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At a live event in San Francisco today, Google officially launched Chrome OS, a lightweight and fast operating system based on the similarly speedy Chrome web browser. The event kicked off with a little background on Chrome and an update on just how fast it has become.

When Chrome was first announced two years ago, its new javascript engine, V8, was 8x faster than the fastest existing engine. And it was 16x faster than IE. We’ve continued to improve, and today we are announcing an enchancement called Crankshaft. This makes the engine up to 2x faster than it is today depending on the benchmark. It’s 50x as fast as the fastest web browsers 2 years ago and 100x faster than IE was two years ago.

In addition to a need for speed, it seems many of us have grown a need for apps. The Chrome Web Store aims to fill that need by making it simple and easy to purchase, download, and install applications. These are not specific to the Chrome web browser as they are just your standard advanced web applications. The convenience with Chrome is in easy access to these apps via shortcuts. The Chrome Web Store is great for developers as it provides an easy way to market and sell web applications. Of course, it looks just like iTunes.

Chrome OS itself is just about what you would expect. It’s the speed of the Chrome browser, but it’s running the entire computer. Every Chrome netbook will ship with built in data connectivity and you can switch between WiFi and cellular. Printing is done using Google Cloud Print (currently in beta), which sounds similar to Apple’s AirPrint, but possible more flexible.

Google has partnered with Verizon to offer 100 MB of free data every month for 2 years. The plans are pay-as-you-go and start at $9.99. There are no activation, overage, or cancellation fees and you can activate the service on your own. There is also a day pass which gives you unlimited access for the entire day for $9.99.

Google Chrome OS takes security in mind for the workplace. Automatic updates, sandboxing, data encryption, and verification on boot make the system secure. SVP Citrix Systems Gordon Payne demonstrated an upcoming Citrix Receiver: “We’re accessing Excel in Chrome but it’s running on the server in the data center — the private cloud of the company. So it’s safe, secure, runs in the data center. It’s fast (faster than launching on a PC).” This is coming in the first half of next year.

Acer and Samsung will be selling notebooks with Google Chrome OS in mid 2011 with other OEMS to follow. The Chrome OS team admits that it’s not done yet and has some bugs. In addition, Google is launching a pilot program to get this device in the hands of developers. As part of this program, Google may let you have a CR-48 notebook running Google Chrome OS , but there are some restrictions:

Consumers will be able to apply for this, but Google isn’t giving it away to just anyone. On its Facebook Fan Page, they ran a promotion a couple days, announcing a sticker for a Chrome laptop, if you did that quiz, you get a notebook. If you go to youtube.com/googlechrome and make a video showing why you’re an ideal candidate for this, you’ll have a chance to snag a notebook.

You can also apply or the CR-48 at this link.

via TechCrunch

Digitimes reports that Toshiba is developing a set of 3 tablets which will debut at CES 2011 in about a month. Each of the three tablets will run one of Android, Google Chrome OS, or Windows 7.

The three new tablet PCs are expected to adopt different operating systems: Microsoft’s Windows 7 and Google’s Android and Chrome OS. Two models are expected to adopt 10.1-inch panels with the remaining one to adopt a 11.6-inch panel. The three tablet PCs are being positioned by Toshiba as an extension of PC products.

Not only is Toshiba jumping on the Chrome OS bandwagon, but Computer World reports that we may see netbooks running Google Chrome OS as early as…today. Google recently announced an event for today, Dec 7th in San Francisco. Google had promised a 2010 deadline for the release of Chrome OS, but the OS is still buggy and many are wondering if it’s going to catch the eye of holiday shoppers.

What do you think about Chrome OS?

Google has officially launched their Google eBooks service, which we previously referred to as Google Editions. According to Google, the service offers 3 million eBooks from your choice of book sellers and devices.

Today is the first page in a new chapter of our mission to improve access to the cultural and educational treasures we know as books. Google eBooks will be available in the U.S. from a new Google eBookstore. You can browse and search through the largest ebooks collection in the world with more than three million titles including hundreds of thousands for sale. Find the latest bestsellers like James Patterson’s Cross Fire and Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, dig into popular reads like Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken and catch up on the classics like Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities and Gulliver’s Travels.

As with most Google services, Google eBooks was designed to be open. It works on all types of devices from laptops and desktops to netbooks, tablets, smartphones, and e-readers. Your ebooks are available across all of your devices via the cloud and you get unlimited data storage for those ebooks connected to your gmail account.

You can get your eBooks from the Google eBookstore or from one of their independent bookseller partners: Powell’s, Alibris and participating members of the American Booksellers Association. Google paints a picture of ebook simplicity, saying “you choose where to buy your ebooks like you choose where to buy your print books, and keep them all on the same bookshelf regardless of where you got them.”

