With news that Google have just got that little bit closer to providing users of Google’s Maps and Earth a more detailed than ever view of where we live, I wonder if it’s all such a good thing..

The GeoEye satellite, 423 miles about the Earth, peers down as you’re outside doing the gardening. Little do you know that while you prune your petunias, the large lens of a hi-resolution camera is watching your every move, down to a 50cm resolution. What does that mean to the average person?

This new innovation is great to see - as technology is pushed to it’s limits - but like Jurassic Park, people are so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they never stopped to think if they should. I’m all for getting a better idea of where we live and where we’re going, so we can pinpoint places a little easier, or help us with directions to an unknown area - but isn’t this getting a little too close? If you pointed the telephoto lens of your camera into somebody’s back garden, you would be in court on privacy charges - but it seems as though if you’re looking in from above it’s fair game.

I’m not sure if this is a Microhoo story or not, but I do know that Yahoo’s shares have dropped to a 5 year low - at what point does this equate to “Shareholder Value” exactly Mr. Yang? Of course, The Register were one of the first (even ahead of me!) to jump on that particular bandwagon!

I know, we shouldn’t be getting the pallbearers ready just yet, but after the release of Google’s Chrome it does raise the question of how it will affect Firefox & the Mozilla Foundation.

The Foundation is largely funded by Google so it presents a complicated situation for the two groups. On one side you have Google, with an open-source, Google branded browser - and on the other you have a foundation that receives funding from Google, with their own browser already available and widely adopted. Competition you could say. So can Google justify investing in Mozilla when they have Chrome?

You could argue that the two entities are approaching the browser from different angles. In my opinion, Google are looking to create a modern, stable browser, capable of running their web apps as quickly as possible (hence the V8 rethink), and at the same time make it all open-source for the good of other browsers that might want to adopt the code. Whereas Firefox is looking to be the Swiss Army Knife of the browser market with add-ins that make it capable of doing everything you need (and at the same time making it slower because of this), a really good grip of web standards and a very large and dedicated community base.

Both of these browsers are competing with Internet Explorer’s dominance (and to a certain extent Opera and Safari). They’re aren’t fighting side by side, however, but rather in their own respective corners - and I can see only one winner from the two if Google want to get serious. But are Google going to get serious? It’s interesting when you realise the exclusive Google search contract in Firefox - based on referrals (which by the way generated 85% of Mozilla’s funding in 2006 - or $56 Million) is up for renewal in November of this year. Is it just coincidence that Chrome has been launched now?

Google Chrome was made available for download, by the public, from here, during a press conference & webcast at Google HQ (which I was lucky enough to view), which detailed the features of the new browser.

A few things I noticed during the conference, was a lot of direct comparison between Internet Explorer and Google Chrome - intentional of course as it is the most popular browser, but interesting how Firefox, Opera or Safari weren’t mentioned at all. The tests were impressive however, with rendering times much quicker, and a basic Java benchmark literally making IE look like a Penny Farthing in the middle of a Grand Prix. Another thing that was mentioned quite a lot was the open-source nature of Chrome - another side-swipe in Microsoft’s direction I thought.

Next up, the “Omni-bar” as it’s called was demoed quite a bit - showing the power of search in your browser. For instance, not only will the Omni-bar intelligently learn your browsing habits, but it will also make a note of search engines within websites when you use them. So if you search on Amazon a lot, Google Chrome will remember your preference and give you the option to search amazon straight from the bar. The other options you’re likely to see pop up when you start typing are pages you’ve historically been to, stuff in your favourites, and google suggestions (where I think their ads are really going to make an impact). Also, if Chrome thinks you’re generally interested in finding things with your search engine, the results will be the search results page you would normally see. All very similar to Firefox’s Awesome Bar, as it’s been called, but I think a bit better.

Another really nice feature that was showed off was the ability to take a web page and turn it into an “Application Shortcut” - blurring the distinction between Desktop and Cloud. For instance, if you’re the sort of person always with a Gmail tab open in your browser, you can create an Application Shortcut to it, which will be placed on your desktop. When you double click the shortcut, it loads the webpage in Chrome, but without all the web buttons and address bars and things - stuff you don’t need if you just want a window to check your email in.

During the conference, the browser was made available for download, so I nipped over to the download link I posted earlier, and grabbed a copy for testing.

After the initial quick download and install, the initial thing that hits you is the speed. The speed of the browser is a lot quicker than Internet Explorer, and is a little quicker than Firefox. The other thing that hits you is the clean feel to the browser. No unwanted buttons or gizmos, just the normal forward, back & refresh buttons, plus a page button (for creating new pages or adjusting how the current one is rendered) and a config button, for changing the browser options.

