Google Editions Confirmed, due Soon

Google confirmed that Google Editions is ready for launch this summer. This is a 'buy anywhere, read anywhere' eBooks service that allows users to download eBooks on mobile phones, eBook readers and PC. Announced last year at the Frankfurt Book Fair, Google Editions will have about half a million eBooks available for purchase and download by late June or July. 

Finally, the new HTC announced its new HTC G1

Yeah the HTC Dream was announced yesterday, it will go with the T-Mobile and known as the G1.

The T-Mobile G1 with Google is the first commercially available phone to run on the ‘Android’ operating system, which empowers developers with tools to create and offer consumers applications that add value to their lives. This is one of many initiatives T-Mobile is working on to lead the industry in bringing real innovation to wireless customers.

The T-Mobile G1 is powered by Qualcomm MSM7201A, 528 MHz processor, the first that runs on Google Android operating system and comes with 3.2-inch TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive screen with 320 x 480 (HVGA) resolution, One-click Google Search, Customizable Home screen with instant Email, text message and IM notifications, Instant access to Google services (Gmail, YouTube, Maps, Google Talk, Calendar), High-speed 3.5G network connection, trackball with Enter button, slide-out 5-row QWERTY keyboard, 3.2-megapixel camera, GPS navigation, WiFi, microSD memory card (SD 2.0 compatible), Digital Compass, Motion Sensor and more

G1 delivers an extraordinary browsing experience. The G1’s browser comes with a clever multi-page window pane; it lets you surf multiple websites at the same time. Drag the page around with your finger to pan, or move from one link or textbox to another with the handy trackball positioned perfectly for your thumb. And don’t worry about waiting for pages to load.

The HTC T-Mobile G1 is available now for pre-order. It is priced $179.99with two-year contract and will get to you as early as October 22,2008.

Google to announce ANDROID smartphone on September 23

T-mobile plans to announce the first Google android smartphone on september 23rd. This smartphone is said to make its first appearance in USA and later in Europe.

Android is an open source software platform with an OS which has been designed to take advantage of Internet services for mobility.

The Google Android smartphone supposedly features a touch screen, trackball, QWERTY keyboard and an in-built digital camera.

The pricing and availability details of the smartphone will be revealed at a press conference in New York on September 23. Without speculating much lets wait and watch.

Google At Age 10

Google applied for incorporation as a business 10 years ago Thursday, according to a timeline supplied by the company. The application was accepted on Sept. 7, which is Sunday.

In that decade, the search engine company has quickly emerged as the most successful business on the Web, and many expect it to dominate the next era of computing as thoroughly as Microsoft dominated the era of personal computers.

Here’s a quick snapshot of Google by the numbers along with some comparisons to Microsoft. The sources of the data are the companies, Yahoo Finance and comScore.

Google’s age: 10

Microsoft’s age: 33

Google’s revenue in the last 4 quarters: $19.6 billion
Microsoft’s revenue in the last 4 quarters: $60.4 billion

Microsoft’s revenue at age 10: $140 million
($279 million in today’s dollars)

Google’s revenue per hour in the last 4 quarters: $2.2 million
Microsoft’s revenue per hour in the last 4 quarters: $6.9 million

Google net income in the last 4 quarters: $4.85 billion
Microsoft’s net income in the last 4 quarters: $17.6 billion

Google employees, as of June 30th: 19,604
Microsoft employees, as of May 31st: 89,809

Google’s revenue per employee: $1 million
Microsoft revenue per employee: $672,000

Market value of Google: $142 billion
Market value of Microsoft: $241 billion

Number of tech companies with a market value larger than Google’s: 3 (Microsoft, I.B.M. and Apple, in that order)

Worldwide searches on Google in July: 48.7 billion
Worldwide searches on Microsoft in July: 2.3 billion

Worldwide searches per hour on Google in July: 65 million
Worldwide searches per hour on Microsoft in July: 3.1 million

Search Giant(GOOGLE) Wants a Share of Browser Market

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Google’s new browser, Chrome, is named for something it mostly lacks.

Among software developers, chrome refers to the menus, buttons and boxes that surround the main window of a program. The Google browser, which was unveiled Tuesday, dispenses with most of these in favor of a stripped-down look that is in keeping with the spare aesthetic of the company’s search site.

The clever name sets a more understated tone than those of the browsers Chrome will compete with: Explorer, Safari and Firefox. But in a roundabout way it also hints that the most ambitious elements of the browser are invisible.

Chrome sharpens Google’s already intense competition with Microsoft, the maker of Internet Explorer, by far the most popular browser on the Web. Google hopes that Chrome will loosen Microsoft’s grip on the browser market, which it fears Microsoft could leverage to promote its struggling search and advertising business at the expense of Google’s.

