Google Looking For Redemption With Google Glass For Enterprise

I guess the Science Fiction-esque future that Google Glass suggested in its ads is a little bit further ahead of us than Google realized. Google Glasses were all but a huge consumer flop. The general public just wasn't ready for goofy-looking, augmented reality glasses.

But that doesn't mean this product is dead, at least not yet. According to a recent FCC filing discovery, 9to5Google revealed the next version of Google Glass. This edition will be geared towards applications that are used in the enterprise space, leaving out the novelty consumer-oriented functions that were featured in the first "Explorer Edition".

The "Enterprise Edition" Google Glass is said to sport a larger prism display for a better augmented experience. This serves as an attempt to minimize eye strain many early glass users complained about.

Additionally the Enterprise Edition will drop the Texas Instruments processor for an Intel Atom processor which will be faster and have better battery life than existing Android Wear smartwatches.

While the Explorer Edition often overheated or ran out of batteries, Enterprise Edition promises to run cooler, even with the additional external battery pack Google is experimenting with.

The last thing cited in the report was a super-fast 802.11ac Wi-Fi with dual-band support for 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless channels, meaning even faster video streaming.

Google's decision to shift their Glass strategy towards enterprise customers is a huge, but intelligent shift. Yes, Google, assisting with specialized medical, law enforcement, or even business applications seems more important than letting consumers play virtual reality games.

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Google Holding Ubiquitous Computing Summit This Fall

The Google I/O developers conference is what most people look forward to from Google every year. Even though that event has already come and gone, that doesn't mean there isn't anything left to look forward to from the company for the rest of the year. Google just announced that it will be holding a Ubiquitous Computing Summit this fall in San Francisco, California.

Just basing an idea off the name of the event won't get you anywhere as it isn't very descriptive. But the event will focus on the idea of making it easier to use software across a lot of different devices and form factors. The idea is that software should be universal across different things like smartphones, tablets, TVs, smartwatches, a car, etc....

On the developers end of the idea, they are trying to make all of these devices run the same universal software without having to change any of the code. A Google developer has also said that the summit will also focus on working on context-aware apps that will know which device is running them, where it is running them, how it is using them, and all kinds of other stuff. It is pretty interesting. They are now working on setting up guidelines for developing the software as well.

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The idea isn't so new. Google has been talking about doing this type of thing for years now. All of the different versions of Android, like Lollipop and Jelly Bean, were all said to be steps toward unifying the Android experience across all of the different devices. Over the past year, Google has brought together all of their Android development kits for all of the different form factors. Even Microsoft is jumping on the bandwagon, and they are making Windows 10 to run not only on PCs, but on all of their smartphones and tablets, and even on the Xbox One.

The Ubiquitous Computing Summit doesn't have an exact date yet, just that the summit will be held this Fall in San Francisco. But as there is more information surfacing, you will be sure to find it here.

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Google Looking to Increase Internet Speeds with QUIC Network

Google has been stress-testing its QUIC (Quick UPD Internet Connections) network protocol the past quarter. Right now, about half of requests from Chrome to Google servers are being set through QUIC and the company says it's leading to a greater performance improvement over TCP resulting in an increasing amount of traffic.

QUIC supports multiplexed transport over UDP while also giving security comparable to TLS/SSL. It is also cutting down on latency by relying on UDP instead of TCP. As of now the only real concern with latency-sensitive services like Google Search is how the UDP-based QUIC outperforms TCP by establishing connections with servers its already communicated with, without any hassle or extra round trips to the server. QUIC gets the better part of TCP in poor network conditions.

“The standard way to do secure web browsing involves communicating over TCP + TLS, which requires 2 to 3 round trips with a server to establish a secure connection before the browser can request the actual web page,” Google wrote in a blog post Friday.

When re-transmitting a packet, packet sequence numbers are never reused. This helps figure out which packets have been received as well as not having to worry about your internet timing out. QUIC over TCP has helped save a second off of the Google Search page load time for the slowest 1% of connections. This helps sites like YouTube, for watching videos online. Viewers have reported 30% fewer rebuffers using QUIC to watch videos.

Google also wants to ask if the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), with some changes like the wire format and dissociate the current plan from SPDY and moving to QUIC-over-HTTP2, will make the protocol an Internet standard. Google wants to continue increasing traffic over the protocol, with the overall outcome of entrusting it with all the traffic from Google clients to Google services.

