With IE 9, Microsoft fights back in browser wars

With Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft showed Wednesday it's trying to retake the browser initiative.

IE remains the Net's dominant browser. But perversely, it became something of a technology underdog after Microsoft vanquished Netscape in the browser wars of the 1990s and scaled back its browser effort.

That left an opportunity for rivals to blossom--most notably Firefox, which now is used by a quarter of Web surfers, but also Apple's Safari, which now runs on Windows as well as Mac OS X, and Google's Chrome, which aims to make the Web faster and a better foundation for applications.



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Rumors of a Gphone refuse to die

Is Google really thinking about making a substantial change to its business model by releasing the fabled Gphone?

TechCrunch sparked the latest round of Gphone rumors Wednesday, reporting that its sources indicate Google is working on releasing a Google-branded Android phone sometime in early 2010 that will be sold directly to consumers at retail, presumably bypassing wireless carriers. Such a phone is supposedly being built by a manufacturing partner with the intent that Google's brand will dominate the phone; TechCrunch compares the strategy to what Microsoft did with Toshiba and the Zune music player.

Well before Google unveiled its Android mobile operating system project two years ago, and almost ever since, persistent rumors have circulated that Google's mobile phone ambitions go beyond software development. Just as consistently, Google executives have downplayed such rumors with statements that the company is most interested in seeding Android far and wide across multiple carriers and hardware manufacturers, rather than following Apple's strategy of designing and building the entire product itself.

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Rate your Windows 7 upgrade experience

Last weekend we ran a casual, unscientific poll asking what your plans were for Windows 7. It closed Monday morning, but because of the overwhelming response, we decided to reopen it until today. Out of the 13,108 readers who voted, 59 percent (7,669) of you said that you were going to upgrade from Windows XP or Vista to Windows 7.

So, for those of you who are upgrading an older version of Windows to Windows 7 this weekend, we'd like you to rank your experience for us in a new poll posted below. Please share both your horror stories and your tales of easy installation in the comments. The new poll will close Monday afternoon at 5:00 p.m. Pacific time.

The remaining results from previous poll were mostly unsurprising. Fourteen percent, or 1,856 voters, said that they were planning on buying a new computer with Windows 7 already installed. Slightly more of you, 2,146 respondents (16 percent), said they had no plans to change computers or upgrade at the moment. A small but not insignificant percentage, 865 voters, said that they were going to switch to a Mac or a Linux computer.

After we reopened the poll on Monday afternoon, we added two questions by popular demand. Less than one percent of voters said they were going to switch from a Mac or Linux computer to Windows 7, while 454 people (3 percent) said that they already had a Mac or Linux computer and were planning on also using Windows 7.

What these numbers confirmed is that a majority of current Windows users will be upgrading current systems, meaning that most people not only believe that their hardware can adequately run Windows 7, but also that they can comfortably perform the upgrade themselves. However, sizable minorities will either be buying Windows 7 fresh or ignoring it entirely, while a tiny group will be using it as an excuse to abandon ship.

Google Webmaster Tools Gets Major Overhaul

Google has announced a major overhaul of Webmaster Tools that’s filled with both major and minor design and functionality changes.

The most obvious change is the new dashboard that now shows Top
search queries, Crawl errors, Links to your site, and Sitemap
information — saving users what used to be several clicks to get this
information. Here’s a look:

(Pssst, hey Webmaster Tools team: It would be really cool if you’d let users build our own dashboard, like we do in Google Analytics. Just sayin’….)

The main navigation has been reorganized, with tools moved into more
logical groupings called Site Configuration, Your Site on the Web, and
Diagnostics. The Enhanced Image search feature is now gone. And Google
is now saying that all sites must be verified in order to access
Webmaster Tools — some tools used to be available to unverified sites.
The full list of changes, along with a video explaining them, is available in Google’s announcement.

The new design is available now at http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/new. Google says the current/old design will remain in place for a couple weeks.

Google Image Search Adds Color Picker

Google Operating System spotted a new feature on Google Image Search. The feature allows you to click on the color of images you want to be found, and Google will filter your query based on images that match the query and the color you selected.

For example, I search on [flowers] and then chose the color red, to be shown flowers in the color of red. As you can see from the URL structure, Google added on &imgcolor=red, which was how you were manually able to filter by color. Here is a picture of the results:

As you can see, there are 12 colors to filter by, including:

• Red
• Orange
• Yellow
• Green
• Teal
• Blue
• Purple
• Pink
• White
• Gray
• Black
• Brown

It is also interesting to note that this works for me on Firefox but not on the Safari browser.

Postscript: The Google Blog has now announced this new feature on their blog.

Google gives road warriors a boost with iPhone sync

A sales rep finally convinces a key client over lunch to schedule a meeting to talk about new contracts. The rep adds the meeting date to her iPhone calendar but forgets to include it on her laptop calendar. She subsequently neglects to recheck the iPhone calendar, forgets the date and blows the potential deal.

