Google

Google Chrome Wrote: In 2008, we launched Google Chrome to help make the web better. We’re excited that millions of people around the world use Chrome as their primary browser and we want to keep improving that experience. Today, we’re introducing Chrome for Android Beta, which brings many of the things you’ve come to love about Chrome to your Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone or tablet. Like the desktop version, Chrome for Android Beta is focused on speed and simplicity, but it also features seamless sign-in and sync so you can take your personalized web browsing experience with you wherever you go, across devices. ...

The H-Online: Google plans to turn off online checks for SSL certificate validity in its Chrome browser soon, according to a blog post by Adam Langley, the developer in charge of that element of the browser. Instead, the browser will use the update mechanism to receive lists of revoked certificates. When browsers make a connection, they check whether the certificate presented by the server has already been blocked by the certificate authority, using either the certificate authority’s certificate revocation lists (CRLs) or, directly and interactively, the Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP). But that whole process has never been completely reliable, since, if the browser isn’t certain of the validity – if, say, an OCSP request doesn’t work – it simply “looks the other way”. Otherwise, there would be too many false alarms. ...

SophosLabs: The United States, which currently forbids government workers or soldiers to use smartphones to send classified messages, is preparing a modified version of Google’s Android operating system that will meet its security certifications. According to CNN, the army has been testing touchscreen devices at U.S. bases for almost two years. Forty phones were sent to soldiers overseas last year, and another 50 phones and 75 tablets are scheduled to ship to soldiers in March. ...

Mashable: Google just debuted a project dedicated to attacking some of the biggest problems facing civilization, such as global warming, and proposing “radical” ideas for solving them. Solve for X Called “Solve for X,” the idea resembles TED (Technology Entertainment and Design), the series of conferences that feature industry leaders exploring big-picture ideas and how they can improve society. Solve for X, however, appears to be more focused on global problems, using them as opportunities to encourage “moonshot” thinking. ...

H-Security: Version 17 of Chrome has been released into the WebKit-based browser’s Beta channel. Its developers say that the new Chrome beta, version 17.0.963.26, is focused on improving two of the browser’s core principles: speed and security. To make Chrome “go even faster”, some web pages will start loading in the background before a user has even finished typing a URL into the Omnibox address and search bar. To reduce the time between a user pressing enter and the page being fully loaded, Chrome will pre-render some pages if the URL auto-completes to a site a user is likely to visit. According to Google Software Engineer Dominic Hamon, this will, in some cases, cause pages to appear “instantly”. ...

gHacks.net: If you are a heavy user of Google’s Google+ social networking product you are probably keeping the site running in a tab all the time to never miss new messages. But even if you do, you need to switch back to the tab regularly to see if there are any new notifications on Google+. Notifier extensions make sure that users stay informed even if they close the Google+ browser window. Up until now Chrome users could make use of third party notifiers which, will working perfectly, were not official which may have kept some users from installing and using those extensions. ...

Google Chrome Blog: It’s that time of the year again for the Chrome team, when we pause on our anniversary to reflect on the amazing life and times of the web. It’s hard to believe that it’s already been three years since we launched our open source web browser, Chrome. In that time, the web community has continued to inspire us, bringing the power of the web into all kinds of apps and experiences, with all modern browsers making great strides in speed, simplicity and security. To pay homage to the goodness of the web, we’ve put together an interactive infographic, built in HTML5, which details the evolution of major web technologies and browsers: ...

Google: Today we received reports of attempted SSL man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks against Google users, whereby someone tried to get between them and encrypted Google services. The people affected were primarily located in Iran. The attacker used a fraudulent SSL certificate issued by DigiNotar, a root certificate authority that should not issue certificates for Google (and has since revoked it). Google Chrome users were protected from this attack because Chrome was able to detect the fraudulent certificate. ...

Blogger Buzz: As you may have heard, things are starting to look a little different across many Google products—and today, Blogger is the next product to get a makeover. It’s been a few years since we made major updates to Blogger’s look and feel, and there’s a lot more to these changes than just shiny new graphics. We’ve rewritten the entire editing and management experience from scratch so it’s faster and more efficient for you—and easier for us to update and improve over time. ...

Gmail Blog: The great thing about web apps is that you can access all of your information on the go, and we’ve introduced ways to use Google Apps on a variety of devices like mobile phones and tablets. But it’s inevitable that you’ll occasionally find yourself in situations when you don’t have an Internet connection, like planes, trains and carpools. When we announced Chromebooks at Google I/O 2011, we talked about bringing offline access to our web apps, and now we’re taking our first steps in that direction. Gmail offline will be available today, and offline for Google Calendar and Google Docs will be rolling out over the next week, starting today. ...

Mozilla Security Blog: Mozilla just released an update to Firefox for Desktop, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey. Updates are now available for: Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux (final release) Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux (3.6.21 final release) Firefox Aurora for Windows, Mac and Linux Firefox Nightly for Windows, Mac and Linux SeaMonkey (2.3.2) Thunderbird (6.0.1) We strongly recommend that all users upgrade to these releases. If you already have Firefox, you will receive an automated update notification within 24 to 48 hours. Users can also manually check for updates if they do not want to wait for the automatic update. ...

Google Operating System Blog: Google found a way to solve the problem of Android patents and it’s only three times more expensive than acquiring the Nortel patents: buying Motorola for $12.5 billion. “Motorola has a history of over 80 years of innovation in communications technology and products, and in the development of intellectual property, which have helped drive the remarkable revolution in mobile computing we are all enjoying today. (…) In 2008, Motorola bet big on Android as the sole operating system across all of its smartphone devices. It was a smart bet and we’re thrilled at the success they’ve achieved so far,” says Google’s CEO, Larry Page. ...

BetaNews: Google thoroughly rocked the smartphone world on Monday morning by announcing it will be acquiring Android phone maker Motorola Mobility for approximately $12.5 billion. Motorola Mobility has existed as a standalone entity for just 8 months, and has produced some of the most successful Android smartphones such as the first Droidwith Verizon Wireless. Most importantly, though, Motorola Mobility holds one of the most valuable wireless patent portfolios in the business, and this acquisition serves as a follow up to the Nortel Patent auction where Google placed bids, but lost out to a consortium of bidders that included Apple, EMC, Microsoft, Ericsson, Research in Motion, and Sony. ...

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that Google post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights” and subscribe to the series. This week we have news from the Gmail and Google Docs teams, which both made interface changes to streamline how you use those applications. We also introduced some new keyboard shortcuts and made improvements to spreadsheet charts and functions. New preview pane in Gmail Labs The Gmail team has heard requests from many of you for an inbox preview pane, and last Thursday we introduced this option as a Gmail Lab. Now you can quickly scroll through a list of messages and see their contents, marking mail as “read” as you go. Once you enable this feature from the Labs area in Settings, you can choose between a vertical or horizontal split in your Gmail window. ...