It will sit on top of a Linux kernel and will use a new windowing system. It will also have limited driver support therefore Google will only approve installations on a limited number of computers –mostly netbooks – including a number of Eee PCs. The Web will be its application development platform and may become a serious contender to Windows 7 in the netbook computer space.

Previously, Google had fixed the release date stating “The first netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010.”

However thrilling TechCrunch’s news may sound, this isn’t the first time a rumor like this has been started. Just a month ago, numerous sources in China claimed devices running preview builds of Chrome OS would be out in the market as early as November. This was then followed by a series of premature reports of the OS that all turned out to be false information.

Nevertheless, it will be exciting to see how well Chrome competes with Windows 7 and Snow Leopard from Apple only recently released to consumers. But if there is one thing to be learnt in the world of technology, it is to never leave Google out of the loop.

Just don’t get your hopes too high if you are looking forward to having Google’s Chrome OS on your notebook before the month’s end.

]]> http://www.gauson.com/blog/2009/11/19/google%e2%80%99s-chrome-os-released-within-a-week-truth-or-rumor/feed/ 0 http://www.gauson.com/blog/2009/11/19/microsoft-and-yahoo-merger-what%e2%80%99s-new/ http://www.gauson.com/blog/2009/11/19/microsoft-and-yahoo-merger-what%e2%80%99s-new/#comments Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:29:08 +0000 G' Blog http://www.gauson.com/?p=332 The Microsoft and Yahoo merger isn’t a foregone issue. It’s been three and a half months since the two companies announced they had reached a “binding letter agreement” on their search deal but straightening out the full pact is taking the two sides longer than expected.

In a statement, Microsoft said the two companies remain dedicated to their arrangement and given the complex nature of the transaction, there remain some issues that need additional clarity and definitive details. Yahoo then released a statement saying both companies are optimistic that they will be able to close their deal by early 2010.

For the time being, Yahoo is concentrating mainly on their media sites most of which are No.1 in their categories. Sites such as Yahoo! Sports and Yahoo! Finance are very popular and attract millions of unique visitors on a monthly basis. Microsoft, on the other hand, is happy that it is finally getting what it wants which is an increased search market share to take on rival Google giving them the scale and resources to create and expand the future of search.

At the end of the year, Yahoo plans to end its paid inclusion program, formally called Search Submit Pro which is similar to pay-per-click, after having received complaints that having paid advertisements incorporated in organic search results could create biased results. Yahoo’s page inclusion program enabled users to pay for page inclusion but not page rank.

On the plus side, having reliable and guaranteed page inclusion enabled web developers to optimize their web pages for specific search results. Protests were made as Yahoo’s page inclusion program was trickling into traditional search engine optimization (SEO) practices that included keyword manipulation and pay-per-click advertisements. Most web developers believe the end to paid inclusion will kick-start pay-per-click advertisements and other online marketing businesses. Yahoo had chosen the final date at the end of the year to give their advertisers time to adjust to the changes.

Last month, Google and Microsoft grabbed larger pieces of U.S. search market share whereas Yahoo lost market share for the second month in a row. Analysts say Yahoo’s 18% search share was the lowest mark ever and that Yahoo must find a way to stabilize its share loss. Microsoft on the other hand, increased its market share for five straight months, boosted by its new Bing search engine and integration of Yahoo’s search technology.

With Yahoo out of the core search business with Bing handling the back-end of the project whereas Yahoo will take care of the front-end design, lots of users will expect Yahoo to focus even more on the content side of the business so it is undoubtedly true that Yahoo’s properties such as Yahoo! News and Media Group, Yahoo! Sports as well as Yahoo! Finance will get lots of investments and plenty of attention. Seeing as how Yahoo will be left in a vulnerable position as it stated it can no longer operate search by itself, I cannot help but wonder what will be Yahoo’s imminent future?  But with passion and new creations to further develop search user experience, it is highly likely that Yahoo will carry on playing a significant part in all of this.

As Microsoft’s Bing takes over Yahoo search, web developers who saw a great deal of traffic from Yahoo will find it useful to optimize their own sites for Bing. With Bing utilizing Yahoo’s database of profiles, analytics and behavioral targeting, Microsoft is going to close the gap between itself and Google which in turn should aid in core search improvements and facilitate advances on their personalization front as well. It is exciting to know that search technology will continue to develop and converge with other digital arenas such as mobile, platform gaming and other interesting areas that we have yet to envision.

It comes with InPrivate Browsing which is a feature many of the popular browsers have had for a long time before Microsoft included it in the IE8. The feature whereby cookies, history, passwords, objects and form data disappear once the browser is closed. That way you can browse the Net without saving your history on your own PC in case you ever need to shop for that special gift so your family would not accidentally find out or use a shared computer without worry and not leave a trace.

