Chrome’s coming-out party
Google is planning to put the Chrome operating system front and centre at its annual developer event this week, to judge from this short preview on Monday. Let’s hope it doesn’t become another Google Wave moment. Read more
Tech news from around the web:
Under pressure from regulators, two more browsers are taking steps to help users avoid having their internet activity tracked–if the websites they visit cooperate. Read more
Google’s gadgets of the future
Google is giving us a glimpse of the future with its Nexus S phone, the first to run Android version 2.3, and its CR-48 notebook, a prototype for its Chrome computing system.
Tim Bradshaw and Richard Waters wrote early reviews of the products before I had an opportunity to play with them for this week’s Personal Technology column in the FT’s Business Life section. For me, the CR-48 represented the biggest change in my computing habits since I moved from the keyboard commands of MS-DOS to the Windows operating system nearly 20 years ago. Read more
Google grows web store, video, cloud ambitions
Google announced a web application store, a video standard and a cloud services initiative in the opening keynote of its developer conference on Wednesday – moves that rivals are likely to view as a threatening flexing of its web muscles.
The new Chrome web store will rival Microsoft programs and Intel’s AppUp store and provide tablet makers with a useful weapon to fight Apple’s iPad and iTunes. Its WebM video standard presents a long-term threat to Adobe’s Flash technology and could irk Apple, which favours the H.264 standard. Its cloud services collaboration with VMware and its associated Google App Engine for Business will be studied closely by Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce.com and others involved in cloud computing. Read more
Browsers jostle for position
From March 1, the 100m-plus users of Windows-based PCs in Europe who have Internet Explorer set as their default web browser will be invited to choose whether they want to keep Microsoft’s browser or ditch it for a rival.
Continue reading our Business Life Personal Tech review of rival browsers Read more
John Gapper: Little laptops snap at the oligopoly
The FT’s John Gapper says the most influential piece of personal technology to emerge in recent years did not come from Apple, Amazon or Research in Motion. Instead, he points to the Asustek’s Asus Eee PC, which created the category now known as “netbooks”.
Few analysts grasped the significance of the Eee because they did not think that people in the developed world would buy a not-very-powerful device with a tiny screen and a small keyboard. Meanwhile, US companies from Dell to Microsoft and Apple gazed studiously elsewhere. Read more
Google’s free OS could cost others dear
Google has released a few more details on the Chrome operating system, including pricing, and yes, you guessed it – it’s free.
The news is completely expected but still refreshing, compared to the complicated tiered pricing and discounts detailed by Microsoft for Windows 7 last month. Read more
Google Chrome has had a strange start to life. The browser is undoubtedly fast, and given it’s very new, has a lot of good features packed into it.
But where are the users? As Google took Chrome out of beta today , it revealed that the browser has gained 10m active users in its first 100 days. That sounds like a lot – until you compare it to others. Firefox – a rival browser that is more firmly established as the main alternative to Internet Explorer – has around 20 per cent of the browser market, compared to Chrome which is yet to break 1 per cent. Read more
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