Google is expecting good things to come from this so we'll see how it all plays out in the end.

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Bing Gets Updated, Only the U.S. Has Access to New Style

How many people actually use Bing? I mean, I'm sure there are people who use it religiously, I just prefer Google. But what I think doesn't matter right now because Bing users can rejoice (or cringe) because if you head over to Bing right now, you will find that the service has an all new layout. That's right, the search engine has slapped on a fresh coat of paint and added some new things to test on the Bing community.

The Bing Team just announced that the latest version of the search engine is now available for every single Bing user in the United States. Microsoft had announced a couple of weeks ago that Bing would be getting an update, promising to deliver it to the entire U.S. "in due time". For once, a company has actually made a promise and made good on it. Is this the dawn of a new era of company trust and customer loyalty? Probably not, but it's still nice.

The new face of Bing is definitely a noticeable difference from the old look. Users will now find a three-column layout. The left column includes search results, the center column (known as "Snapshot" by Microsoft) is designed to give users relevant information and services that are related to web results and the right column (or "Sidebar") adds some social features like an activity feed for Facebook updates and the ability to ask your friends questions.

According to a blog post that Microsoft released last month detailing the changes, "Whether it's making a purchase, deciding on a vacation destination, choosing a great restaurant, or figuring out which movie to see this weekend, the new Bing focuses on bringing friends, experts and enthusiasts into your search experience through a dedicated social 'sidebar'."

Reports are coming in from people who have already started using the new layout and the response was generally positive. Many people are praising the responsiveness of the the new Bing, though there are some disappointments with the lack of content offered. According to Rafe Needleman of CNET, "I expect that as this socially enabled version of Bing matures, Microsoft (and Facebook) will figure out a way to layer in more and better content. But I expect a more useful offering for a major update to social search from a partnership between tech giants Microsoft and Facebook."

If you are an avid Bing user then head on over to the search engine right now and take the new layout for a spin. Then come back here and tell us what you think. Do you like the new three-column structure? Are the social features cool or pointless? Do you believe that there is a general lack of content? We want to know everything you think about the new and improved Bing so let us know!

Source: CNET - New-look Bing hits U.S., but will it satisfy?

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Google Steals Senior Apple Executive for Project

Google is definitely one of the most prominent and influential technology businesses in the world. I can't think of anybody who doesn't use the Google search engine on a daily basis and the features like Gmail, Google+, Google Docs and others make the site all the more accessible for everybody.

Being the technological giant that it is, it isn't surprising that Google is always scouting for new talent, trying to get the very best possible employees on its team. In many cases this results in Google stealing some of the best and brightest minds in the industry away from other companies, including the almighty Apple.

Apple is the most recent victim of a Google acquisition as the Cupertino company has just lost its Senior Director of Project Integrity Simon Prakash to Google. At the moment it is unclear why exactly Google wants or needs Prakash. It could be for some new intellectual property or it could be to simply weaken Apple by stealing away a great mind. VentureBeat has noted that the project Prakash was brought on for is, unsurprisingly, a secret one.

In addition to that, VentureBeat says that this is the first time that Google has been able to convince a senior employee to leave Apple. There are many reasons for that. One could be that Google never made a good enough offer but I'm betting that people were just too afraid to walk out on Steve Jobs. What's more interesting is that this job deal comes right at the time the Department of Justice is investigating both Apple and Google, as well as a host of other companies, for having a proposed agreement to not go after each other's employees. It is rumored that this agreement was put in place to keep salaries in the industry low while also limiting competition.

Prakash has worked at Apple for the last eight years and was also responsible for product quality across all of the company's product lines. It has also been said that Prakash started his employment at Google today. Given his past at Apple, Prakash may very well be in charge of overseeing Motorola's Android devices though this is just speculation.

Source: Slash Gear - Google swipes Apple senior director of project integrity
Engadget - Report: Google hires Apple exec to work on 'secret project'
VentureBeat - Google hires a senior director at Apple for a top secret project (exclusive)

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New Features for Google Chrome v16

Google Chrome was just updated and the newest version brings an option to print any webpage using Cloud Print and multiple profile support for users who are on one computer to maintain separate settings. These new additions will become available with version 16 for Windows, Mac and Linux users when it is released.