But Google also said Chrome was created in large part to allow users to interact with increasingly powerful programs that run in a browser window, like Gmail, Google Docs and applications created by other companies. The company claims Chrome is the first browser built from scratch with such applications in mind.

“I think it is a very basic, fast engine to run Web apps,” Sergey Brin, a Google co-founder and its president of technology, said during a news conference at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View.

The browser’s design underscores Google’s vision that in the next few years the digital lives of computer users will change significantly. Rather than rely on programs that run on personal computers, people will increasingly use software that is delivered over the Web from powerful data centers. They will store their data on remote servers and be able to access it wherever they are. This approach would make operating systems like Microsoft’s Windows much less important.

Microsoft also believes the Web will grow in importance, but it sees the PC remaining at the center of many computing tasks.

By adding speed and new functions to the inner workings of the browser, Chrome will encourage software makers to create increasingly sophisticated programs that can run on the Web, Mr. Brin said.

“A lot of things are difficult to do on the Web,” he said. Chrome will allow developers to overcome those difficulties, he said, and “you will be able to do more and more online.”

Microsoft quickly dismissed Google’s claims that Chrome was better suited for applications.

“It is not the first or best browser for Web applications,” said Dean Hachamovitch, general manager for Internet Explorer at Microsoft. “It is the first from Google.”

Mr. Hachamovitch added: “I think that the functionality available in Internet Explorer 8, for what people do every day again and again, is better.”

To advance its vision of Web computing at the expense of Microsoft’s, Google has been courting third-party software makers for more than a year. As part of its efforts, Google has created enhancements to Web browsing technology that it has made available to others in an open-source format, meaning it can be freely shared and modified.

For instance, last year it unveiled Google Gears, a set of tools meant to allow Web applications like Gmail to continue working even when users are not connected to the Internet — a hurdle that remains one of the major shortcomings of many online applications.

Analysts said the development of Chrome appears to reflect a decision on Google’s part that it needs to take a more direct and active role in furthering Web browsing technology.

“Google needed to make a move to make sure it controls its own destiny,” said Peter O’Kelly, an independent analyst.

Chrome forgoes many of the menus and bars that are common in most browsers, and it combines into one the two separate boxes where users normally type Web addresses and search keywords. As users type, Chrome figures out whether a term represents a search term or a Web site address.

Individual tabs in the browser are designed to work independently, so if a Web page crashes one of them, the rest of the program continues to run.

Google also claims that Chrome is far faster at loading Web pages and running applications, features that it said would persuade programmers that they could rely on browsers to run increasingly complex software.

Google said others are free to use and modify its enhancements in their own browsers. And while the company made it clear that it hoped to chip away at Microsoft’s dominance in the Web browser market, it said it would benefit if all major Internet browsers became better able to run Web applications.

Chrome’s success is by no means guaranteed. Many of Google’s products and services, like Google Finance and Google Video, have received a lot of attention and hype at the time they were introduced, but managed to achieve only modest success. And Chrome’s gains, at least initially, may not come at the expense of Internet Explorer, but rather of Firefox, the open-source browser managed by the Mozilla Corporation.

While Internet Explorer comes preinstalled on Windows computers, Firefox, like Chrome, requires people to download it. As such, these two browsers may appeal to a similar set of users who actively seek alternatives to the programs that come with their PCs.

But John Lilly, the chief executive of Mozilla, said Chrome would help further define Firefox as the only independent browser dedicated to creating a better Web experience, not furthering the agenda of a single company. The publicity around Chrome may also encourage people to consider alternatives to their built-in browsers.

Just last week, Google and Mozilla extended for three years an agreement under which Google pays Mozilla to be the default search engine on Firefox. Mr. Lilly said he knew about Chrome when he renewed the agreement with Google. He also said that the extent to which Google would contribute to the open-source community was not yet clear.

“We have yet to see what open-source means to Google,” he said.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer holds 73 percent of the browser market, according to Net Applications, a research firm. Firefox’s market share has climbed to 19 percent, while Apple’s Safari has 6 percent.

Google refused to discuss its expectations for Chrome’s adoption by users. It said that it was likely to sign deals with others to further its distribution.

Mitchell Kapor, a computing pioneer and technology investor who is on the board of the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation, which owns the Mozilla Corporation, said Chrome lacked some features that users had come to expect.

“It’s a mistake to believe that their entrance will dramatically alter market share in the short term,” Mr. Kapor said. But he noted that “having a platform that is better suited to run Web applications is an enormous asset.”