When starting up it imports browser settings from anything else it finds on your system, and then you’re pretty much in. As you use the browser it learns your favourite places - with the pages you like the most displayed, by default, on your homepage.

I think it will take a few weeks to fully test the browser and to notice any problems arising or bugs appearing, but in the meantime I can say I am happy with the overall feel to the browser - and it renders techsnake.com perfectly too! In fact, it renders it so well, this post is being written with Chrome right now.

To download the browser either visit here or here. To visit the newly opened code project “chromium” go here. Remember folks it’s still Beta, so treat it as such!

Here is the link to download Google Chrome - Please bare in mind that it isn’t active until the Google HQ wakes up - at the moment it resolves to Google’s homepage.

Download Google Chrome

Google - the world’s favourite search engine, has decided to step up and compete in the browser market.

Competing with, more obviously, Internet Explorer, but also the likes of Firefox, Opera & Safari, Google’s Open Source “Chrome” browser (to be launched today in Beta) seems like a bold, but very logical step.

It makes perfect sense to me that Google should bring out a browser. Not only can you (hopefully) have all of your online apps in one, integrated place (I for one use lots of Google’s online products) but it means the perfect place for them to target their ads to it’s users as well. The only other integrated browser is Flock. Flock, based on Mozilla code, integrates into the social networks very well. However, as there is a huge list of online apps available from Google it would be nice to have some of that functionality at your fingertips. Maybe combined with Flock-like social networking tools, it could be the next killer browser?

Of course, all of these features are a great idea, and to be honest, would greatly improve anyone’s online experience. However, what really matters is the rendering engine, and also how closely Google’s new browser will follow the web standards. Hopefully these points will not be lost when Google release to the waiting public.

For up to date news on the release of the browser, keep posted!

The micro-blogging app, Jaiku, has moved from it’s previous hosted servers to a Google data centre, following problems with the system.

Jaiku, who had been acquired by Google in October of last year, had always planned to migrate their systems to Google’s servers, in readiness for integration with Google Apps. However due to some problems they had last weekend, they decided to make the leap a little earlier than planned. Jaiku is still in a closed Beta, but now allows current users to give out unlimited invitations. If anyone wants an invite from me, drop a comment on this post.

In a move that is surely showing the flailing business model of Twitter, the free micro-blogging site has axed the use of text message updates to most of it’s UK users, in a bid to cut costs.

An estimated $1,000 per year is the cost to Twitter for every UK user. And they’re not prepared to find a way to make money from these users - it seems easier to just cut everyone off.

As most of us know, Twitter has been suffering huge infrastructure problems with what seems like daily outages of some form another, with many users finding the service increasing frustrating. If it’s not the IM features, it’s the text or website blogging features that are down - every user of Twitter knows all too well the classic whale picture when things aren’t working as they should. With this recent cost-cutting exercise, is it too little too late? Or is it the sign of a system desperately trying to find a way out of a badly scaling web app?

During the writing of this article, twitter is displaying for UK users a box stating “important changes to our SMS service” on the left, above the twitter comments - which is a little ridiculous, as the infamous “We’re working to restore IM services to all users. Thanks for your patience!” message is showing the underlying problems of the site to the right of the page. Patience is getting very thin now guys - I know lots of people that have already gone elsewhere purely due to the frustration these problems are causing.

The Mozilla camp have announced the launch of their new add-on for Firefox, called Snowl. It can be thought of as a messaging aggregator, which takes all of the information you want to read from different sources and knits it all together.

Just step back for a moment and think about that. Everything in one place. All of your RSS feeds, your email, your twitter accounts, your facebook messages - all in one place. A great idea, as long as the interface doesn’t let the concept down - it would seem very easy to get snowed under by the huge amount of information. You can download the plug-in now if you want, although it’s in a really early stage of development, so expect bugs and frequent crashes.

Among the concepts talked about for Snowl, one of them is a “River of News” format, which is like a columned newspaper that runs horizontally. There is mention of prioritising certain types of information, which I think will be the key. After all, you’re more likely to want to read an email from a family member, than a news article. I am very interested in the project, and will be keeping an eye on it in the future - I’m always after ways of making my online information easier to get at, and therefore making me more efficient.

China has just overtaken the US, as the country with the largest online population in the world. China, according to sources, has a massive 253 million people surfing the net.

They may be online, but as we know, they aren’t exactly experiencing the net to it’s “fullest” shall we say, with censorship and government restrictions in place. But on the plus side, at least they’re enjoying their Great Firewall of China filtered content quickly - 95% of connections are on broadband or better. The world’s faster growing economy is starting to become the world’s most tech-savvy community too.

Photo source: Flickr