IE captured a 53.83 percent share of the worldwide browser market in March, up from 52.84 percent in February. A minuscule gain, but — importantly — one that was won at its rivals’ expense. During the same period, Firefox’s share of the market slipped to 20.55 percent share from 20.92 percent. Meanwhile, Google Chrome’s market share fell to 18.57 percent from 18.90 percent — the third consecutive month it has declined — and Apple’s Safari dropped to 5.07 percent from 5.2 percent.

“With a gain of .99 percent last month and a net gain of 1.2 percent global usage share over the last five months, Internet Explorer has stabilized and even reversed its usage share declines of the last few years,” Net Applications researchers explained.

For IE, which once held well more than 70 percent of the browser market, this turnabout is a welcome trend. Could its slump finally be over?

In a blog post written by Dean Hachamovitch, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Internet Explorer, the software giant alleges that Google is using similar methods — though the actual bypass mechanism is different — to get around default privacy protections in Internet Explorer and track IE users with cookies.

By default, Microsoft says, Internet Explorer blocks third-party cookies, unless the site presents a “P3P Compact Policy Statement” indicating how the site will use the cookie and that ultimately the site won’t track the users.

“Technically, Google utilizes a nuance in the P3P specification that has the effect of bypassing user preferences about cookies … By sending this text, Google bypasses the cookie protection and enables its third-party cookies to be allowed rather than blocked,” the post reads.

Microsoft said it has contacted Google and asked them to commit to Microsoft’s standard privacy settings for browser users.

In the post, Microsoft also offered a Tracking Protection List that Internet Explorer 9 users can add as a protection, “in the event that Google continues this practice.”

Google has responded by saying that Microsoft has omitted important information in its blog post.

“Microsoft uses a ‘self-declaration’ protocol (P3P) dating from 2002 under which Microsoft asks websites to represent their privacy practices in machine-readable form,” Google’s statement reads. “It is well known — including by Microsoft — that it is impractical to comply with Microsoft’s request while providing modern web functionality. We have been open about our approach, as have many other websites.”

Google went on to point out that in 2010, a research report from Carnegie Mellon University found that more than 11,000 of 33,139 Web sites were not issuing valid P3P policies as requested by Microsoft.

“Today the Microsoft policy is widely non-operational,” Google said.

The Wall Street Journal reported Google’s bypass of Safari’s privacy settings late last week, and after being contacted by the Journal, Google disabled the code that had allowed it to track Safari users. Three U.S. lawmakers have since called on the FTC to investigate the search giant over the privacy gaffe.

(Photo courtesy of Flickr/Si1very)

Is that a big deal? Depends on whom you ask.

Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan, who sussed this out yesterday, has two big problems with the notion.

The first is that in at least one case a blogger’s post linked to Google in seeming violation of Google’s policy against so-called “paid links.” Sullivan’s bigger beef is that the content of the posts themselves consists of a video ad and some barely sensical text — the kind of thing that Google is trying to flush out of its search results by tweaking its algorithms.

So what’s going on? I’ve asked Google reps for comment, but I’m still waiting for them to get back from vacation. [UPDATE - they have, see below] But Unruly Media, the London-based company which ran the campaign for Google, was happy to answer. (Yup – Google, which dominates both Web advertising and Web video, relies on an outsider to promote its Web video ads.)

There’s nothing wrong here, says Unruly CEO Scott Button, except for what appears to be a one-off technical mistake by a single blogger. Here’s his email response:

Yes, it’s a campaign we were running at the end of December.

There’s a good response by Andrew Girdwood here.

Andrew’s absolutely right — we don’t ask bloggers to link to the advertiser’s site. It’s just not part of our business model. We help advertisers distribute video content and that’s what we get paid for. All links from the video player itself are wrapped in Javascript, so although Google can follow them, they don’t influence search engine rankings. Even though we don’t ask bloggers to link, we do advise them to use nofollow if they do link to the advertiser’s site. This is really important and they should do it to protect themselves as much as the advertiser.

As far as I’m aware, there was one link in one post that was not marked nofollow. This was corrected as soon as we became aware of it.

We’re always completely upfront and transparent with bloggers that we are running commercial campaigns and who we’re working for. We always require that bloggers disclose any commercial incentive to post video content. We always require that bloggers disclose even on related tweets that they might do off their own bats.

It’s also a key part of how we operate that we don’t tell bloggers what or how to write. It’s really important that opinions expressed and the tone of voice belong to the author not the advertiser. Occasionally that leads to human error, as here, so we’re always really happy to have these kinds of example flagged and will sort them out as quickly as we possibly can.

Note that Button doesn’t address Sullivan’s complaint that the text in the bloggers’ post is barely better than garbage. That stuff may not be elegant, but it does seem to work — Unruly says its ad network reaches 725 million people a month.

UPDATE: Google has offered a response, and it doesn’t sync with Button’s. Here’s a quote from a Google spokesperson:

“Google never agreed to anything more than online ads. We have consistently avoided paid sponsorships, including paying bloggers to promote our products, because these kind of promotions are not transparent or in the best interests of users. We’re now looking at what changes we need to make to ensure that this never happens again.”

And here’s more along those lines, via Essence Digital, another Google ad vendor, this time posted on a Google+ page:

“We want to be perfectly clear here: Google never approved a sponsored-post campaign. They only agreed to buy online video ads. Google have consistently avoided paid postings to promote their products, because in their view these kind of promotions are not transparent or in the best interests of users.

In this case, Google were subjected to this activity through media that encouraged bloggers to create what appeared to be paid posts, were often of poor quality and out of line with Google standards. We apologize to Google who clearly didn’t authorize this.”

All of this back-and-forth finger pointing might seem odd to the outside world, but it’s not uncommon in online ads, where money and marching orders pass through multiple points on their way from the original customer to the site that runs the ad.

Here’s the video ad, by the way. I guess I should disclose that Google is not paying me to post this:

Earlier this week, Google and Mozilla said they had struck a deal to renew their search royalty agreement for another three years.

What the pair declined to add: The search giant will pay just under $300 million per year to be the default choice in Mozilla’s Firefox browser, a huge jump from its previous arrangement, due to competing interest from both Yahoo and Microsoft.

Sources said this total amount — just under $1 billion — was the minimum revenue guarantee for delivering search queries garnered from consumers using Firefox.

Google’s main rival in the bid, sources said, was Microsoft’s Bing search service, which was aggressively trying to hip-check it from the main search spot on the browser.

That’s because the software giant has been spending a lot of money in efforts to grow Bing’s market share in the search market.

Microsoft, of course, also owns the still-dominant Internet Explorer browser, but Google’s Chrome has recently been making major gains over both IE and Mozilla’s Firefox.