Microsoft also utilizes ‘Web Slices’ technology that takes Internet Explorer one step ahead of Firefox’s ‘Suggested Sites’ feature button. With Web Slices, this will automatically trace sites that may be related to the one you are viewing therefore keeping up with frequently updated sites directly from the Favorites Bar. If a Web Slice is available on a web page, a green Web Slices symbol will appear in the upper-right hand corner of the browser which you can then click to easily subscribe to and add them to the Favorites Bar.

Now what is a web developer without his/her tools? Microsoft claims they have “the most comprehensive developer tools built in” but compared to Firefox’s built-in Javascript console topped with their add-ons, Microsoft still has a long way to go. Sure the IETester “MyDebug” toolbar does have a number of good tools, but that has nothing to do with Microsoft as the toolbar is an entirely separate product. As both a web developer and avid user of all browsers, there is no browser out there better than Firefox in terms of customizability. Needless to say, it would be a long time until someone can beat Firefox in that area.

In the looks department try as it might, Microsoft just cannot seem to compete with the silky shades of Opera, the clear contrasts of Mozilla Firefox, or the smooth, cool and soft-hued graphics of Safari. The need to adapt one’s website to each browser is crucial for website development in the front and back-ends. Nothing worse than it working brilliantly on one browser and then not-so brilliantly on the other top four browsers. As a developer I work with all the browsers to ensure that each one of my websites is fully optimized with the features of every browser. A point to note for developers as well is how browsers fare on the Acid3 test. Compared to Safari 4 (which scored the full 100/100 on the test), all the other browsers were hugely inferior to Safari in their rendering capabilities. Although IE8 tests were poor, the standards built into IE8 are far better than IE7 and IE6.

It is true IE8 does account for a lot of the CSS 2.x standards that are available at the moment, however it also includes many IE-only features that makes it hard to utilize the standards.

Though IE 8 is noticeably faster than its predecessor IE7, according to tests run by Computerworld IE8 was 9.6 times faster using Google’s new Chrome Frame plug-in than IE8 on its own. Computerworld ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark suite three times each for IE8 with Chrome Frame, and IE8 without the plug-in, then averaged the scores. This did not make Microsoft a very happy camper in this category. Google’s Chrome Frame allows IE8 to utilize the Chrome’s browser’s WebKit rendering engine and its high-performance V8 JavaScript engine as well, thus making Chrome the fastest out of the top five Windows browsers by comfortable margins.

IE8’s SmartScreen Filter is their latest security feature that protects users against deceptive and malicious websites which can compromise their data, identity and privacy.  To add to that in two studies recently conducted by NSS Labs funded by, wait for it, Microsoft, it was found that IE8 was discovered to be the safest web browser. The studies focused on socially engineered malware and phishing. NSS attributed this to “concerted efforts Microsoft is making in the SmartScreen technology.”

At the end of it all, it still boils down to personal preferences.  More than two-thirds of the world uses IE since it a standard browser with Microsoft’s OS and that does not seem to be changing in the near future. If you are one of them, that’s good news for you. I have to admit IE8 has made a massive leap forward for standards support but I cannot help but wonder how we will see IE8 in a year or two as Microsoft has been playing catch up with most of the other popular browsers for a long time. Though to help get the most out of your web experience, it is recommended that users of any IE version prior to IE8 should either upgrade to IE8 or switch to another browser in order to experience greatly increased speed, reduced security risks and many other benefits. Whichever browser you choose, you are assured a safer, faster and satisfying browsing experience than ever before. Suffice it to say as to which browser experience is the better out of all them that is best left to the users to decide and put a vote to.

The merger will include Yahoo! selling pay-per-click advertising on both Microsoft and Yahoo! websites which they hope will increase revenues as there will no longer be competition between each other. But Yahoo! will keep 88 percent of the revenue. The merger will add to Yahoo!’s earnings of around $275 million extra a year plus there will be a substantial drop in its investment in technology development and this merger will last for a whopping 10 years.

However, Yahoo! had made two critical mistakes. Around June 2000, it replaced Inktomi’s search engine with Google and actually paid Google to put their results on the Yahoo! website. Users loved Google’s search engine and decided to use Google directly rather than Yahoo!. Just last year, Yahoo! made another crucial mistake to reject Microsoft’s 46.6 billion proposal last year. It shows how two simple decisions can completely affect the route of a company and the overall market.