Google Inc. today made it harder for users to overlook such important appointments.

The company unveiled a beta version of a new push technology, called Google Sync, that allows iPhones and Windows Mobile-based devices to automatically synchronize Google calendar appointments and Gmail contacts over the air. The push technology is designed, for example, to have changes made to the iPhone calendar or contact list show up on other mobile devices within minutes, said Marcus Foster, product manager of Google Mobile, in a company blog post. The tool also supports SyncML, he added.

"For all of these devices, synchronization happens automatically over the air, without having to manually sync your phone," added Foster. "The connection is always on, which means your information is always up-to-date, no matter where you are or what you're doing."

Dan Olds, principal analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group Inc., called Google Sync a viable solution for busy business people and others who like to stay connected.

"People travel. They are in cars and restaurants, and they need to see their schedule and know how to get in touch with people," Olds said. "It means you don't have to use multiple calendars and manually sync them up, which is a great convenience. Being able to use just one calendar and just one set of contacts on different devices is much more convenient. It means you don't have to get out your laptop to find a phone number. Or, on the other hand, you don't have to check your BlackBerry for your next appointment when you're working on your PC. It's just much more handy."

Olds said it's also a solid step in Google's march toward owning the desktop.

"A big part of that is the calendar and contact stuff, particularly for business people," he noted. "It is much better if they can see that same information on their phone and PDA, right? If they can do that, then they'd be more likely to use other Google applications."

This move comes more than a year after Google released a tool that allows users to sync Google Calendar with BlackBerry devices.

Last week, Google got a lot of attention for unveiling an upgrade to Google Maps that allows people to track the exact location of friends or family through their mobile devices. Google Latitude not only shows the location of friends, but it can also be used to contact them via SMS, Google Talk or Gmail.


(Credit: computer world)

LiMo Foundation gets ready for next-generation platform

The next version of the LiMo Linux-based mobile platform is getting closer to launch, and a number of operators are promising handsets during 2009, the LiMo Foundation said today.

All the components that make up Release 2 have been delivered on time by the contributing members, according to the foundation. The new version will provide better multimedia support, location-based services, device management and enhanced security.

But making life easier for developers is the most important difference, according to Geoff Blaber, an analyst at CCS Insight.
"With Release 2 there is a far greater level of consistency, which makes it far easier to develop applications and move them from device to device," he said.

But commercial phones won't be ready until the end of the year at the earliest. LiMo is expected to show reference designs that conform to Release 2 at the Mobile World Congress, according to Blaber. The conference opens Feb. 16 in Barcelona.

There will be demonstrations of mobile Web applications and widgets, touch-based user interfaces, mobile TV and high-resolution cameras at the show, according to the LiMo site, which doesn't provide any additional details. Members will also be showcasing toolkits for developers who want to create applications for LiMo handsets, it said.

But the LiMo Foundation isn't just making headway on the platform side. NTT DoCoMo, Orange, SK Telecom, Telefónica, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone will all launch devices this year, according to the foundation.

"It's positive news for the LiMo Foundation, and what it does is underline the fact that although operators are looking at other platforms in the near term, LiMo is still part of operators' plans," said Blaber.

The fact that LiMo isn't dominated by one vendor and has an underlying service strategy of its own -- which in some cases can compete with operator interests -- makes it an attractive alternative to Google's Android, Nokia's Symbian and Microsoft's Windows Mobile, according to Blaber.

LiMo has become a tool that operators can use to try to keep those vendors in check, according to Malik Saadi, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media. The operators are sending the message that LiMo gives them an alternative to other platforms, he said.

The increased competition will be good for users, resulting in cheaper phones, and more and better services to choose from, according to Saadi.

IDG.net

US congressman leaks classified intel on Twitter?

We now interrupt the flame war that's erupted in my last blog post about H-1B workers to bring you this breaking news bulletin: A U.S. congressman is apparently endangering our national security using -- yes, that's right -- Twitter.

This is not an hallucination induced by imbibing too many Numb Nutz (2 ounces Bacardi 151, 1 ounce Tanqueray, 6 ounces Malava Novocaine, 2 peanuts). This comes straight out of the Congressional Quarterly. To wit:

A congressional trip to Iraq this weekend was supposed to be a secret.

But the cat's out of the bag now, thanks to a member of the House Intelligence Committee who broke an embargo via Twitter.

(Credit: computer world)

Google CEO advises right wing, too--in the U.K.

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt advised Barack Obama during his presidential campaign, but apparently he's willing to diversify when it comes to his influence.

Schmidt will be international business adviser to the U.K.'s Conservative Party, according to leader David Cameron, the Associated Press reported Monday.

It's not his first time in the group's orbit. Schmidt gave a speech at a U.K. Conservative Party event in 2006, too.

