Yesterday, Google released public information about its new Chrome OS at the official press event. They showed videos of the OS and gave real-time demonstrations to reporters.
It looks a lot like the popular browser of the same name. It uses tabs like those in the browser instead of buttons in the task bar. The colour scheme is also very bright with a lack of colour. This may pose problems for laptop users in terms of battery life.
Here are a few screenshots to give you an idea:
I guess this would be the equivalent of the start menu in Windows. It’s called the applications panel and it’s where you launch programs from. May of these are affiliated with Google as you would expect such as YouTube, Google Reader and GMail however they also have others such as Facebook, Twitter and their old rival, Yahoo Mail.
The Chrome browser is integrated fully with the OS, as one would expect. Other Google services such as Google Talk also work seamlessly with it by launching discreet pop-ups and notifications when user interaction is needed.
Here is chess, an example of an app, running in a tab in the new OS. All apps can either run as a tab or can be viewed in full-screen.
Microsoft Office 2010 has just entered its public Beta phase in the early hours of yesterday morning and is now available for download from the Microsoft website. I suggest you head over there now and get a copy of the anticipated program. Nobody is too sure how long the public Beta will last and I cant see it being too long. Perhaps just a couple of weeks. After all, they don’t need to wait ages for enough people to download it – this is Microsoft!
Some of you may remember that last week we posted a screenshot which was supposedly from the PS3 website but had been leaked unintentionally. It depicted a Facebook logo on the PS3 Home screen indicating that Facebook was coming to the popular gaming console. Now, we can confirm that story.
In an update for the PS3 is out and ready for download. Along with outer features, Facebook is included. Here is what Sony said in an official press release:
Showcase Trophies: Instantly share trophies you earn in PS3 games in your Facebook stream. Simply sync your PS3 system and easily show off your accomplishments to friends and family.
PlayStation Store Purchase Log Publishing: Let friends and family on Facebook instantly know which PlayStation 3 games you’ve purchased. The PlayStation Store, available to PS3 and PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system owners through PlayStation Network, features over 200 downloadable games, many of which are exclusive to PS3 or PSP system owners, in addition to over 4,000 pieces of add-on game content.
Game Event: With a few quick clicks of the controller sharing select game events, progress and statistics is now easier than ever with the Facebook integration.
Here at Crenk we have been lucky enough to have access to the new Seesmic for Windows. Seesmic is a Twitter and Facebook client that lets you track and update you streams from one simple location and via multiple accounts.
At the Microsoft PDC09 conference yesterday, Seesmic announced their new native Twitter client for Windows. This application is engineered for Windows and optimized for Windows 7. Seesmic for Windows provides users managing Twitter the best experience available by combining the best features what Windows 7 has to offer.
We can offer all our readers access to the new Seesmic for Windows (Currently Closed Beta), by clicking the link here.
We’ve mentioned a few times back about DropBox being a very cool application, even the iPhone version; but the developer team it is already working on satisfying all your needs. That’s why they’ve created Votebox, where users can vote about incoming new features.
Here are some of the features that are the most popular right now:
Selective sync. Choose which files to sync and which you don’t want to sync.
Watch any folder. Sync folders outside the Dropbox folder.
Mac resource fork support. For a better integration with Mac users and OS.
Email files to Dropbox. Sending just one mail will upload the file to DropBox
DropBox for Android.
Sharing permissions. Define different sharing permissions to your folders.
Also they’ve mentioned some other options, not only as features but regarding about pricing and payment (PayPal support for example). Even though DropBox is a free application, you have 2GB as a free user; if you want more, there’s a fee associated.
If you are a DropBox addict, then don’t hesitate and vote!
Google’s Chrome OS project, first announced in July, will become available for download within a week.
Google has previously said they are working with Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba on the project. It is expected that Google will be very careful are launch and will only endorse a small set of devices for installation.
There has been a lot of news around the Google Chrome OS, including Linux OS and reports that it was going to launch back in October.
Like you read it, you can download files using the BitTorrent network without actually using .torrent files with a new Firefox add-on.