Still, Mozilla’s recent negotiations with both companies was about search market share.

Yahoo was also in the mix, even though Microsoft powers its search technology, because a hookup with Firefox was considered a plus in holding on to its declining search market share.

But the deal, which was being pushed hard by Yahoo’s Chief Product Officer Blake Irving and its search head Shashi Seth, was determined to be too costly for Yahoo.

Costly indeed, since the new price is much higher than Google had previously ponied up to Mozilla. In 2010, Google contributed 84 percent of Mozilla’s $123 million in revenue.

A previous version of the partnership had expired at the end of November, and the new talks were done against a backdrop of simmering tension between Google and Mozilla over Chrome.

As Liz Gannes wrote earlier this week:

Since the first search royalty deal was signed in 2008, Google’s own Chrome browser has become a significant competitor. Just last month, Chrome overtook Firefox in global usage for the first time, according to StatCounter. Both browsers — software which is used to navigate the Internet — have about 25 percent market share.

Even with the new default deal with Google, Mozilla still also has partnerships with other search providers, including Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Amazon and eBay.

Of course, everybody declined to comment on my queries to hand over all the financial deets stat.

But Google’s SVP of Search, Alan Eustace, said in a statement: “Mozilla has been a valuable partner to Google over the years and we look forward to continuing this great partnership in the years to come.”

Great, perhaps, but also much more expensive — so presumably Firefox is worth it.

Mozilla is set to announce that it has signed a new three-year agreement for Google to be the default search option in its Firefox browser.

It’s a critical renewal for the Silicon Valley software maker, since its earlier deal with the search giant has been a major source of revenue to date.

The companies said the specific terms of the commercial agreement are not being released. But, in 2010, Google contributed 84 percent of Mozilla’s $123 million in revenue.

A previous version of the arrangement had expired at the end of November. Mozilla said at the time that it was in “active negotiations” with Google.

The relationship has not been without some tension of late. Since the first search royalty deal was signed in 2008, Google’s own Chrome browser has become a significant competitor. Just last month, Chrome overtook Firefox in global usage for the first time, according to StatCounter. Both browsers — software which is used to navigate the Internet — have about 25 percent market share.

Mozilla also has partnerships with other search providers, including Microsoft’s Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Amazon and eBay.

Here’s the full announcement Mozilla will soon put out:

Mozilla and Google Sign New Agreement for Default Search in Firefox

We’re pleased to announce that we have negotiated a significant and mutually beneficial revenue agreement with Google. This new agreement extends our long term search relationship with Google for at least three additional years.

“Under this multi-year agreement, Google Search will continue to be the default search provider for hundreds of millions of Firefox users around the world,” said Gary Kovacs, CEO, Mozilla.

“Mozilla has been a valuable partner to Google over the years and we look forward to continuing this great partnership in the years to come,” said Alan Eustace, Senior Vice President of Search, Google.

The specific terms of the commercial agreement are confidential and are not being released.

Here’s Mozilla’s full statement:

Our search relationship with Google remains positive for both of us. We are in active negotiations and have nothing further to announce at this time.  We have every confidence that search partnerships will continue to be a strong and growing generator of revenue for the foreseeable future.

Mozilla said it also has partnerships with other search providers, including Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Amazon and eBay.

Mozilla’s overarching organization is a non-profit, but historically it has made most of its revenue via a royalty deal for searches made through the featured Google toolbar in its Firefox browser. In 2010 Google contributed 84 percent of Mozilla’s $123 million in revenue, as ZDNet writer Ed Bott detailed in a post questioning Firefox’s viability.

Google and Mozilla had in 2008 said their deal was extended to November 2011. That was a significant vote of support from the search giant as it was right around the same time as the first release of its own browser, Chrome.

But Mozilla hadn’t publicly indicated that the deal was extended past this November, Bott pointed out.

Now, three years later, Chrome has just overtaken Firefox for the first time in browser market share, according to the analytics firm StatCounter. The timing is eerily precise.

Last month Chrome had 25.69 percent share compared to Firefox’s 25.23 percent. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer still leads both of them.

I would add that I recently visited Mozilla’s new swanky top-floor San Francisco office with a deck directly overlooking the Bay Bridge (see photo above). The swanky setting didn’t project any particular concern about incoming revenue.

Google, which doesn’t do a lot of this kind of advertising, has posted a commercial on television for its social networking effort, Google+.

The search giant has done it before for its Chrome browser and other products, but it’s a rare occurrence. So, here’s the ad, which pushes the motto: “Sharing, but like real life. That’s a plus.”

The reference is to the onerous method of sorting all the various people in your life into “circles” as part of the service. While many find it exhausting (me!) to constantly be defining social relationships, it is apparently now a marketing plus.

Get it? Plus!

Google has bought Apture, the start-up that makes a browser plug-in that adds additional contextual information to Web pages for the Internet’s most prominent publishers.

The financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.

A Google spokesperson said the search giant was interested not only in Apture’s product, but the team and the partnerships it had built.

Apture CEO Tristan Harris has spent some of the last four years wearing out the carpets in the offices of major online publishers.

In an interview today, Harris said that the Apture staffers will join the Chrome team at Google.

“We started the company to help people have more frictionless access to information,” he said. “And those features will take on new forms in the Chrome browser.”

Apture has raised $4.1 million in venture funding so far, including a $3.5 million round from Clearstone Ventures.

In a blog post by one of its execs, titled “Flash to Focus on PC Browsing and Mobile Apps; Adobe to More Aggressively Contribute to HTML5,” Adobe said what had already been reported: That it would no longer be developing its well-known Flash for mobile devices.

Here’s the key graph:

“Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations. We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations.”

Last night, reports surfaced that the high-profile software company — whose Flash technology has been a flagship product — was halting development on the mobile version of its browser plug-in.

Now, Adobe will focus its PC Web browser business on tools that allow Flash developers to create mobile apps by packaging their code to run on Adobe’s AIR platform.

The move has big implications for Adobe going forward and also for mobile device makers, such as Google and Research In Motion. But not Apple.

As Ina Fried wrote:

“The move, if true, would be a major blow to Android device makers, who have long touted Flash compatibility as a key competitive advantage over Apple’s iPhone and iPad.

It would also mark a posthumous vindication for former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who took a controversial stand by not supporting Flash on Apple’s mobile products.”

Turns out Jobs was prescient, as usual.

