Browser Updates, again

Google released version 6.0.472.59 of its Chrome web browser. It fixes 10 security vulnerabilities; 1 is only affecting Mac OS X and critical, 6 are rated “high” in their severity. As usual, the update should get delivered and installed automatically – but it doesn’t hurt to check via the “Info about Chrome” option in the “settings” menu whether the new version is already installed. ...

September 17, 2010 Â· 1 min Â· 112 words Â· Omid Farhang

Browser Updates

The Mozilla foundation just released the popular web browser Firefox in version 3.6.9. The new version fixes overall 14 security vulnerabilities of which 10 are rated critical by the developers. Additionally, they added a new feature called “X-FRAME-OPTIONS“-header which shall help mitigating clickjacking attacks as web site owners can ensure with this header that their content isn’t inserted into other sites via frames. The update is available through the automatic update mechanism ( via the “Help” – “Search for updates” menu). ...

September 8, 2010 Â· 2 min Â· 316 words Â· Omid Farhang

One Million Calls Placed From Gmail in 24 Hours

If you’re as big as Google, there’s no such thing as a small product launch. So when Google introduced voice calls into its webmail service Gmail, essentially launching a Skype competitor, it was bound to be a popular feature. How popular, exactly? Well, according to a tweet from Google, the users seem to love it, as more than one million calls were placed in the first 24 hours since the feature went live. ...

August 29, 2010 Â· 2 min Â· 232 words Â· Omid Farhang

Google Introduces Google TV – Video

On the 2nd day at Google I/O 2010 developer event, Google has announced Android 2.2 with Flash along with Google TV, a new technology for television and Internet freaks. Watch the Introducing Google TV video below:

May 20, 2010 Â· 1 min Â· 36 words Â· Omid Farhang

Is Google Building a Skype Competitor?

Google announced today that it has made a cash offer to acquire Global IP Solutions (GIPS). A leader in the real-time VoIP processing space for both voice and video, GIPS doesn’t have any consumer-facing products; instead, it provides services that work on the backend for products like Yahoo! Messenger, Citrix and WebEx. This is an interesting acquisition for Google, who already has a number of consumer products that could benefit from GIPS technologies. Not only does GIPS provide voice processing for VoIP calls that could potentially improve gTalk and Google Voice, GIPS also has a large focus on real-time video transmissions, both on the client and mobile side. Our first thought when looking at this announcement was that Google could provide some really formidable competition to Skype. ...

May 19, 2010 Â· 2 min Â· 254 words Â· Omid Farhang

Google Chrome Version 6 in the Works

Not one to rest on its laurels, the Google Chrome team is hard at work on Chrome 6. The official move to the 6.0 designation in the Chromium developer builds officially started a few days ago. The move to a Chrome 6 branch for Chromium means that the final tweaks and polishes on Chrome 5 are almost complete. Chrome 5 is a big release — not only is it blazingly fast, it’s also going to be the first stable release for Mac and Linux users. ...

May 19, 2010 Â· 2 min Â· 316 words Â· Omid Farhang

Google: Oops…our Street View cars also saw websites you were visiting

Google today said it will stop collecting Wi-Fi network data from its Street View cars, after an investigation from the German Data Protection Authority (DPA) found the search company was also collecting personal data about user behavior on these public hotspots. Google’s Street View cars weren’t only taking 360-degree images of our streets for use on Google Maps, but they were also pulling publicly broadcast SSID and MAC information from Wi-Fi hotspots. ...

May 19, 2010 Â· 2 min Â· 259 words Â· Omid Farhang

Google announces open app store for ‘Installable Web apps'

Google has announced the upcoming availability of the Chrome Web Store, an open marketplace similar to the Android Market or iTunes App Store that deals exclusively in Web Apps. This store doesn’t exist yet, but will open both to developers and to users “later this year.” The store will deal in the “installable Web apps,” that are expected to populate both the Google Chrome browser and the forthcoming Chrome OS. They can be run currently, but require a Windows Dev channel release of Google Chrome with a special command line flag. ...

May 19, 2010 Â· 1 min Â· 163 words Â· Omid Farhang

Data Google skimmed with street view cars gets destroyed in Ireland, but that's not good enough for Germany

Last Friday, Google announced that its Street View cars had accidentally collected private data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks while making their rounds, and the international response began in full force. The same day, the Irish Data Protection Authority asked Google to delete all of that payload that was collected in Ireland. Yesterday, Google wrote, “We can confirm that all data identified as being from Ireland was deleted over the weekend in the presence of an independent third party. We are reaching out to Data Protection Authorities in the other relevant countries about how to dispose of the remaining data as quickly as possible.” ...

May 19, 2010 Â· 2 min Â· 314 words Â· Omid Farhang

Like Google and Nokia, Microsoft starts to offer free navigation for its phones

Google began offering free turn-by-turn navigation with Android 2.0 in late 2009, and Nokia announced at the beginning of 2010 that Ovi Maps navigation would be free on all its future handsets. Today Microsoft announced that it is following suit with free turn-by-turn navigation for Windows 6.x and up phones, powered by Bing Maps. When getting directions with Bing, there will now be a “Navigate” button which starts the turn-by-turn voice navigation. The voice navigation feature was developed by the Microsoft Tellme team. ...

May 11, 2010 Â· 1 min Â· 129 words Â· Omid Farhang