As a final note, Google touches on the vast amount of data stored in their Google Books product, which works alongside the Google eBooks service. They call Google eBooks an “initial step toward giving you greater access to the vast variety of information and entertainment found in books.”

They have made Android and Apple Apps available for free download. Check it out and tell us what you think.

Nexus S is Here

The much-anticipated Nexus S Android phone is finally here. The phone was only a rumor when we first mentioned it appearing in Best Buy. Eric Schmidt later showed up with what many believed to be the Nexus S at the Web 2.0 Summit. Samsung and Google were said to be working on the Nexus 2, which Eric Schmidt said wouldn’t happen. It’s not really a lie as we later find out the Nexus Two would be called the Nexus S and would be manufactured by Samsung.

Today, we’re pleased to introduce the latest version of the Android platform, Gingerbread, and unveil the next Android device from the Nexus line of mobile products—Nexus S. And for developers, the Gingerbread SDK/NDK is now available as well.

via Introducing Nexus S

As of 6pm EST, the Tumblr social blogging service has been down. Approximately 16hrs later, it’s still down, displaying a message on the site that says “We’ll be back shortly.” Last I checked, 16hrs is quite a far cry from “shortly.” Early on, Tumblr fans across the Web took to their Twitters, Facebooks, and even FriendFeeds to express their displeasure in being denied from what many see as their main source of entertainment on the Internet. Much of the language is definitely NSFW.

Shortly after news broke about the outage, Tumblr responded on their Twitter account, saying: “We’re working quickly to recover from a major issue in one of our database clusters. We’re incredibly sorry for the inconvenience.”

If it’s taking this long to fix a database issue, I’m thinking their may be some loss of information. Cross your fingers, Tumblr fans.

via CenterNetworks, The Next Web

This weekend, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared on 60 Minutes. Many are calling the interview a simple PR move by Facebook. Earlier this year, Zuckerberg interviewed with Kara Swisher of All Things D. The main take-away from that interview was that Zuckerberg sweats a lot. Not a good image to carry around when you’re the CEO of the most popular social networking site on the planet. This time around, we saw a different Zuckerberg, one who can do the PR dance with the best of them.

Stahl herself even recognizes the marked change in Zuckerberg from the first time she interviewed him in 2008; at one point in voiceover, Stahl notes remembering “his awkwardness from three years ago, and how he rarely blinks.” She immediately follows with how “he’s far more relaxed now, easier to smile, and noticeably more confident,” a sight that we as viewers can easily recognize as well.

The interview came at the same time as Facebook launched new profile layouts. The profile changes are focused on highlighting the user and making it “easier for you to tell your story and learn about your friends.” The profile begins with some basic information about you, including things like your hometown and where you work.

From there, it moves on to photos because “there’s often no better way to learn about a person than through photos.” Just after a short paragraph about your background, you have a section with the most recently tagged photos of you. This is a nice feature, but makes it even more important to untag yourself when you get caught up in some silly meme by your friends. The Facebook Featured Friends featured now lets you highlight some of your favorite friends, just like MySpace. You can even organize them into groups.

All in all, the profile changes are not that drastic, but I’m sure there are already droves of users creating numerous Facebook Groups and Fan Pages to share how much they hate the changes.

How do you like your new profile?

via SocialWayne, Facebook, Forbes

Google Makes Being Bad to Customers Bad for Business

The New York Times reported that one company, Decor My Eyes, was able to game the Google algorithms to get customers. The twist here is that they didn’t find some slick tech exploit or technique, they just engaged in a campaign of harassment against the costumer. This garnered a lot of negative attention on the web due to bad reviews, but that didn’t stop them from ranking well in the search engines. As far as Google’s ranking algorithm was concerned, there was no difference between a bad review and a good review, both could get you on the first page of the search results…until now. In response to the story, Google actually changed their algorithms.

We were horrified to read about Ms. Rodriguez’s dreadful experience. Even though our initial analysis pointed to this being an edge case and not a widespread problem in our search results, we immediately convened a team that looked carefully at the issue. That team developed an initial algorithmic solution, implemented it, and the solution is already live. I am here to tell you that being bad is, and hopefully will always be, bad for business in Google’s search results.

While this seems like a logical response, some argue that Google should remain a “dumb” search engine. Do you think this is a smart move or is Google, as a search engine, over-stepping their bounds?