Here is the full version of the Adobe blog:

Flash to Focus on PC Browsing and Mobile Apps; Adobe to More Aggressively Contribute to HTML5

POSTED BY DANNY WINOKUR, VICE PRESIDENT & GENERAL MANAGER, INTERACTIVE DEVELOPMENT AT ADOBE ON NOVEMBER 9, 2011 5:59 AM IN BUSINESS PROFESSIONALS, CREATIVE PROFESSIONALS, DEVELOPERS, VIDEO

Adobe is all about enabling designers and developers to create the most expressive content possible, regardless of platform or technology. For more than a decade, Flash has enabled the richest content to be created and deployed on the web by reaching beyond what browsers could do. It has repeatedly served as a blueprint for standardizing new technologies in HTML. Over the past two years, we’ve delivered Flash Player for mobile browsers and brought the full expressiveness of the web to many mobile devices.

However, HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively. This makes HTML5 the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. We are excited about this, and will continue our work with key players in the HTML community, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM, to drive HTML5 innovation they can use to advance their mobile browsers.

Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations. We will also allow our source code licensees to continue working on and release their own implementations.

These changes will allow us to increase investment in HTML5 and innovate with Flash where it can have most impact for the industry, including advanced gaming and premium video. Flash Player 11 for PC browsers just introduced dozens of new features, including hardware accelerated 3D graphics for console-quality gaming and premium HD video with content protection. Flash developers can take advantage of these features, and all that our Flash tooling has to offer, to reach more than a billion PCs through their browsers and to package native apps with AIR that run on hundreds of millions of mobile devices through all the popular app stores, including the iTunes App Store, Android Market, Amazon Appstore for Android and BlackBerry App World.

We are already working on Flash Player 12 and a new round of exciting features which we expect to again advance what is possible for delivering high definition entertainment experiences. We will continue to leverage our experience with Flash to accelerate our work with the W3C and WebKit to bring similar capabilities to HTML5 as quickly as possible, just as we have done with CSS Shaders. And, we will design new features in Flash for a smooth transition to HTML5 as the standards evolve so developers can confidently invest knowing their skills will continue to be leveraged.

We are super excited about the next generations of HTML5 and Flash. Together they offer developers and content publishers great options for delivering compelling web and application experiences across PCs and devices. There is already amazing work being done that is pushing the newest boundaries, and we can’t wait to see what is still yet to come!

At a 2010 onstage interview with Walt Mossberg and me at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference, the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs spent a lot of time — and with considerable passion — talking about his company’s decision to dump Adobe’s popular Flash technology in its iPhone and iPad devices.

While he insisted that he wasn’t out to crush Adobe — instead using the metaphor of “choosing what horses to ride” — Jobs explained that the software technology was buggy, no longer useful, and, therefore, needed to be put out to pasture.

“We try to pick things that are in their springs … sometimes you just have to pick the things that are the right things going forward,” said Jobs plainly. “Flash looks like a technology that had its day and is waning.” According to Jobs, HTML5 was the new colt to back.

As to the implications on Apple’s mobile devices if consumers did not agree with his choice, he noted that “it all works itself out,” adding that a new iPad was then selling every three seconds.

“People seem to be liking iPads,” said Jobs with his patented grin.

It’s an interesting video to watch now — along with this one on Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen talking about the issue a year later at D9 — because of reports that first surfaced last night, that the high-profile software company — whose Flash technology has been a flagship product — was halting development on the mobile version of its browser plug-in.

Adobe confirmed the move this morning, noting it will focus its PC Web browser business and on tools that allow Flash developers to create mobile apps by packaging their code to run on Adobe’s AIR platform.

The move has big implications for Adobe going forward and also for mobile device makers, such as Google and Research In Motion. But not Apple.

As Ina Fried wrote:

“The move, if true, would be a major blow to Android device makers, who have long touted Flash compatibility as a key competitive advantage over Apple’s iPhone and iPad.

It would also mark a posthumous vindication for former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who took a controversial stand by not supporting Flash on Apple’s mobile products.”

Adobe now apparently agrees.

Here’s the video clip of Jobs talking trash about Flash:

(And, here’s a video from a year later from D9 of Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen talking about the same topic.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111109/horse-flash-apples-steve-jobs-on-adobe-vendetta-in-2010-at-d8-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111010/exclusive-aviary-launches-ipad-extensions-today-keeps-on-pivoting/ http://allthingsd.com/20111010/exclusive-aviary-launches-ipad-extensions-today-keeps-on-pivoting/#comments Mon, 10 Oct 2011 17:00:55 +0000 Drake Martinet http://allthingsd.com/?p=130348

In a continuation of its pivot away from Flash, Aviary, the New York-based multimedia editing start-up, is launching an iPad SDK and several new API extensions today.

If the Aviary name rings a bell, you might be more familiar with the company’s last round of products, which brought Adobe-style media editing programs into the Web browser via — you guessed it — loads of Flash.

Though the SDK products are a huge departure from the company’s direction over the last three years, CEO Avi Muchnick said: “The overall goal has been about democratizing creativity — that hasn’t changed.”

But just about everything else has.

Muchnick said Aviary would no longer be actively adding to their impressive Flash-based editing suite, which includes tools for images, vector graphics and audio, among other things.

Today, rather than hoping you’ll drop an image into their in-browser editor, Aviary makes tools for iOS and Android app developers.

Specifically, Aviary’s kit allows app makers to quickly add image editing features like cropping, red-eye removal and filters into their existing iPhone, Android, and, now, iPad apps.

And as of today’s launch, Aviary’s iPad interface will be available in the Pic Collage iPad app, as well as inside an update to Flickr Studio, a third-party iPad app built on Yahoo’s Flickr API.

The turn-key image editing tools have a look and feel somewhere between Apple’s iOS itself and the old Aviary Flash apps.

But Muchnick is eager to please the new app developer partners Aviary is hoping to win.

“One of my goals was to make this customizable to fit the partner,” he said. “[Partners] can change colors to match their app, or grab just the features they want.”

The new focus on partnerships seems to be moving along well enough.

Aviary claims that mobile and API users edited over a million images last month, and the company has brought on former Microsoft Office’s Paul Murphy to be their VP of business development.

Prior to its new direction, Aviary had raised about $11 million total, most recently from Spark Capital and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Aviary is yet another company abandoning Flash, after Apple and Steve Jobs declared it persona non grata for iOS devices.

The company has cut virtually all of its Flash developers and hired mobile developers to build up its SDK offerings.

Massive organizational and directional shifts are tough on any start-up, but Muchnick says that the new direction is really not that at all.

“Aviary doesn’t need to be a destination anymore,” he said. “We want to power all the photo creativity that happens online, and apps are how that will happen.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111010/exclusive-aviary-launches-ipad-extensions-today-keeps-on-pivoting/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20110919/operas-handster-deal-could-mean-smaller-role-for-appia/ http://allthingsd.com/20110919/operas-handster-deal-could-mean-smaller-role-for-appia/#comments Mon, 19 Sep 2011 18:04:48 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=122092 Appia, which has been powering Opera’s mobile app store, may see its role reduced in the wake of Monday’s announcement that Opera is buying Handster.