So why did Microsoft acquire Yahoo!? The answer is online advertising. This merger means more competition to the online advertising and search engine market. Microsoft is anticipating that a long-term merger with Yahoo! will give it the magnitude and understanding it needs to attract more users, advertisers and ultimately more revenue.

Even though the Microsoft-Yahoo! merger has increased their market share to a total of 28 percent in the United States alone, Google still holds the majority of it by having 65 percent of the market share, and it will be a tough fight for Microsoft-Yahoo! to try and persuade dedicated Google users away from their favourite search engine.

When it comes to improving its search advertising system, Google has the upper hand on both Microsoft and Yahoo! base on what works and what does not. Google takes note of numerous factors to find out how likely it is for a user to click on an advertisement. True, Microsoft does have brilliant computer scientists working on the same dilemma, however Google’s lead in front is staggering and Microsoft’s dedication to search is pale in comparison to its cash cows like Windows and Office.

Users love Google as it is just plain search engine and compared with the other search engines there is just too much clutter. What users want is an easy to use, find and remember search engine that is accurate in its results when they type in their searches.

Microsoft will prove to be a challenge though for two reasons. Firstly, it has plenty of cash to spend on online advertising and search engine technology and secondly future growth of the company depends on this merger.

Microsoft’s new search engine Bing has started to grab market share and with the merger of Microsoft and Yahoo!, this will effectively replace Yahoo!’s search engine on the Yahoo! website. The advantage of using Bing is the fact that it allows users to purchase book travel, goods and discover credible health data easily. Users can use Bing for shopping and the site provides users with an Amazon-like experience. Although some analysts say this is less likely to attract fans of Google’s search engine but may attract those who use Yahoo!’s search engine.

On the other hand, Yahoo!’s strengths can be seen through its bigger market share which directly means that it has more relationships with advertisers than Microsoft does. Yahoo! has also been working on a tight budget for some time and its technology has become stagnant as has its ability to update it. Though Yahoo! investors might be disappointed with the merger, the cost of trying to catch up with Google and Microsoft would be substantial and it would not stand a chance in the Microsoft Google war.

There is still a long road ahead for Microsoft-Yahoo! to even take some of the lead from Google. But no doubt, competition does drive companies to improve their products/services. For some time now Google has been the only major player in the search engine industry and a Microsoft-Yahoo! combination will create a search engine that will certainly pose a bit of a threat to Google. Time can only tell how users will respond to new avenues of search.

Microsoft’s new search engine called Bing has been launched too early in my opinion. It has long way to go before it can even be considered as a serious search engine or even compete with Google. Bing has some serious problem with the search results if it cannot find a website’s url when the website has already been indexed.

To test the Bing search engine when it was launched in the beta phase I searched for Gauson.com in the search box. I knew that Microsoft’s Live search had some problem with finding the exact url address of some websites. Now that the Bing is no longer in beta phase the problem still persists. Microsoft may have changed the packaging and made few improvements but the verdict is that Bing needs many more changes in order to provide good relevant search results.

Microsoft may want to take few notes from Google where webmasters have control over the way the search engine indexes the website.

There’s obviously a big hype about Twitter and it has been promoted in media and blogs around the world making it one of the hottest topics in the blogging and social media platforms. No doubt when it comes to micro-blogging, the first word that springs to mind is Twitter. Many people would agree it is a nice marketing tool for blogs and other advertising agencies as well as for building an online buzz.

I was in a recent group meeting with a few colleagues and we were discussing how to maximize traffic and we were discussing if Twitter could help. As much as we would have loved it if Twitter could get us more backlinks or drive traffic like social bookmarking sites, it isn’t that kind of service. With Twitter‘s 140 characters limit it makes it a little difficult. But it will not be ruled out as one of Twitter‘s strengths, if used in the right way is networking and communicating with individuals or businesses that we might not otherwise be able to reach.

Facebook on the other hand has more emphasis on profound connections with others compared to who has the most connections.

It’s a little ironic you meet new people on Twitter and then when you lose touch of them you find them using Facebook.

Though what is all the hype about Twitter?

It is not hot off the press that Google is thinking of buying over Twitter. As usual there is a hype about Google buying something new on the market. What Google wants from this micro-blogging service is more likely a blend of technology, information and a testing framework.

Tweet Me Not … If the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning to the last thing you do at night is check your Twitter account, you are indeed a Twitterholic. So here are a few alternatives to taking a break from it:

• Phoning your friends or sending text messages
• Making calls using Skype
• Visiting chat groups eg. Yahoo and AOL
• Socialize at meetings or functions/events
• Meet new people at parties/ clubs

Yes, there is nothing wrong with tweeting, but it’s always good to take a breather from the online world and socialize with those to physically meet and greet with them.