Flock 3.5 Comes Out Swinging After RockMelt Launch

For some odd reason, the tech world was buzzing with the launch of the RockMelt social web browser. Everyone acted as if Flock didn’t even exist and this seems to have sparked the Flock team to action. Flock has been in the game since 2005 and recently announced that it now has 9.5 million users based on installs. They aren’t going to roll over and let RockMelt take their shine. In addition to moving the backend from Chromium 5 to Chromium 7, Flock has created a 24 point comparison chart which goes in on the infant RockMelt browser. I’m not sure which is better at this point, but I spend a lot of time in my browser and connected to social media so it’s interesting to finally see real competition in this space. Who will come out on top?

via Mashable

RIM Kicks Kik

Kik seemed like the best thing since sliced bread when it began to gain popularity earlier this month. Who can balk at free real-time texting that works across just about all major mobile platforms? Actually, someone did balk and that someone is RIM. They didn’t take kindly to Kik and kicked Kik out of the Blackberry app store on the 12th, just a few weeks after their re-launch. A pretty big blow to a service which grabbed 2.5 million users after only a month. It’s easy to see why RIM would be upset with Kik competing with their Blackberry Messenger service and Blackberry has made this clear by filing a lawsuit against Kik. The lawsuit alleges patent infringement, user privacy violations, and what could be seen as corporate espionage as Kik CEO Ted Livingston worked at RIM as part of the BBM group in 2007 to 2008.

Verizon LTE Too Fast for Your Data Plan

According to PC Magazine, the new Verizon LTE network can blow through your $50 5GB data plan in about 32 minutes. This pretty much makes the service useless for anyone who would want to actually use the service. Verizon has always hinted that the launch of LTE would change the way plans are structured and it’s pretty obvious that a basic tiered model isn’t going to cut it. Hopefully, we will see plans and features geared toward power users in the future. For now, LTE will only work for casual users and hardcore geeks should probably steer clear.

It’s been an exciting week for Wikileaks. After Wikileaks released thousands of thousands of US diplomatic cables, an unknown hacker attacked the Wikileaks website using a DDOS technique. Shortly after the attacks began, the Wikileaks website jumped over to the Amazon EC2 service. Rather than paying up front for the service, users pay by the usage. This allowed Wikileaks to evade the DDOS attacks.

A few days later, we find Amazon dropping Wikileaks from their service. Early reports stated that this was because of pressure from the government. Amazon debunks these claims in a short blog post, which begins:

There have been reports that a government inquiry prompted us not to serve WikiLeaks any longer. That is inaccurate.

There have also been reports that it was prompted by massive DDOS attacks. That too is inaccurate. There were indeed large-scale DDOS attacks, but they were successfully defended against.

Amazon goes on to explain why Wikileaks got let go:

We’ve been running AWS for over four years and have hundreds of thousands of customers storing all kinds of data on AWS. Some of this data is controversial, and that’s perfectly fine. But, when companies or people go about securing and storing large quantities of data that isn’t rightfully theirs, and publishing this data without ensuring it won’t injure others, it’s a violation of our terms of service, and folks need to go operate elsewhere.

After losing their EC2 hosting, Wikileaks also lost their DNS. EveryDNS.net, which provided DNS services to the WikiLeaks.org domain, terminated them. EveryDNS says they did so because the WikiLeaks domain somehow threatened their infrastructure.

With no DNS and no hosting, Wikileaks was forced out of the country. They tweeted today that they’ve moved to Switzerland, and can be found at Wikileaks.ch.

via SkepticGeek, CNN

Earlier this month, Clearwire was cutting back in order to save revenue. The company behind the 4G network that powers Sprint is definitely having some money problems. Now, they are planning to sell more than $1.1 billion in debt in order to keep their heads above water. When the announcement came out, Clearwire stock fell 6.6 percent. Some investors are concerned about the cost of the debt while others are just disappointed that Clearwire couldn’t raise more.

On the other hand, Sprint shares rose 5 percent. This is presumably because investors see this as a sign that Sprint won’t have to bail out Clearwire by raising it’s investment. They already own 54% of the company. Clearwire is struggling to expand their 4G network while also trying to figure out how it will pay for these costs. Some estimates say they need $3 billion to build a network that competes with competitors like Verizon.

“A billion is nice. It gives them breathing room in the near term,” said BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk. “It obviously increases their negotiating position because they’re not as desperate for cash.”

via Reuters

Amazon has dropped Wikileaks like a hot potato after reports that staffers from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee questioned their relationship. Shortly thereafter, Senator Lieberman issued the following statement:

This morning Amazon informed my staff that it has ceased to host the Wikileaks website. I wish that Amazon had taken this action earlier based on Wikileaks’ previous publication of classified material. The company’s decision to cut off Wikileaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies Wikileaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material. I call on any other company or organization that is hosting Wikileaks to immediately terminate its relationship with them. Wikileaks’ illegal, outrageous, and reckless acts have compromised our national security and put lives at risk around the world. No responsible company – whether American or foreign – should assist Wikileaks in its efforts to disseminate these stolen materials. I will be asking Amazon about the extent of its relationship with Wikileaks and what it and other web service providers will do in the future to ensure that their services are not used to distribute stolen, classified information.