Opera launched its mobile store in March, offering apps for BlackBerry, Android and Symbian, among other platforms.

“Opera is evolving from being a browser company into a fully integrated mobile services company and this acquisition is an important step in that direction,” Opera CEO Lars Boilesen said in a statement. Based in Northbrook, Illinois, Handster powers app stores for various carriers and device makers, including Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei and LG.

Asked what the deal might mean for Appia, an Opera representative told AllThingsD, “We will continue to work with Appia in a limited capacity, but long term, we will rely more on our own technology and team.”

An Appia representative did not immediately have a comment.

Update: Appia VP Dov Cohn said in a statement to AllThingsD that “Appia continues to power the Opera Mobile Store, and Opera remains one of several key partners of Appia’s that includes Vodacom, Zedge, Telcel and others.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110919/operas-handster-deal-could-mean-smaller-role-for-appia/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110830/zite-sold-to-cnn-for-just-over-20-million/ http://allthingsd.com/20110830/zite-sold-to-cnn-for-just-over-20-million/#comments Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:06:15 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=115291 Zite, the magazine-style reading app for the Apple iPad, has been sold to news giant CNN for $20 million to $25 million.

The arena for news readers on tablets and smartphones is competitive, with high-profile efforts such as Flipboard, Livestand from Yahoo, AOL’s Editions and start-ups such as Pulse and Zite.

The reason for CNN’s acquisition interest — as well as look-sees from several other publishers — is not a surprise: As readers turn more toward using these mobile devices to consume content, big media companies are trying to acquire the technology to serve up their fare to them.

It is a dicey arena, though, where content aggregation meets (and crashes into) content lifting. Vancouver-based Zite, for example, was sent a cease-and-desist letter in March, by a panoply of media companies (not CNN!) alleging various copyright violations.

That happened right after it was launched, with $4 million in funding from angel investors and Canadian grants and an innovative personalized article-picking algorithm.

As Liz Gannes wrote then:

[Then] Zite CEO Ali Davar describes the iPad as a way to “emancipate the technology” his team originated at research at the University of British Columbia.

It had previously been put to work in a browser plug-in called Worio. And, as you might have guessed, browser plug-ins are a tough business.

The free Zite app imports a user’s Twitter tweets, follows and Google Reader subscriptions, offers lists of pre-made categories, and then solicits feedback and refines over time a list of topics and sources the user is interested in. It features articles based on their popularity, number of shares from a user’s network and topic relevance. (Davar said he thinks a person’s Facebook network data is too heterogeneous to reliably recommend articles, so it’s not included as an option.)

Last week, a Canadian site called Techvibes first wrote about the possibility of the sale of Zite to CNN, which is based in Atlanta and owned by Time Warner.

In a press release, CNN said Zite would remain a standalone unit, as a wholly-owned subsidiary of CNN, and that CEO Mark Johnson will continue to run Zite’s operations, but now in San Francisco. CNN also said that Davar will remain an executive director and Mike Klass will continue as CTO.

In a statement, Johnson said: “Zite is thrilled about combining forces with CNN to create a world-class news discovery platform. In CNN, we have found a partner who shares our vision and passion. Being part of the CNN family gives us the capital to grow Zite’s business and continue to innovate in the space.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110830/zite-sold-to-cnn-for-just-over-20-million/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110826/steve-jobs-through-the-years-highlights-from-the-d-conference/ http://allthingsd.com/20110826/steve-jobs-through-the-years-highlights-from-the-d-conference/#comments Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:30:25 +0000 Beth Callaghan and Drake Martinet http://allthingsd.com/?p=113843 Since the inception of the D: All Things Digital conference in 2003, Steve Jobs was a frequent guest onstage, and his appearances have always made for some of our most popular videos. Here are some favorites:

D1: Steve Jobs Onstage in 2003, on the Tablet

A day after Bill Gates took the stage, enthusiastic about the future of the tablet computer, Jobs dismissed the idea as a niche product for rich guys. “We looked at the tablet, and we think it’s gonna fail.”

View the full session video of Steve Jobs at D1.

D2: Apple CEO Steve Jobs in 2004, on Not Doing a PDA

Specifically referring to ongoing speculation about Apple’s development of a PDA, Jobs said “I’m as proud of the products that we have not done as I am of the products we have done.”

View the full session video of Steve Jobs at D2.

D3: Steve Jobs Onstage at D3 in 2005

As Kara pushed for info about an “iPod phone,” Jobs laid out the challenges of creating such a product, though he didn’t make any outright denials that Apple was doing so.

View the full session video of Steve Jobs at D3.

D5: Steve Jobs Flashes the iPhone

In the first of two appearances at 2007′s D5 conference, Jobs joked with Walt about Apple’s “three businesses and a hobby” and gave attendees an oh-so-quick peek at the forthcoming iPhone.

D5: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates look back

In their first joint appearance in 20 years, Gates and Jobs reminisce about competition between their two companies and the state of the graphic user interface in the mid-nineties.

D5: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates look ahead

Jobs and Gates discuss the future of the industry and the roles of Apple and Microsoft as entertainment delivery systems.

View the highlight reel of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates together at D5.
View the full session video of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates together at D5.
View the full session video of Steve Jobs at D5.

D8: Steve Jobs on the iPhone’s Origin

In 2010, Jobs told Walt and Kara how the iPhone actually grew out of a multitouch display Apple was developing for a tablet. The OS was so promising that Jobs put the tablet on the back burner and used the OS for the iPhone instead.

D8: Steve Jobs on Apple’s Relationship With Google

“Just because we’re competing with somebody doesn’t mean we have to be rude.”

D8: Steve Jobs on Foxconn

Apple has a better understanding than most companies in the tech industry of the working conditions in its supply chain, Jobs told Walt and Kara in 2010, but it’s still working to understand the suicide rate at its Foxconn plant in China.

D8: Steve Jobs on iAds Restrictions

Here’s a hint for iOS developers: Don’t put third-party analytics software in your apps, especially not if the analytics firm involved is going to publish personal data about your users and their devices without asking them first. It really pisses Steve off.

D8: Steve Jobs on Television

The reason that Apple TV remains a hobby, Jobs explained at D8, is a balkanized television market that makes it impossible for the company to innovate across the board.

