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Droid Ad Calls iPhone Digitally Clueless

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Once again, Verizon plays up the hardcore techie appeal of the Google Android-based Motorola Droid. Their latest advertisement contrasts the Droid’s raw mechanistic power with the iPhone’s glitz and glamour. In the words of this particularly edgy ad, the iPhone is a “digitally clueless beauty pageant queen”.

Contrary to Apple’s claims, more than one frustrated developer would probably agree with that assessment. After all, the iPhone app approval process is as fickle and arbitrary as any blonde bimbo. Sure, you’d show off your beauty queen girlfriend in public, and you’d certainly have lots of fun with her in private — but she probably wouldn’t make the most engaging conversationalist, or the most effective executive assistant.

With the open application development offered by the Google Android mobile OS, Verizon is clearly positioning the Motorola Droid not as a buxom blonde beauty queen, but as a fluent and flexible executive assistant. That certainly jives with their thrust to get developers and early adopters using the thing. Geeks love girls with glasses.

Originally posted on December 4, 2009 @ 6:53 am

Google Opens Chrome Extensions Gallery for Uploads

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Google Chrome ExtensionsLusting for the speed of Chrome, but enjoying the convenience of Firefox’s central plugin repository? Soon you won’t have to choose. Developer builds of Google’s browser currently feature support for extensions, but those extensions live in unofficial repositories like ChromeExtensions.org and ChromePlugins.org. Now Google has opened its official Chrome extensions gallery to uploads from developers. [Read more…]

Originally posted on November 26, 2009 @ 9:48 am

What Chrome OS Will Look Like

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Google Chrome OS is designed to run nothing but Web apps, so a lot of OS UI concepts will have to be remapped. Your applications become browser tabs, your browser windows become multiple desktops, and your widgets become overlay panels.

Yes, it feels a little weird. With cloud computing services getting more and more robust, we may have to get used to these browser-based UI concepts by the time Chrome OS becomes available next year.

Originally posted on November 19, 2009 @ 4:03 pm

Google Buys Teracent to Make Banner Ads Less Annoying

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TeracentIf the big honking banner ads on your favorite sites suddenly get less annoying over the coming months, here’s why: Google is buying display advertising startup Teracent.

How is this different from Google’s purchase of display advertising stalwart DoubleClick? As is usually the case, Google buys companies for their technology more than anything else. Whereas DoubleClick provides the best display ad marketplace on the planet, Teracent provides new ways to target display advertising. [Read more…]

Originally posted on November 24, 2009 @ 3:34 pm

Google Chrome OS Demo

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Google’s recent demo of Chrome OS answered several important questions about how a browser-only OS would operate. One of those questions is how it would handle removable storage. As you can see when the demo unit is attached to a digital camera, using a Web browser as a file browser works pretty well. That should come as no surprise, since Windows has integrated Internet Explorer with its own file manager for the last twelve years.

While it’s fun to see a Microsoft Web app opening a file in Chrome OS, it’s rather telling that the demo game is Flash chess. This demo apparently came a bit too early for the launch of hardcore cloud gaming service OnLive. Let’s hope Web apps and games mature into far more impressive fodder for Chrome OS once it’s released next year.

Originally posted on November 20, 2009 @ 9:46 am