Launching back in January, Google Cloud Print allows you to print to your home or office printer from almost any web-enabled device, though it was restricted to webpages with special Cloud Print buttons and specific Google apps like Docs or desktop apps like Cloud Print for Mac. With the new update any user can use Google Chrome to print to a Cloud Print-ready printer or computer acting as a Cloud Print server.

Using Cloud Print is also very easy. All you have to do is select Print from Chrome's menu options under the wrench icon. This will take you to a print preview page where you can select "Print with Google Cloud Print" from the "Destination" dropdown menu on the left. Then select "Print" at the top of the print dialogue when you're good to go.

Another addition to the update is multiple profiles. Multiple profiles started appearing in Chrome's beta channel back in November as a way for multiple users to keep their bookmarks, Web apps and other settings separate. This can be particularly useful if you have more than one user trying to use the household computer but you can't be bothered to switch user profiles using the operating system of your computer.

In order to get started with Chrome's multiple profiles, click on Chrome's wrench icon and select "Preferences" to open the browser's settings page in a new tab. After that, click "Personal Stuff" on the left side of the screen. If that is too much work, you can always just type in "chrome://settings/personal" in an empty browser tab.

Once you do this, select "Users" and then "Add New User." A new browser tab will appear with a blank profile on it that has some generic name and one of Chrome's avatars. The active user's avatar will appear in the upper right corner of the Chrome browser for Mac users and the upper left corner for Windows users. In addition to that, you can edit each profile's username and avatar at "chrome://settings/personal".

Each user also has the ability to sign in separately to their Google account to sync Chrome settings stored online. This is useful if you want access to your Chrome settings on a PC that isn't yours. Just make sure you erase your profile on any computer that isn't yours because Chrome profiles are not secure and they don't have any password protection options so anyone using the same PC as you will have access to your browser settings.

Source: PC World - Google Chrome Adds Cloud Print Option, Multiple Profile Support

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Microsoft's IE9 Strategy Fails to Produce Results

As the rise of other browsers, like Google Chrome, begin to show, so does the demise of others, namely Internet Explorer. The web browser, designed by Microsoft, continued to lose members last month, losing the largest number of users since December 2010.

During September, Internet Explorer lost nine-tenths of a percentage point of share, dropping to 54.4%, a new record low for the browser. The drop experienced last month was the seventh straight decline and the largest decline since December of last year where Internet Explorer fell by 1.1 points. Causing the decrease was, of course, Google Chrome, which saw shares increase by seven-tenths of a point. Adding to the decline was Apple's Safari browser, which saw an increase of four-tenths of a percentage point.

Chrome ended the month with a 16.2% share with Safari accounting for 5% of all browsers used worldwide. Microsoft, on the other hand, focused on looking at the brighter side by plugging the success of Internet Explorer 9 on Windows 7. Head of Internet Explorer's Marketing Roger Capriotti used data from Net Applications to highlight the gains of IE9 by pointing out that the browser version owned 21% global share of browsers running on Windows 7.

Internet Explorer 9 is the second-most popular internet browser on Windows 7 with a 21% compared to Internet Explorer 8's leading 31.6%. Firefox 6 and Chrome 13 came in third and fourth place, respectively, with 13.9% and 13.1%. Unfortunately, Microsoft hasn't outlined an alternate strategy for stopping IE defections. While the focus on Internet Explorer 9 may pay off in the long run, it has failed to slow down the number of defectors heading to Safari, Chrome or Firefox. Since its debut, Microsoft has lost 4 percentage points of share with Internet Explorer 9.

Source: Computer World - Microsoft's IE9-first strategy fails to stem browser slide

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Google Discontinuing Toolbar Support for Mozilla Firefox

Things between Firefox and Google have taken a turn for the awkward. Since its inception, Mozilla has always received a lot of funding from the search giant. However, analysts have been expecting Google to drop out of that role ever since the company launched its very own web browser, Google Chrome. Ever since Chrome was released and those analysts made their predictions, they have all been sorely disappointed, until now.

Google has just announced that the company will no longer include support for new versions of Firefox with its Google Toolbar. Many analysts' predictions have finally come true though this may spark another prediction, one that announcse that a new browser war has just been started.

However, that seems highly unlikely. The main reason Google is dropping support is due to the fact that Firefox already offers a lot of the benefits that the Google Toolbar offers, whether it be natively or through the immense amount of add-ons that Firefox offers.