D8: Steve Jobs on AT&T

With the Verizon iPhone deal still on the horizon, Jobs was unable to offer any concrete hope to the Houston-based iPhone user in the D8 audience, whose only real problem with the phone was its inability to make any calls.

D8: Apple CEO Steve Jobs Talks About Flash

At D8, Jobs discussed his still-fresh “Thoughts on Flash” memo with Walt and Kara.

View the full session video of Steve Jobs at D8.

Related posts

• Steve Jobs Resigns as CEO of Apple; Cook Takes Reins
• Steve Jobs’s Resignation Letter: “I Have Made Some of the Best Friends of My Life at Apple.”
• Apple Stock Falls After Jobs Announcement
• Steve Jobs Live on Stage in 2010 (Video)
• Tim Cook as Apple CEO: A Tested and Steady Hand
• Essay: Jobs’s Departure as CEO of Apple Is the End of an Extraordinary Era
• What Happens Next at Apple?
• Mossberg on Jobs (Video)
• Analysts Confident in Apple’s Prospects
• Apple Shares Bounce Back
• Tim Cook: Apple Will Continue to Make the Best Products in the World
• Does Tim Cook Need His Own Tim Cook?

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110826/steve-jobs-through-the-years-highlights-from-the-d-conference/feed/ 6 http://allthingsd.com/20110721/more-wood-behind-fewer-browsers-google-kills-toolbar-for-firefox/ http://allthingsd.com/20110721/more-wood-behind-fewer-browsers-google-kills-toolbar-for-firefox/#comments Thu, 21 Jul 2011 19:15:56 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=101388 Google’s recent project purge has claimed another victim.

As part of its new “more wood behind fewer arrows” approach to business, the company is discontinuing its Google Toolbar for Firefox, a browser add-on that provided direct access to an array of Google services. The company said Thursday that it will not support Google Toolbar beyond Firefox 4. Which means the Firefox 5 folks who had been eagerly awaiting its release are out of luck.

Why end support now? Google argues that many of the features provided by its Toolbar are now already built right into the browser. That’s true, to an extent — but not entirely, as Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan observes.

“The argument that many features of the Google Toolbar are built into the browser doesn’t wash,” he explains. “Firefox doesn’t offer a native way to perform site-specific search, not to view cached pages, nor to perform specific vertical searches on Google, not to get PageRank data. Firefox also doesn’t feed back into Google Web History. Only the Google Toolbar does that, which means Google has now permanently broken a part of personalized search for Firefox users going forward.”

Makes you wonder if this is not just part of the broader Google project housecleaning we’re seeing, but a move to further promote the company’s own Chrome browser…

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110721/more-wood-behind-fewer-browsers-google-kills-toolbar-for-firefox/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110622/google-unveils-a-laptop-with-its-brain-in-the-cloud/ http://allthingsd.com/20110622/google-unveils-a-laptop-with-its-brain-in-the-cloud/#comments Thu, 23 Jun 2011 01:05:02 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://allthingsd.com/?p=89903 Would you buy a laptop that comes with only one major program—a Web browser—and doesn’t allow you to install widely used software such as Microsoft Office, Apple’s iTunes, Adobe Reader, or, in fact, any other locally installed program?

Are you ready for a laptop that has almost no storage space to hold your personal files, photos and videos, and is designed around the idea that you’ll keep all that precious personal stuff on remote servers?

How about a laptop that can do almost nothing unless it has an active Internet connection; for instance, one that wouldn’t let you read and write email, or check your calendar, offline? Would you buy that?

Google is hoping you will. This month it introduced a line of just such radical machines, in partnership with two laptop makers, Samsung and Acer. They are called Chromebooks, after Google’s Chrome Web browser, which is the gateway for everything they do. And they are meant to challenge the two dominant computer platforms, Microsoft’s Windows and Apple’s Mac OS X.

These laptops are “cloud” computers—essentially full-screen Web browsers designed to do everything via the Internet. Instead of using traditional programs, you will rely on “Web apps” accessed through the browser—email programs, word processors or photo editors, for example.

Series 5 Chromebook by Samsung, one of Google’s partners on the new laptop.

I’ve been testing one of the Chromebooks, the Samsung Series 5, a handsome, relatively light machine with a 12-inch screen. It costs $430 for a Wi-Fi version and $500 for a model that also includes a built-in modem for cellular Internet connectivity, which requires a monthly fee if you exceed the modest amount of free data Google gives you.

My verdict is that, while the Chromebook is a bold idea that may be a harbinger of the future of computing, it’s too limited and buggy today to be the main computer relied upon by mainstream users. I can’t recommend it over a standard laptop, except perhaps as a secondary machine for techies or early adopters.

The Chromebook does have some advantages over Windows and Mac laptops. But Google concedes these traditional laptops can run all the same Web apps as a Chromebook, in addition to running local programs, storing all your files and operating offline. Even tablets, like Apple’s iPad and competitors based on Google’s Android operating system can run hundreds of thousands of locally installed apps and Web apps as well. And they can run offline and store files locally. The Chromebook offers only about 5,000 Web apps today. Plus, tablets weigh less than half the 3.3 pounds of the Samsung Series 5, and are much slimmer, though they have smaller screens and lack the Chromebook’s physical keyboard.

As for price, there are numerous Windows laptops that cost the same or less. You can buy a Toshiba Satellite with a 15-inch screen, three gigabytes of memory, and a 320 gigabyte hard disk for $400. And it’s powered by one of Intel’s latest and most powerful processors, while the Samsung Chromebook uses the wimpy Intel Atom processor, primarily found on inexpensive netbooks.

But Google is a smart, forward-looking company and there’s a logic to the Chromebook, which it sees as the first laptop designed for the Internet era. And it does have some attractive advantages over PCs and Macs:

• Cloud computing is here to stay and many people already rely daily on Internet-based software, like Web mail programs or streaming video services. So a cloud-centric computer isn’t a crazy idea. To help find useful Web-based apps, the Chromebook has a Web app store, similar to the app stores on tablets and smartphones. (The same store is built into the Chrome browser on PCs and Macs.)
• The Chromebook starts up almost instantly—in 10 to 15 seconds in my tests—much more quickly than most Windows machines. This is partly because it’s really just a big Web browser. In my tests, Apple’s MacBook Air started just about as quickly, but it costs twice as much.
• The Chromebook claims very long battery life—a whopping 8.5 hours for the model I tested. I didn’t do a formal battery test, but I was able to go for several days of intermittent use without charging it.
• Because all your apps, settings and files are stored in the cloud, if you lose your Chromebook, or wish to use someone else’s Chromebook, you can just log into your Google account and all your stuff will appear on the new machine.
• Google automatically updates the operating system, so you don’t have to deal with manual updates.
• Google claims that, because every app runs in a tab in the browser, and those tabs are walled off from the rest of the system, the Chromebook is much more secure than other computers and doesn’t require security software. The system even checks to see if it has been tampered with every time it starts.
• As for the offline problem, Google provides a small amount of memory to which you can save some files. You can insert a flash memory card or USB flash drive containing files. Some of these files, like images and PDFs, can be viewed offline in the browser, but not edited.