“Well, yeah, I know that” you might say “those are called magnet links”. Yes, it is true, magnet links exists already; and they don’t use the .torrent file to download, they use DHT protocol. But unfortunately, magnet links are not so easy to find; even though there are some popular clients (like Vuze and uTorrent) that already support magnetized links.
But now, you can find those very easy with the Firefox Add-on Magnetiser. You can install it, look for the Torrent that you want to download, click on magnetise, select the torrent client, and your download will start.
One small consideration though, the Add-On it is not officially out just yet (officially meaning that you can download it directly from Mozilla site); but you can download this add-on from here (just drag-n-drop the .xpi file intro Firefox.
PC users have been able to use the Google Chrome browser for some time now, however for everyone using Macs they have been waiting patiently for their own non-developer version. Chrome day for the Mac is coming very soon.
CNET is reporting that recent discussion in a Chrome mailing list points to an early December launch. We could be just weeks away from a beta version of Chrome for Mac.
The Google group update in question is light on details, but by requesting that developers update to support Browser Actions, it also suggests that a December launch date for a Mac version is fast approaching.
Google Chrome’s product manager, Nick Baum, writes:
“The extensions team has been working hard to get BrowserActions ready, and
they’re already working great on Windows and Linux. We’ve noticed that many
of you have updated your extensions to take advantage of the new UI. We’d
like to encourage the rest of you to do so as well!
You can find the latest docs here:
http://code.google.com/chrome/extensions/browserAction.html
Why make the switch now? The earlier you switch, the more time you will have
to polish your experience for our Beta launch in early December. We realize
this means dropping Mac support for a couple of weeks, but we already have
people working on that. If you prioritize the Windows and Linux versions,
we’ll bring you cross-platform parity as soon as we can!”
The post provides an interesting clue to the future of Google Chrome for Mac. We can only hope the early December beta launch date is accurate.
There has been a lot of talk about Skype and now Gizmo5 this week, so we thought we would let everyone know about 5 new VOIP service that are on the rise.
Truphone (www.truphone.com), London, became the first true Internet calling application in Apple’s App Store when the company introduced Truphone for the iPhone a year ago; it’s now available for the iPod touch, BlackBerry, Nokia and Android devices. Truphone enables free to low-cost mobile calling over available Wi-Fi or local wireless networks for owners of iPhones and other smartphones who travel out of their home service areas. It’s especially advantageous for international travelers who want to make inexpensive calls from their mobile phones wherever in the world they may be. Further, Truphone eliminates the uncertainty of expensive roaming charges altogether, so people who call using Truphone know what they’re paying and what they’re getting. And calls between Truphone users are always free. The company’s Truphone Local Anywhere service, coming later this year, aims to eliminate the high cost of calling other countries by making all calls “local.” Truphone Local Anywhere will become the mobile service of choice — delivering cost savings and convenience — for anyone who travels, or lives abroad and needs to stay in touch with family, friends and business colleagues, wherever they may live.
ShoZu (www.shozu.com), London, is an intelligent social media hub currently used by people worldwide to enrich connections with the people in their lives by effortlessly exchanging video, pictures and commentary between mobile devices and favorite social networks, photo sharing sites and information resources. The company’s patented technology provides fast, easy, one-click uploads of photos and video clips from the mobile to the Web, full-resolution photo and video delivery without compression, an emerging suite of services that push content to the phone, the ability to work in the background even if a connection is dropped, and other unique features that simplify and enhance the user experience. The company was founded in 2000 and has formed partnerships with some of the leading players in the mobile ecosystem, including Motorola and Samsung.
Boingo Wireless (www.boingo.com), Los Angeles, is the global market leader in Wi-Fi. Boingo makes it easy for consumers to enjoy Wi-Fi access on their laptops or mobile devices at more than 100,000 hotspots worldwide — including airports, hotels, cafes and metropolitan hot zones — with a single account. Through its Concourse Communications Group, LLC subsidiary, Boingo operates wired and wireless networks at 20 of the top 100 North American airports.