Google is being very courteous about the dropping of support. The company will continue to offer Google Toolbar for older versions of Firefox and even created a webpage that was designed to help former users of Google Toolbar find similar functions in Firefox 5 and later versions yet to come. The Google Toolbar Blog has the full announcement if you are interested.

What do you think? Are you upset about Google dropping Google Toolbar support on later versions of Firefox? Or does the browser have enough of its own features to fill the gap? If you really can't live without the Google Toolbar, you can always switch to Google Chrome. It works well enough for me to work on every day.

Source: MaximumPC - Google Dumps Toolbar Support For Firefox

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Google+ Making Some Big Developments

Just a few weeks out of the gate and Google+ is already becoming highly popular among its early adopters. It is estimated that as many as 5 million users are already a part of the service's user base with many websites opting to adopt the +1 button. However, despite all that, it is still unclear as to whether or not Google+ is here to stay or if it will fail just like Google's other attempts at social networking.

In the meantime, things are looking positive for Google+. If you have not signed up yet, or have been unable to, then you might want a little peek at what is going on inside the pages of the service. Here are five notable developments pertaining to Google+ since it launched.

Increase in Google+ Share Buttons
While Google+ may be nowhere near Facebook, it is giving Twitter a run for its money. According to different sources, there are already more Google+ Share buttons, or +1 buttons, on the internet than Twitter share plugins. In a search of the 10,000 most viewed websites, nearly 4.5% have +1 buttons while only 2.1% have Twitter buttons.

MySpace and Digg Heavy on Google+
Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, recently reported that he would be moving his domain, KevinRose.com, to his Google+ page, which will move his online activity to that network as well. In addition to Kevin Rose, MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson also has an extensive Google+ presence. Anderson's presence is so prevalent that he even used the service to write a blog post praising Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg for the site's recent integration of Skype.

Invites Stabilizing
Google+ was being so inundated with invites and such that Google started a habit of randomly turning the invites feature on and off, and it was getting rather annoying. Users also griped about how they would invite friends and when those individuals finally got around to checking out the network, the invite feature would be turned off. However, all that seems to have stabilized, for now at least. The invite link has remained unchanged and working since Saturday.

Tips and Tricks from Users
Some of the more dedicated users of Google+ have already joined forces and created a tips and tricks guide for Google+ known as Google+: A Collaborative Document, which can be found on Google Docs. The document is over 40 pages long and covers everything like creative ways to use circles, tips on privacy, how to send private messages and an extensive guide for Chrome and Safari. In addition to that, the guide, which is in English, is being translated into Chinese, German and Russian.

Business Pages Coming Soon
A lot of enterprises are supposedly very anxious to get into Google+ and Google is planning on opening up its social experiment to business pages in the "near future". A lot of people are wondering if when Google+ offers business pages, if Google Offers, Google's form of Groupon and Facebook Deals, will expand into Google+ as well.

So there you have it, five of the top things that have been happening on Google+ since it launched. If you haven't gotten an invite yet, you might want to start making more friends or find some way to get on the network. Even though Google+ is in a somewhat of a trial stage, it is already gaining immense popularity.

Source: PC World - Google+: 5 Big Developments

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Insane Demand Causes Google to Shut Down Invite Process for Google+

Just a single day after Google unveiled Google+, the company's brand new social networking service, Google decided it would be a good idea to open up the invitation process late Wednesday afternoon to all those fortunate enough to have already been invited to participate in the service.

Before, the keys to Google+ were only given to those very select few who were fortunate enough to be allowed in at launch. So naturally an invite was a precious and prized commodity. Google has stressed that Google+ is in its very early stages though whatever it was that Google was aiming for with its field trial must have been pretty darn successful. The reason I say that is because every single person that was invited to the service is now able to invite other people in as well.

But that wasn't all, the people who were invited by the initial users were able to invite friends of their own too. Even better was the fact that people writing about the decision to open up the invitation process were suddenly struck with a lot of popularity amongst readers. MG Siegler from TechCrunch wrote on his Google+ page on his own story that, "I'm not sure any TechCrunch post has gotten comments at such a fast rate."

This amount of attention seems like it must have been a bit more than Google had asked for. After nearly six hours, Google shut the invitation process down over what Senior Vice President of Engineering at Google Vic Gundotra called "insane demand". Gundotra posted on his Google+ page late on Wednesday night, "We need to do this carefully and in a controlled way." Gundotra did not specify when the invite functionality would be back up and running.