And the machine contains crude built-in music and video players, and a simple note-taking function, which work offline. Google says a handful of Web apps today work offline as well, and it is planning this summer to bring the same offline functionality to its own Gmail, Google Docs and calendar apps.

Top left, you can log into someone else’s Chromebook and find all your stuff there; while the keyboard is nice, the touch pad was clumsy to use.

But there are problems. For instance, I found watching a live baseball game to be a jerky, halting experience. Google blames this on the weak processor it’s using. And Netflix doesn’t work at all. Google says it’s working on this.

Also, while the keyboard is nice, and even includes special keys for switching between Web pages and browser windows, I found the touch pad on the Samsung to be imprecise and clumsy to use.

The Chromebook also crashed on me four times, mostly because of a “memory leak” problem Google says it will fix.

Printing, which only works over Google’s “cloud print” service and can’t be done via a cable, worked only some of the time for me.

And common files don’t automatically open in Web apps, though Google says it is also working on that.

It’s important to note that when you use a Chromebook you are trusting Google with the privacy and security of your data, and the company has run into occasional issues on both counts.

The bottom line: The best and most numerous programs are still designed for Windows and the Mac, and we still live in a world without ubiquitous, speedy, low-cost, unlimited wireless connectivity. So typical laptop users are better off with computers designed for the current hybrid world, where both robust offline and online functions are needed.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos at the All Things Digital website, walt.allthingsd.com. Write to him at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110622/google-unveils-a-laptop-with-its-brain-in-the-cloud/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110622/marc-andreessen-vs-the-bubble-the-full-d9-interview-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20110622/marc-andreessen-vs-the-bubble-the-full-d9-interview-video/#comments Wed, 22 Jun 2011 14:00:40 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=89405 All that money going into all those startups? No big deal, says Marc Andreessen. And it’s definitely not a bubble, says the man who helped kick off the Web 1.0 bubble with Netscape, way back in the ’90s.

Andreessen made his case at the D9 conference earlier this month, but he didn’t spend all of his time talking about valuations. He’s an entrepreneur-turned-investor with a unique perspective on Silicon Valley’s history and future, and he was happy to share that, too.

Andreessen doesn’t give many public interviews. Pay attention:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110622/marc-andreessen-vs-the-bubble-the-full-d9-interview-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110613/samsungs-chromebook-torn-down-costs-322-to-make-isuppli-says/ http://allthingsd.com/20110613/samsungs-chromebook-torn-down-costs-322-to-make-isuppli-says/#comments Mon, 13 Jun 2011 12:50:52 +0000 Arik Hesseldahl http://allthingsd.com/?p=85780 The picture at right is what a Samsung Chromebook looks like once it’s been taken apart. The new Google-powered notebook, formally called the Series 5, along with a similar one from Acer, will go on sale Wednesday with a Wi-Fi only version, costing $430, the other with built-in 3G wireless access for $500.

The Chromebook line is Google’s first big hardware bet on its cloud-centric Chrome operating system, which is essentially a Web browser capable of running applications that are hosted in the cloud. The point of doing that is that it takes the hassle and the cost of maintaining the software out of the hands of the person or business using it. Google thinks that over the long term it has a chance to erode Microsoft’s dominance of enterprise notebooks.

So what goes into building one? The teardown experts at IHS iSuppli took a look at the 3G version, and have shared their findings with AllThingsD. I talked with analyst Wayne Lam, who worked on the teardown. While you might expect it to essentially be a stripped-down build with as little emphasis as possible on the hardware, it’s actually an interesting study in what can happen when there’s no payment to Microsoft built into the cost assumptions, Lam told me. Added up, the components used cost a total of $322.12.

Since the hardware requirements for storage and memory are lighter, Samsung was able to spend more on hardware that improves the user experience like the display, the battery and the outer enclosure. “The lower overhead in hardware allowed Samsung more leeway on things that people will notice, like a bigger screen and a bigger battery,” Lam said.

The most significant batch of component costs is found on the motherboard (pictured top and bottom, click the images to make them bigger), amounting to $86.37 or about 26 percent of the overall hardware cost. The Chromebook’s microprocessor is a dual-core Intel Atom N570. Samsung, which is the world’s largest manufacturer of memory, supplied its own DRAM chips. Also on the motherboard are power-management chips from Texas Instruments and Intersil.

German chipmaker Infineon supplied a Trusted Computing Platform chip, which is interesting because this is something usually seen in enterprise-level servers and not personal notebooks. The chip helps protect the system by running a thorough security check every time the system is booted up, ensuring that the hardware hasn’t been tampered with and that unwanted software hasn’t been added. Given the bet that Google has made on the cloud, and the attacks it has been fending off of late, this is an understandable move.

Samsung also used its own shop to supply the display. It measures 12.1-inches diagonally and features an improved light-emitting diode technology that boosts its overall brightness. Lam says the display cost $58 and is the second most expensive component in the Chromebook.

The third most expensive component is the battery, which Samsung supplied as well. A key part of the Chromebook experience is long battery life. Samsung opted for a six-cell battery pack that is intended to last all day. It added $48.20 to the hardware cost.

Wireless chips combined for the fourth most expensive set of costs. Hon Hai Precision Technology, the Taiwanese contract manufacturer that’s better known to the world as Foxconn, built the 3G wireless module using four chips from the wireless chipmaker Qualcomm. In order to keep costs down, Samsung opted to use an older Gobi 2000 baseband chip. Wireless chips added $42.85 to the hardware cost. Qualcomm’s newly acquired Atheros unit supplied a Wi-Fi chip.

A few other interesting points that Lam found during the teardown. The memory chips are soldered on to the motherboard, meaning that the computer’s memory isn’t upgradeable by the user as it is on most PCs. It ships with 2GB of memory on board; if you’re a business or educational user paying a monthly subscription fee, by the time you start thinking you may need more memory, it will probably be ready for a hardware refresh. Google is taking even that level of routine management — plus the associated cost — out of your hands. Is the world ready for that?

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110613/samsungs-chromebook-torn-down-costs-322-to-make-isuppli-says/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110513/artists-experiment-with-interactive-music-videos/ http://allthingsd.com/20110513/artists-experiment-with-interactive-music-videos/#comments Fri, 13 May 2011 21:56:11 +0000 John Jurgensen http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=41082 Director Chris Milk’s new music video, released yesterday, introduces a young woman roaming a postapocalyptic landscape, and features a song from the coming album “Rome” by Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi. But for some viewers the video’s main attraction will be the technology used to create it.