Wikileaks posted the following update on Twitter in response to this chain of events:

WikiLeaks servers at Amazon ousted. Free speech the land of the free–fine our $ are now spent to employ people in Europe.

For Amazon’s part, there are many reason’s why they would want to disentangle themselves from Wikileaks, both technical and political. The terms of service for the Amazon Web Service clearly states that they have the right to refuse service at will. ReadWriteWeb offers the most obvious reasons for Wikileaks getting let go.

A DOS attack on Wikileaks could affect other sites hosted on the same servers, so it’s possible Amazon.com dropped Wikileaks for this reason. But since the site has drawn the ire of the United States government, and congressional Republicans are calling on Wikileaks figurehead Julian Assange to be be prosecuted for espionage, it’s possible that Amazon.com dropped the site out of concern for its content.

via ReadWriteWeb, Talking Points Memo

Bill Clinton, with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), has teamed up with HP to help infants with HIV. Today is World AIDS Day. Yesterday, HP announced an initiative that would help these infants by building five data centers in Kenya. These data centers would be instrumental in speeding up diagnosis response times from several months to just a few days.

“Almost 10% of women in Kenya have HIV,” Gabi Zedlmayer, HP’s Vice President of its Office of Global Social Innovation, tells Fast Company, adding that that means 120,000 Kenyan infants are exposed to HIV annually either by contracting it from their mother or breastfeeding. Timely and appropriate medical attention is crucial for infants infected with HIV: “If they don’t get treatment in time,” says Zedlmayer, “half of HIV patients will not see their second birthday.”

HP’s goal is to reach 70,000 of the infants infected within the first year of the program. Foursquare is also working to help raise awareness today. They’ve teamed up with (RED) to help “turn the world red with awareness.” Today, your Foursquare check-ins can me much more than a mayorship.

This campaign is even more important because we’re so close: with current treatments, we can virtually eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV within five years, creating the world’s first AIDS free generation. When you shout #turnRED with your check-in and broadcast it to Twitter, it’ll turn your section of the (RED) map a bit more red (and you’ll earn a (RED) badge to help spread awareness further). Hopefully, all together, we can raise awareness for a healthier future.

via Foursquare Blog

Alicia Keys and a host of other celebs are also working to raise awareness today by not saying anything, at least online. As we previously reported, “celebrity social networkers such as Usher, Jennifer Hudson, Janelle Monae and Serena Williams will sign off of their social networking accounts until the charity raises $1 million. To express the gravity of the situation, many celebrities have joined an ad campaign where they’re being photographed in coffins.”

The long-delayed venture—Google executives had said they hoped to launch this summer—recently has cleared several technical and legal hurdles, people close to the company say. It is set to debut in the U.S. by the end of the year and internationally in the first quarter of next year, said Scott Dougall, a Google product management director.

“Google is going to turn every Internet space that talks about a book into a place where you can buy that book,” says Dominique Raccah, publisher and owner of Sourcebooks Inc., an independent publisher based in Naperville, Ill. “The Google model is going to drive a lot of sales. We think they could get 20% of the e-book market very fast.”

Rosa Parks sparked our freedom movement when, on this day 55 years ago, she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. Tired of giving in, the then secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) started a chain of events leading to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. She became an “international icon of resistance to racial segregation” and collaborated with civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr, which help launch him to prominence in the civil rights movement.

To commemorate this event, Google has a fresh new doodle up on their homepage. It features what appears to be a city bus with kids of various races exiting the bus and skipping away while holding hands. This doodle is not animated, so you’ll have to use your imagination a little.

Parks eventually received many honors ranging from the 1979 Spingarn Medal to the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal and a posthumous statue in the United States Capitol’s National Statuary Hall. Her death in 2005 was a major story in the United States’ leading newspapers. She was granted the posthumous honor of lying in state at the Capitol Rotunda. via Wikipedia

This past October, Google used their homepage to say Happy Birthday to Dizzy Gillespie, a pioneer in bebop and jazz music with a distinctive horn and super-human cheeks.

According to those close to the matter, Google is looking to make a deal on Groupon. We first caught wind of this potential acquisition about 10 days ago. Now, the rumor is that Google is offering Groupon around $5.3 billion with a $700 million earn out. These sources say the deal is more than likely going to succeed and could be complete within a week, possibly even tomorrow.

This could be Google’s biggest acquisition to date. It’s not as if Google can’t afford it, sitting on “more than $33 billion in cash and strong stock.” The deal isn’t just about Google owning a successful local commerce service which dominates the social shopping scene, but about the data they would gain in the acquisition. It always boils down to the data, doesn’t it?

But, if done, it will move the search giant instantly to the top spot in local commerce online and give it huge troves of data about consumer buying habits and merchant information across the globe.

The deal could definitely benefit both sides, especially with Facebook launching their own deals platform.

via All Things D