Source: PC World - Google+ Invite Process Shut Down Amid 'Insane Demand'

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Bing's Shopping Section Gets a Revamp from Microsoft

The next couple of weeks are going to be pretty busy for most, what with Mother's Day, summer vacation and school graduations all on the horizon. Well, because of that, Microsoft has given the shopping section of its Bing search engine a little bit of a makeover which includes the ability to link it to Facebook accounts.

With this new integration into Facebook, users can be reminded of their friend's and family's birthdays and even share their shopping lists with them according to a report by Microsoft.

Other changes include a redesigned shopping home page with a new layout that is specifically designed to give more prominent placement to top search results, popular products and even related articles with the intention of making things easier and faster to scan this information.

A revamped results page now features bigger images at the top of the screen. It also offers more filters in order to fine-tune results and even let users hover over different items in order to trigger the display of additional product information.

Even though Google is the top search engine without a doubt, Microsoft keeps on chugging along, investing heavily in Bing for years now. Officials from Microsoft maintain that there are big opportunities set to radically improve the search user experience. Microsoft also stated that if it continues innovating with Bing, it could definitely make a run at Google.

However, that doesn't mean that Google is just going to sit there and take it. The search master is constantly improving algorithms in order to make sure it retains users' loyalty and defends its core market.

To improve its chances against Google, Microsoft as well as Yahoo are both implementing a search partnership. However, last week Yahoo's CEO Carol Bartz stated that Microsoft's AdCenter search ad system isn't yielding the results the companies have expected. However, both Yahoo and Microsoft have both said that they are confident that improvements to AdCenter will boost its revenue-per-search rate to the expected levels before the year is up.

Source: PCWorld - Microsoft Revamps Bing Shopping Section

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Chrome 11 Hits Beta Form with Some Amazing Additions

The latest and greatest edition of Firefox, known as Firefox 4, was just released a few days ago in an official worldwide release. Upon looking at it for the first time, it appears to be a great update to the Mozilla Firefox browser containing immense speed improvements. And if there is anything a browser needs these days to stay in the game, it is fast, and I mean fast, speeds.

You can attribute that need to Google's shot at an internet browser with Google Chrome, which is one of the fastest growing internet browsers on the market. But just because Mozilla added faster speeds to Firefox 4 to combat Google Chrome does not mean Google Chrome is just sitting there taking it. On the exact same day that Mozilla launched Firefox 4, Google pushed out Chrome 11 in beta form. At first glance, Chrome 11's beta may appear to be no more than a reason to show off the new Google Chrome icon. However, if you dig deep, you will realize that there are a few amazing things to be seen, things you won't want to miss.

One new feature for Chrome 11 is added support for HTML5's speech input API. What this means is that you will have the ability to talk to your computer while Chrome 11 interprets it. For those of you tech savvy folks that have already gotten the hang of this via an Android device or other mobile platform, this is something you will definitely love. One thing to note is that this is an HTML5 spec so it is not Chrome 11 specific, any internet browser can use it. Though if you want to use it right now, you have to get the Chrome 11 beta.

According to reports about the talk to text feature, the program works quite well. You speak whatever you want to say and the browser is able to transcribe your speech into visible text on the screen. The best part is that you don't need to install any annoying Flash player or plug-in, it just works.

Another feature of the Chrome 11 beta is an initial take on GPU-accelerated 3D CSS, according to Google. This will allow website developers to create sites with 3D effects using CSS very soon which, like the talk to text thing, is very cool.

As version numbers of internet browsers have been rapidly increasing, Google says that it does not like bragging about new version bumps. However, this one is still pretty cool and should be in stable form very shortly.

Source: TechCrunch - On Firefox 4 Day, Chrome 11 Hits Beta With The Ability To Talk To Your Computer!

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Google Searches Drop while Bing Searches Rise

In the great search engine war, two competitors reign supreme above all others, Google and Bing. While there are a lot of search engines out there, none get the attention or press like these two. Google has its name everywhere and you can hardly flip through the channels without seeing a commercial for Bing. But exactly how close are these two competitors when it comes to number of users? Closer than you might think, actually.

Even though Google is still the leader of the U.S. search engines, it did see a drop in market share slightly in January whereas Bing continued to pick up more steam. For the first month of 2011, Google's portion of all searches dropped by 1 percentage point to 65.6%. While this was happening to Google, Bing's portion of searches jumped up 1.1 percentage point to 13.1%. This left the other search engine Yahoo flat with a 16.1% cut of all searches in January.