Hi Def Conferencing (www.hidefconferencing.com), Hoboken, N.J., from Citrix Online is a multi-party communication service that delivers crystal-clear quality and realism in audio get-togethers. The service uses advanced audio processing of up to 5 times the bandwidth of legacy telephone systems, making it easy to hear the subtleties of participants’ speech, accents and inflection – dramatically improving comprehension. Hi Def Conferencing also brings clarity to what users pay. As a predictable, fixed-fee service, it eliminates the billing surprises typically associated with other conferencing services. For a flat monthly fee, high quality conferencing is within the reach of everyone – encouraging ad hoc group collaboration with family members around the world. Participants access Hi Def Conferencing easily over traditional landlines, mobile carriers or broadband VoIP services, such as Skype.
iotum (www.calliflower.com), Ottawa, is a Voice 2.0 company that aims to reinvent business conversations and shape a world of relevant communications where devices, social networks and Web services work seamlessly together to let people communicate with whom they want, when they want and on the device they want. iotum’s business is to design and provide a simple, supportive and intuitive environment to enrich business conversations. iotum’s products and services bring greater meaning and productivity to typically stale and static multiparty communications and meet the growing teleconferencing needs of a broad range of customers across many industries. Iotum’s flagship service, Calliflower, makes it easy for people to plan and participate in engaging and meaningful conference calls that bridge business and social networks.
Photoshop software can be expensive – especially considering that most of us don’t use it that often. Obviously the industry standard is Adobe Photoshop. This program has been a cornerstone in image editing and photography for years now. However, I’d like to share with the Crenk readers a great freeware Photoshop program that’s just as good – if not better because…well… it’s free!
At the minute, GIMP is in version 2.6 and is available to download here.
It has photo enhancement, a fully customizable interface, barrel distortion, digital retouching, great hardware support, numerous file formats and the ability to run on pretty much any OS.
Here are a couple of screenshots from GIMP:
So for all you artists, photographers and inquisitive geeks out there – GIMP.
For over several years now, the OpenOffice.org Project has been increasing significantly. And on October 28th they’ve reached the 100 million download with their 3.0 version.
Open Office 3, released a year ago, included several improvements:
Enhanced compatibility with Microsoft Office 2007
Added edition capabilities for PDF
Included Open Office extensions (quite similar like you have in Firefox add-ons)
Various improvements with Writer (Word), Calc (Excel) and Impress (PowerPoint).
The latest and stable build is the 3.1.1 but there is already a Beta available for the 3.2 version, you can check it here.
Open Office originally appeared as StarOffice, owned by Sun Microsystems (back in the year 2000). The first original version of Open Office, 1.0 obviously, showed up in 2002. And for those that worked with it, knew that it had a lot to improve.
Even though all that, this project was the only one that maintains certain stability over the years with an “attempt” to use it as a free possibility working with Office standards. Personally I’ve never got used to it to use it, but continue to be as the main possibility for several governmental and educational entities, related to costs of course.
I though I’d share with you guys an RSS reader that I started using recently called Feedly. Basically it’s and add-on for most browsers including Chrome and Firefox which combines all your RSS feeds into one incredible place that by far surpasses generic readers such as Google.
Here is a screenshot:
What I like most about is that it also combines other services such as GMail and Twitter into the same package so you’re getting all of your information in the one place instead of having several tabs open.
It’s free and its easy to set up once you have installed it as an add-on. Click here to download Feedly.
Yesterday, Google released public information about its new Chrome OS at the official press event. They showed videos of the OS and gave real-time demonstrations to reporters.
I guess this would be the equivalent of the start menu in Windows. It’s called the applications panel and it’s where you launch programs from. May of these are affiliated with Google as you would expect such as YouTube, Google Reader and GMail however they also have others such as Facebook, Twitter and their old rival, Yahoo Mail.
The Chrome browser is integrated fully with the OS, as one would expect. Other Google services such as Google Talk also work seamlessly with it by launching discreet pop-ups and notifications when user interaction is needed.
Some of you may remember that last week 