In “3 Dreams of Black,” which Milk prefers to call an interactive film, the viewer takes control in certain sequences, using the computer mouse to steer a stampede of morphing wildlife, or build structures in a vast desert. Five months in the making, the video shows off a burgeoning technology called WebGL, which allows an Internet browser to render 3-D graphics in real time.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110513/artists-experiment-with-interactive-music-videos/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110511/liveblog-google-gives-chrome-its-day-to-shine-at-io/ http://allthingsd.com/20110511/liveblog-google-gives-chrome-its-day-to-shine-at-io/#comments Wed, 11 May 2011 16:25:18 +0000 Ina Fried http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/?p=7583 After a raft of Android-related announcements on Tuesday, talk at Google’s developer conference is shifting on Wednesday to the company’s Chrome browser and Chrome OS operating system.

John Paczkowski and I will have live, exhaustive team coverage from Google I/O once the keynote starts around 9:30 am PT.

9:25 am: Like every other tech conference these days, they are no longer as concerned about our cellphones ringing as they are about our mobile hotspots sucking up precious bandwidth.

“Please turn off your mobile hotspots,” intones the British-sounding announcer. Don’t worry, we’ve got a wired connection so we are good to go.

9:29 am: One minute to go. Hope you are saying good bye to your PC or Mac right now.

Well, maybe you better hang on to it. At least until the keynote is over.

9:30 am: And Vic Gundotra takes the stage.

9:30 am: 60,000 simultaneous viewers for Google I/O on the Web yesterday with 600,000 total viewers, Gundotra said.

Attendees not only getting the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, but also a Verizon LTE hotspot. Gundotra rattles off its typically zippy speeds.

“Typical areas do not include this room,” he added.

9:32 am: And, with that he gives way to SVP of Chrome Sundar Pichai.

9:33 am: “We are here to talk about the open Web, the amazing platform it is,” Pichai said, saying his talk will cover Chrome, Chome Web Store and Chrome OS–in that order.

As of last year 70 million people used Chrome as their main browser. Now that number is 160 million people, according to a giant chart behind Pichai.

“We have more than doubled in the last year and we couldn’t be more pleased,” he said.

9:34 am: Pichai notes that, as of last year, Chrome didn’t have Mac and Linux support–”the two other great platforms.”

There have been eight versions of Chrome since, with new versions now coming out every six weeks.

9:36 am: “The good news is we are not the only ones pushing the browser forward.”

Pichai says that all the modern browsers are working to support HTML 5. “You as developers can rely on these APIs (Application Programming Interfaces).”

Methinks the talk is about to get nerdy.

9:37 am: Ian Ellison-Taylor comes out to talk about the developer capabilities of HTML 5.

“We’re not resting on our laurels at Google,” he said. “New features are being added all the time.”

With that, Ellison-Taylor starts a demo, starting with the addition of voice control to the browser.

Ellison-Taylor shows how voice recognition in the browser can work by adding a single control to a search bar that wasn’t designed for speech.

He notes he is violating a rule which says don’t do live speech recognition demos in keynotes.

His search for “Emma Caufield” actually worked. “I’m genuinely surprised that works,” Ellison-Taylor said.

A second demo, using Google Translate, correctly translated “Welcome to San Francisco”–at least judging by the applause from the crowd.

9:44 am: It’s getting nerdy. Talk of sprite animation, Canvas and so forth.

Thankfully, he’s doing something even I can understand–the little demo of the fish swimming. He shows the poor fish swimming slowly when Chrome is pure software.

Hardware acceleration allows 500 fish to swim at 60 frames a second. By 1,000 fish, though, it drops to 30 frames per second.

“That’s basically a 10X improvement over where we were,” he said. He then shows a demo of some Mozilla code that offers another 10 times increase in performance, with the screen filled with tens of thousands of fish all swimming around swimmingly.

I think this means that it will also run my Web sites faster.

9:48 am: Pichai translates to English, noting that a browser-based game can now run 100 times faster than it could six months ago.

“That’s the pace at which the Web is evolving,” Pichai said. Of course, that only matters if you can reach users, he said, segueing into talk of the Chrome Web Store.

Pichai said that Google is making the Chrome Web Store available in 41 languages and to all 160 million of its users. “We want to make sure you can reach all users of Chrome.”

It’s also important to monetize. Charging for Web apps is already supported, but hard to do in-context within apps.

9:50 am: And surprise, the answer is in-app payments.

9:51 am: Google’s Vikas Gupta is talking about how this is being done with Web apps.

He shows a free Web app called Graphicly Comics. They want to allow users to start reading a comic book and let them get hooked before charging them.

The key is being able to do so within the flow of the app. It can be done with a couple clicks. It’s also easy for developers, Gupta said, saying that a single line of code can enable Google’s in-app payments.

9:53 am: That leaves the question of how to charge. There tend to be fixed fees, monthly fees, signup fees and licensing fees, with content publishers also being charged 30 percent.

Google is charging a flat 5 percent fee, Gupta said, eliciting lots of whoops and applause. “95 percent stays with you,” he says, helping out the severely math-challenged in the crowd.

9:54 am: Pichai is back, showcasing a game that could not have been on the Web a year ago. One of the leading games is coming to the Web.

And, of course, it’s Angry Birds. Mighty Eagle Peter Vesterbacka taking the stage.

Vesterbacka is decked out in his familiar red sweatshirt with an Angry Bird face.

“We’ve wanted to bring Angry Birds to the Web for a long, long time,” he said. “We didn’t want to compromise on performance.”

The Web version, he insists, is as fun and engaging as any other version, and starts with a demo.

9:57 am: Google’s demo master clears the first level with two birds, earning two stars, in case you were wondering.

We built this using WebGL, Vesterbacka said.

“It really rocks, as you can see,” he said. It also works with Canvas if your browser doesn’t support WebGL. If your browser supports hardware acceleration there is an HD version.

So what if you are offline? We use local storage.

“You can play the complete game offline,” Vesterbacka said. Now we’ll make those flights more bearable, he said, noting that when your Android phone runs out of battery, you can play on your Chrome Netbook.

As a special treat for users of Chrome, there are some exclusive levels.

Vesterbacka says he is happy to hear Google is only taking 5 percent on in-app purchases.

“We’re all for lower taxes and five percent (is) fair,” he said. As a result, Rovio is bringing the paid “mighty eagle” helper to Chrome soon, basically as soon as the in-app purchase is live.