These numbers are right in line with a pattern that for the past several months has plagued Google in which the company sheds a little bit of their shares while Bing edges up slightly. The good thing for Google is that these drops have usually only been fractions of a percentage point as opposed to the full point the company saw in January.

The number of core searches tallied rose from 16.4 billion to 16.9 billion from December to January, a 3% increase. Google hit the number one spot with a total of 11.1 billion searches. Yahoo came in second with 2.7 billion, followed by Bing who tallied only 2.2 billion. These numbers represent a 1% increase in January for Google, a 4% increase for Yahoo and a 13% increase for Bing.

These figures are derived from explicit core searches. This just means search terms manually entered into the search bar. This data also takes into account all of a company's search sites. So, in Google's case, these results included searches on Google's main page and the ones on YouTube, Google News, Google Images, and other proprietaries.

These numbers also include "powered by" searches. In January Google's number of "powered by" searches on its own sites and on AOL and Ask.com was 62.8%, whereas Bing searches on Microsoft and Yahoo reached 25.6%. This showed yet another loss pattern for Google as the company lost a small percentage of their "powered by" searches as well.

While Google does remain in a commanding lead, Bing could slowly creep up and surpass Google as the leader of the search engine world. However, you do have to take into account the recent battle between Google and Bing where Bing was accused by Google of stealing search results. If proven guilty, this could have a serious effect on Bing and their search engine.

Source: cnet News - Bing continues to grab more searches

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Browser Wars Heat Up for Microsoft

"I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant...", those were the words of Admiral Isoroku Yamoto after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and it also seems to be the feeling people have toward Microsoft and the company's entrance into the "browser wars" we are seeing today.

Back when Internet Explorer first came out, it was a high performance browser with a lot of useful functions. However, those days were finite, and Microsoft got branded with the reputation of producing crappy browsers, a reputation that IE7 and IE8 did nothing to improve upon.

In 2010, however, a long effort to reactivate the company's browser projects showed promise in IE9. As of right now, the application is still in beta form, but it has already shifted the browser market dramatically.

Internet Explorer 9 supports any and every kind of Web standard including a ton of HTML5 features like built-in video, CSS3 for advanced formatting, professional typography and SVG for smoothly resizable graphical elements. IE9 also speeds up the execution of web-based JavaScript programs. This development did manage to alert browser rivals for one top priority today, hardware acceleration. The software itself is accompanied by a push by the industry where Microsoft is educating Web developers and contributing to the development of standards.

It does appear that it may take a little while before web developers trust that Microsoft is serious about browsers again. It also seems that people still using the ancient IE6 will still be wary of upgrading. One thing is clear, Microsoft is paving the way for a new browser future where web sites as well as web applications become more fluid, interactive, polished and powerful.

In terms of Microsoft, Internet Explorer 9 has come in at exactly the right time. The battle with IE has always been against Firefox, however, Google's Chrome has brought in a new era of fierce competition. I think it is safe to say that Google knows a little something about the internet, and the company has a major agenda of web applications to pursue as well as a big enough presence on the web to allow it to make new technologies relevant by building them into its browser and web site.

Early in 2010 Chrome passed Safari by Apple for third place in the rankings of browser usage, and its growth carried to almost 10% of usage in November. A new phase of Google browser ambition is just taking off as well. The Chrome Web Store, which was designed to promote web-based applications and Chrome OS, allows people to find and purchase nearly any web app they want.

Chrome OS is much more of a departure from existing technology than just a browser. Google only offers it built into hardware. Google has done a good job with Android, but it is still unclear as to how well Chrome OS will fare with consumers and businesses.

Firefox's percentage of browser usage has remained consistently flat for most of 2010 thanks to Chrome. There are big things planned for Firefox 4 including many new features and performance enhancements. The problem is that Mozilla failed to meet a 2010 deadline and has since been pushed into 2011.

Apple's Safari has steadily increased in usage share with a few signs that the Windows version is catching on. Safari has been the principle sponsor of the open-source WebKit project, the same project both Safari and Chrome are based on. However, Google is steadily increasing.

One notable feature of Safari 5 that arrived in July was extensions that have the ability to customize the browser's behavior. Opera, the browser currently ranked 5th, is building them into Opera 11 which is the upcoming version of the browser which will match Chrome and Jetpack, the upcoming browser from Mozilla.

