt it prudent to ask how you’d change things in the world of IE. After all, being that this is a beta, there’s still plenty of time for Microsoft to actually heed your wisdom and implement changes prior to the full, final, non-beta release. So, have you been pleased with performance? Tab layout? Any tweaks you’d make to the user interface? Compatibility? Go on and get sophisticated down in comments below, won’tcha?

How would you change Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 Beta? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Nov 2010 22:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s no secret that RIM doesn’t exactly agree with Steve Jobs’ characterization of the company’s prospects, and Jim Balsillie has some more to say on the Apple vs. RIM front, particularly where it comes to apps. It’s hard to imagine RIM catching up with Apple’s 300,000+ apps, but Jim doesn’t think that’s the point: “We believe that you can bring the mobile to the Web but you don’t need to go through some kind of control point of an SDK, and that’s the core part of our message.” The statement was made at the Web 2.0 Summit a couple days ago, and on further prompting Jim made it clear he rejects Apple’s “appification” of the web. RIM’s strategy is obviously riding on highly portable Adobe AIR apps and Flash support in the browser (much like Microsoft’s Silverlight app strategy for Windows Phone 7), and we look forward to seeing just how well that playbook plays out in the PlayBook. Of course, “there’s not an app for that, but our browser is fully capable of performing that functionality” isn’t quite so catchy…

RIM’s Jim Balsillie says ‘you don’t need an app for the web,’ rejects Apple’s appification of the internet originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Nov 2010 15:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The World Wide Web Consortium — you know, the team responsible for certifying and standardizing HTML5 — has put together its first table of official conformance test results, giving us an idea of how well prepared each of the most popular browsers is for the oncoming web standards revolution. The data show Internet Explorer 9 as the most adroit performer (again), though Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari don’t seem to be too far behind in their HTML5 compliance, either. Of course, these checks don’t cover the entire spec, which in itself isn’t even finalized yet, but they provide us with a glimpse into a brave new world where Microsoft actually cares about coders keen on maximizing interoperability by adhering to web-wide standards. Good stuff. Check out the full results at the source link below.

[Thanks, Mehran]

W3C tests HTML5 browser compatibility, crowns IE9 the champ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Nov 2010 11:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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