Chrome gets it's own 'app store'

Today at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco, Google showed off a preview of a major new product: the Chrome Web Store. Yes, this is an app store for the web.

Read more: http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/19/chrome-web-store/#ixzz0oUM6ZiVw

  Google Chrome, gets an app store? Suddenly, Chrome is taking the leap into being more than a Browser. They'll be offering games, and essential apps in this new store, though apparently some will be at a price. I am eager to see how this plays out, though I do not appreciate them imitating Apple. As long as they don't make the same mistakes as Apple, though, things should go well.

“Developers care about monetization. But they need more than just advertising,” Google VP Product Sundar Pichai said on stage. With the Chrome Web Store, Google has simplified the process of buying apps on the web. Once you sign in to your Google account, apps are just one click away (presumably using Google Checkout). From there you can say, buy Plants & Zombies, the very popular game in Apple’s App Store. But this runs all on the web in Chrome, thanks to Flash. You can run the game full-screen as well.

Another game is Lego Star Wars. This game is run through Chrome’s use of native client (so developers can use native code to develop for the web). This is a full 3D game, built using rich HTML5 APIs.

There will also be apps in this store based around content. This means that magazines and periodicals will be coming to the store — and they’ll be able to charge for them. Sports Illustrated showed off its web app on stage.

I'm excited to see that HTML5 is being implemented and used in this, especially for video games, being a gamer myself. While the app store looks nice, I do fear that price tag. Will it be on games? Will it spread to things nobody should have to pay for such as themes, or extensions? I hope price is not used on most things, because I don't know about my peers but I'm sick of paying for things there should be an open source / free version of, but just so happens there isn't.

Sure, video game makers need money. But the inevitable maker of "ChromeCalculator" surely does not. This is my main worry concerning this "app store". Hopefully Google will realize that since Google Chrome is not proprietary it does not have the same monopoly the original "App Store" does. Trying to charge for every little app would hopefully result in an open source backlash. Otherwise, some of us would be denied the ability to experience the store.

Android 2.2 to support flash

In an interview with The New York Times, Google’s Andy Rubin revealed that the upcoming version of the Android mobile operating system will fully support Flash technology. Code named Froyo, Adobe showed us Android 2.2 with Flash 10.1 on a Nexus One last month.

In a world where every company seems to find excuses not support flash, I find it incredibly exciting to hear that this is no longer a stereotype of the mobile world. The Wii had a very outdated version of Flash, the DSi had none at all, your average phone has none, and even high tech, and I use the term high tech loosely, pieces of media equipment such as the iTouch or iPhone don't support it. It was beginning to seem as if companies have a gripe with flash, and were deliberately trying to kill it's success at the expense of their own products. Perhaps, on the other hand, one company that happens to be a leader in the smartphone race has a bone to pick with, like, everyone.

Needless to say, I am officially wishing I could have an Android phone, specifically one running version 2.2 which will support flash 10. I think Apple has dug themselves one heck of a hole at this point. Microsoft, Google, and Adobe are now on their grudge list and considering two of these companies are very powerful web forces (Google, Adobe) and the other is coming out with what is supposed to be a revolutionary new smartphone (Microsoft) they have plenty of competition with a nice huge advantage over them now.

I can't speak for him, but if I were in charge of decisions at Apple, I'd be scared right about now. Android 2.2 officially has a major advantage over it's main competitor, the iPhone.

Google censored in 1/4 of countries

"This morning, on their main blog,  Google posted a little reminder to everyone about its view on censorship on the web. Specifically, they don't like it. And while we all know their take on China's demand for censorship by now, the search giant also offered up a new interesting little factoid: of the 100 countries around the world in which Google offers their services, some 25 at least partially block them."

 Countries taking action by censoring the internet is increasing, and frankly I don't agree with it. In my personal opinion it isn't the governments place to censor anything for any reason. Censorship should be done on a far lower level, such as a company blocking access to specific websites. This is simply more efficient and provides far less potential for inconvenience. You would think when there are so many people and groups supporting this that the government as a single entity would be a lot less willing to step on people's toes by going ahead and censoring as they please. I believe perhaps it is time debate against internet censorship was taken a bit more seriously and we put some pressure on it.

Firefox shamed on first day of CanSecWest Pwn2Own hacker challenge

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=5865
"VANCOUVER, BC — The first day of the CanSecWest Pwn2Own hacker challenge wrapped up here today with a familiar face going after a familiar target.
And, for the second year in a row, a German hacker known simply as “Nils” exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in Mozilla Firefox to take complete control of a 64-bit Windows 7 machine."

I have personally been the victim of Firefox flaws. I've had it crash, become unstable, and memory leak up a storm. This being said, despite the fact that it was my default browser for several years, and I still use it regularly...

I'm rather tired of Firefox.

I look at Chrome, which now has add-on support and has never given me problems over anything, and on top of this, has been credited with being very secure, fast, and lightweight, and I'm starting to question why I go back to using Firefox.

Is anyone else starting to get the impression that Firefox is a bit bloated, slow to start, and now that it's essentially #1 in terms of fame and personal use, insecure?

Browsers are very lightweight. I encourage people to try several different Browsers, mainly Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer 8 all on the same system. Use them, test them, See if perhaps your initial browser choice wasn't optimum.