Adobe Systems, maker of Flash Player plug-in, had a particularly difficult year but ended on a good note. Apple, not surprisingly, did not budge on their ban of Flash from iOS devices directly, however, it did relent on blocking an Adobe tool that allows you to convert Flash apps to native apps. Google and Adobe forged an alliance due to the very public fight between Apple and Adobe which resulted in Flash support and promotion within Android.

The browser market combines competition between makers with cooperation as all the companies seek to advance the possibilities that can occur on the web. HTML5 standardization has sprouted emotional clashes between different groups involved as the specification moves more under the control of corporate powers.

The mobile market is also a big challenge to the web. Native software can offer better interfaces as well as faster performance than traditional web apps on mobile devices. However, it is still clear that the web as well as the tools for using it are clearly on the rise.

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Finally! Stream iTunes Online

Rumors about an online version of iTunes have been rampant since mid to late 2009, but now it looks like there's a little truth to the idea...maybe. Apple will be launching an online music service that will allow users to listen to music streamed over the internet. Experts say the new application could become a major threat for music websites such as Spotify, a service that allows users access to millions of songs through a paid subscription.

Each iTunes user will have access to a "digital locker," which allows them to store music they've purchased through the iTunes store. If you'd like to access your locker, you simply go to the website (the New York Times says it will probably be iTunes.com), log in, and voila! Your music is there, waiting to be listened to on any computer.

With the current version of iTunes, music can only be stored on your computer or your iPod, which rules out listening to it on the go in some cases.

Last year, Apple bought Lala.com and last month, they closed it down. This led many to believe the web version of iTunes is coming. Lala's Software allows users to store music libraries online and play them through any browser on any computer. It's most likely that these guys will be working on the new web-based version of iTunes.

The New York Times spoke with an unnamed record label executive who said Apple had announced plans to create a cloud-based service just weeks before it purchased Lala. Others wondered if Amazon or Google would beat Apple to creating such a service.

Personally, I'm not sure I would use this service very often. I'm a big iTunes fan, but I'm never in a position where I would want to access my music on another computer. If I'm traveling with intentions to work, I generally take my laptop and/or iPod along if I plan to listen to music. If I'm on another computer, other than my laptop, I am most likely in a place where playing music wouldn't be a great idea, though I suppose you can always wear headphones. On the plus side, I can see where it would be handy if you own multiple computers. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what Apple comes up with.

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Desktops Gone in Three Years?

Everyone (except maybe my parents) know that desktops are becoming less popular. People are trading in their old computers for newer, more portable models or other devices that allow them to perform many of the same functions (browse the web, check email) on the go. But while speaking at the Digital Landscapes Conference, Google Vice President of Global Ad Operations, John Herlihy, made the shocking prediction that desktops would become obsolete in as little as three years. And he says laptops aren't far behind:

"In three years time, desktops will be irrelevant. In Japan, most research is done today on smart phones, not PCs. Mobile makes the world’s information universally accessible. Because there’s more information and because it will be hard to sift through it all, that’s why search will become more and more important. This will create new opportunities for new entrepreneurs to create new business models - ubiquity first, revenue later."

But not everyone sees it that way. People from other major tech companies say that while it's true that smartphones and other similar gadgets are becoming increasingly popular, that doesn't necessarily mean desktops, and especially laptops, are going anywhere. Experts believe people will continue to brace new mobile technology, as well as keeping their home computers for other tasks, allowing the two to compliment each other.

Have you ever tried to type on a mobile phone? No matter how fancy your keyboard is, after a while, your hand's going to cramp up and increasing the size of the mobile phone is impractical. In that case, you may as well be carrying around your laptop. Tasks such as creating large word processing documents on your cell phone is probably not going to become trendy anytime in the near future which would make things so much harder on students and working professionals. The same could be said for screen size and weight. Increasing those things would defeat the purpose of having a mobile phone.

Comfort's not the only reason. First of all, battery life is a major factor. Right now, increasing battery life would mean the same thing as increasing the comfort - more power would mean larger phones. And never mind other factors such as software design. Could you imagine gaming only on your phone?

Personally, I'm not an expert, but I think laptops sales will continue to soar. I also think desktops will be around for longer than three years. They may continue to decrease and in the long run, become obsolete, but I just can't picture anyone giving up their computers in favor of mobile phones.

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