10:02 am: The Web version is available now in the Chrome Web store, he said. “Let’s pop some pigs and play Angry Birds,” he said, ending the mini-commercial.

Pichai comes back, pointing to the launch of Angry Birds as the culmination of the last year of work his team has been doing.

“More importantly, my kids will think finally I am doing something useful,” Pichai said.

10:04 am: Aaron Koblin comes out to talk about a new interactive music project that Google is doing called “Three Dreams of Black.”

10:10 am: Talk shifts to Chrome OS.

Just to use a browser requires lots of complexity, from antivirus software to managing backups, etc. It takes a long time to boot, Pichai said.

“Some computers even check to see whether there is a floppy drive.”

10:10 am: The devices Google is powering are called “Chromebooks.”

The devices take three minutes to get up and running out of the box and eight seconds from there on. There are built-in connectivity options, pay as you go with a certain amount of free usage and the option to buy day passes.

“I think this is game changing in terms of how you use your notebooks,” Pichai said. “These are some of the attributes that make phones and tablets great as well.”

It’s a reverse of the PC model. Chromebooks get better over time, Pichai said, as new updates come.

PCs, on the other hand, are great the day you get them and performance degrades over time as new apps are installed.

He reviews the Cr-48 pilot program which gave demo hardware to thousands of people. “The feedback has been great,” he insists. “We have fixed some issues we had with Cr-48.”

They worked with Adobe for seamless Flash. Now Intel has dual-core apps. It fixed holes, such as when you plugged a camera in to the demo devices, nothing happened.

That’s changed, he said, bringing back Kan Liu, who previously demoed Angry Birds.

10:15 am: As expected, there is a new file manager for dealing with local files. The file manager can be opened within another tab in Chrome OS.

Liu demos how music and movies can be stored and played back within a new media player.

10:17 am: Google Music beta and YouTube movie rentals will work as well as third-party services like Hulu, Netflix and Pandora.

As for photos, Liu demos what it is like to import photos in Chrome OS.

One can take an SD card and plug it into a Chrome OS laptop. There are options to view and play a slideshow, but it can also use Web apps and send them to Picasa or third-party services such as Box.net.

10:20 am: The same approach is used with documents like spreadsheets; it can also share with Google Docs.

Any Web service or Web app can leverage the same APIs to do file storage. Box.net has been an early partner for this.

Google is working with a lot of other companies, such as Dropbox, Liu said, noting that Box.net built its integration in a weekend.

10:23 am: Offline access is also important, Pichai said. All Chromebook users will have access to Google Docs, Gmail and Google Calendar by the summer.

Other apps already work offline, such as Angry Birds and USA Today.

10:24 am: On to the hardware details. Intel is the lead chip partner, along with Verizon for connectivity in the U.S. and Acer and Samsung.

Working with other carriers.

Samsung’s Chromebook is a 12.1-inch screen display with instant-on and all day battery life.

Acer’s Chromebook has a 6.5 hour battery, 11.6-inch screen, full HD display.

Samsung $429 for Wi-Fi only, 3G version is $499. Acer is priced starting at $349 and up.

On June 15 in Amazon.com and Best Buy.com available to order and at the same time in UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain and Italy.

10:27 am: For developers, there is a full jailbreaking mode built in so they can play with the kernel.

10:28 am: Pichai is talking now about business and education markets, talking about the complexity, noting that over half of companies are still running Windows XP–a 10-year-old operating system.

“Meanwhile, usage patterns have changed dramatically,” he said.

Most companies spend $3,000 or more per computer per year to manage. “It’s really complicated,” Pichai said.

Some 50,000 companies applied to pilot Cr-48 devices, Pichai said.

Chromebooks have been deployed in hundreds of companies, with thousands of devices.

On the government side, Pichai said that the city of Orlando is piloting Chrome OS. (Interesting, as Miami is a huge Windows user and early adopter of Windows 7.)

10:31 am: Same two Chromebooks will be available to businesses, but some also want a desktop. “We are working on a Chrome Box as well.”

The device is only part of the cost. Design a Web console for IT administrators to manage all their Chromebooks. “It’s dead simple to manage,” Pichai said.

Chromebooks for business is a hardware and service package with Chromebox, support, warranty and replacements. When the hardware lifecycle is over, we automatically upgrade you to new hardware, Pichai said, all for $28 per user per month. “We think this can fundamentally change” corporate computing.

10:33 am: Now, education.

“We want to make it possible for every student to have a computer.” Chromebooks for education are priced at $20 per user.

Chromebooks will be available for schools, businesses and governments on June 15 in the U.S. and six other countries.

10:35 am: Cue video.

Here’s a summary:

It’s not a computer. Nope. No programs. No messy desktop. Not even a desktop background.

Can I use it anywhere? Yes. On a unicycle. “Our lawyers aren’t going to like that.”

It updates automatically. No antivirus.

Web site is Google.com/chromebook for more info.

“We think users are really ready for this,” Pichai said.

10:37 am: And now, his Oprah moment. “We want to make sure every I/O attendee gets a free Chromebook.” Big cheers.

These are available on June 15. (slight sighs) “We will send you an email with details.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110511/liveblog-google-gives-chrome-its-day-to-shine-at-io/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110504/googles-great-tv-ad/ http://allthingsd.com/20110504/googles-great-tv-ad/#comments Wed, 04 May 2011 10:03:17 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=32435 Google is trying out TV ads again, this time to promote its Chrome browser. There’s one featuring Dan Savage and the “It Gets Better” campaign he started, and this one, which Google could also run in red states.

I like it quite a bit, but then again I’m very much in the demo here:

It’s not clear at all to me how these ads promote Chrome as opposed to Google services in general. Or the Internet in general, for that matter.

The bigger issue, of course, is whether it’s ever going to make sense for Google to promote a Web browser on any medium but the Web.

I had the same question when Google ran an ad promoting search during last year’s Super Bowl. But whatever–Google seems committed to the idea, and TV makes more sense than print ads.

Important note for parents with young kids: I love the idea of setting up an email account for your children and sending them the occasional note or memento they can see when they’re older (I first heard about it from John Paczkowski about a year ago).

There is a catch, though. Google, at least, won’t let you set up an email account if you use the actual birthday of a young child when registering. It’s apparently a violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.

So in order for users to replicate the example in Google’s ad, they’ll have to give Google a fake, older birthdate for their children–I think you’ll need to make them appear to be 13 or older.

I assume that doing  that violates some rule, somewhere, so I don’t want to officially endorse that, and I’m sure that Google doesn’t either.

But it really is a cool idea.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110504/googles-great-tv-ad/feed/ 0