Another adviser is Christopher Gent, the former CEO of mobile phone network giant Vodafone, according to the report.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)

Amazon eases cloud control

When Amazon's Elastic Cloud was in its infancy, the only management tools available were a set of Java-based command-line applications. The set was comprehensive: You had complete control over and access to Amazon Machine Images (AMIs). Moreover, you could create and manipulate the ancillary components of the cloud: key-pairs, elastic IP addresses, and so on. As capable as the tools were, however, they were out of pace with the very Web-based world that they served.

Graphical alternatives have since appeared. Elastic Fox (available from Amazon's Web Services developer site), a free plug-in for the Firefox browser, is a popular tool for creating and supervising AMIs. It provides virtually all the capabilities of the command-line tools, but in an easy-to-navigate browser interface.

[Learn more about Amazon Web Services in the InfoWorld Test Center analysis: "Diving deep into Amazon Web Services."]

Commercial GUI-based cloud-management systems are available as well. Examples are RightScale and Elastra, which add features that enhance the creation and deployment of AMIs beyond what is available with the freeware tools.

Into this arena, Amazon has trotted out the AWS (Amazon Web Services) Management Console. Currently in beta, the AWS Management Console is a browser-based dashboard for Elastic Cloud that -- unlike Elastic Fox -- is not restricted to Firefox. The Console currently supports Firefox 2.0 or later, Internet Explorer 7.0 or later (though I have run it in 6.0), and Safari 3.0 or later. Like Elastic Fox, however, the AWS Console is free; all you need is an AWS account with access to Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2) and Simple Storage Service (S3) services to get started.

In the clouds

The AWS Console is arranged in IDE fashion, with a navigation pane on the left and workspace panes on the right. The navigation pane holds links pointing to the services provided by the console. The workspace panes comprise the dashboard itself, where you actually interact with the cloud and track the status of in- progress operations.

The AWS Console is primarily a control panel for launching and monitoring AMIs. Before you start an AMI, however, you'll need to create an RSA key-pair. For Linux images, a key-pair is needed so that SSH can provide you with a secure log-in to the running instance. For Windows images, the Elastic Cloud infrastructure uses the key-pair to generate an image's administrator's password. (The key-pair consists of a public and a private key. AWS encrypts the password with the public key. You have to have the private key to decrypt that password; otherwise you'll be unable to log in to your Windows instance.)

How Google Latitude locates you

Yesterday, Google Inc. released the real-time location tool Google Latitude and opened up a new world of location-based services (LBS) for both PC and mobile phone users.

Latitude enables you to track friends, family, employees and so on — and vice-versa — in real time. Whether this is a good thing (hey, you'll always know where your buddy is in the stadium parking lot), or a preview of a corporate 1984 world where your boss can track your every move, will be determined by how we'll use the service. It's no surprise that at least one privacy group has already voiced security concerns over Latitude.

For now, though, most questions center on how people can use Latitude and how it does its location voodoo.

Can I use Google Latitude? According to Google, if you have any mobile device that supports Google Maps for Mobile v3.0 and above, you're probably good to go. These include Android-powered devices with Maps v3.0 and above; most color BlackBerry devices; most Windows Mobile 5.0 and above devices; and most Symbian S60 devices.

Spy On Your Workers With Google Latitude

It will be interesting to see how Google's new geo-locator service, called Latitude, plays with small business. Launched yesterday, Latitude transmits the user's location back to Google for display using the service's online maps.

The location information comes from a GPS-equipped Smart phones or by triangulation using cell towers. An opt-in service, Latitude also works with laptop computers.

It's easy to think of business uses for Latitude, such as tracking service people as they move from call-to-call. Delivery vehicles might also be tracked, and the service could also be used to make certain the closest resource is always sent to a customer's request.

And I haven't even touched on the value of tracking specific people, certain to be a boon to the personal assistants and group admins of the world. I suppose bosses could also use the service to keep an eye on their charges to make sure they are where they are supposed to be.

The business value of Latitude only works if the service updates frequently enough to be useful in near real-time. It also lacks the bells and whistles associated with commercial vehicle tracking systems.

Those systems are expensive, however, and since Latitude is from Google you can bet the price will be right. I would not be surprised, however, to see application developers build commercial versions of the service sometime later.

The downside of Latitude is the amount of extremely personal information, such as the details of all a person's travels that is sent to Google. I know people who simply don't trust Google to not become evil, if the company hasn't already. They wonder why the company offers so many free applications unless it has some way to monetize them that isn't obvious to the user.

Latitude also doesn't seem very well-suited for tracking a large number of people at once, though I could be mistaken about this.

As soon as it's available for the iPhone, I plan to test Latitude is a real world application. My wife works for an Emergency Medical Services provider and carries a second-generation iPhone with the built-in GPS receiver. I'll be interested to see how well Latitude keeps up with her ambulance as it goes out on runs.

You might want to try a similar test in your organization. I am pretty sure that business will find some most useful applications for Google Latitude. Please tell me about yours.

David Coursey is a 25-year veteran of the tech world, as well as a talk radio host.

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