Google

I’ve just read this news about Google’s Android Market reaching it’s 10 billion download. But I have this crazy idea that this is not enough. They need to do something to really make Android and the Android Market work for the global audience — that is add Prepaid / Gift Card functionality to the Android Market ecosystem.

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Got my Google+ invite today. I think it’s going to be the first social service from Google that I will actually use besides eMail. Google+ has several features you’d expect from a social software like streams, photo/video/link sharing and group chat.

One awesome feature that I like about Google+ is called Circles. I think that it’s the closest representation to human social interaction. If you’ve used JoinDiaspora, it’s similar to its Aspect feature. All the social networking software that i’ve used so far, except Google+ and JoinDiaspora, does not allow multiple channel relationships which I believe is an essential ingredient to a good social software. Not even Facebook has it — yes you can classify people into lists but that’s just about what you can do.

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In continuing Google’s support for HTML5, it has decided to stop support for older versions of Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer and Safari when using it’s web based suite of Google Apps. The older web browsers lack full support of HTML 5 to implement better user experience features like drag & drop, desktop notifications.

To be able to add features that enhance the user experience Google will drop support for the older browser versions (Firefox 3.5, Internet Explorer 7, Safari 3 and older) starting August 1.

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Lady Gaga is probably one of the most, if not the most, expressive single I’ve ever got to watch on video and TV. She sings great music and I particularly love the way she expresses herself in her music. Her spirit and passion to music is really amazing. Looks like she is now endorsing the Google Chrome web browser. You can watch the YouTube video below.

Cool video!

You would think that since Google has one core technology that they have really dominated that there would be a blog somewhere in Google to talk about it.

They have an official Google Blog where they sort of publish important announcements on what’s happening within Google. There’s a blog for webmasters, one for Android developers, then there’s one for Gmail …

Now they have an Official Google Search blog called Inside Search.

One thing I love about Google is the way it supports the use of clean and green technology especially in the area of power generation. Google is already using solar energy to power its data centers. Today, Google has just announced another milestone by signing a 20-year agreement to use wind power.

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The year 2008 saw that Linux has the potential to take on Windows on the netbook market. The smaller brother of the notebook, netbooks is now the craze. Because of it’s size it has the potential of creating a whole new meaning to portable computers. As technology like SSD gets wide acceptance, prices of these devices will inevitably find its way into netbooks. Low power CPUs and improvements in battery technology will also make these netbooks a “all in a day’s work/school” gadget.

Linux’s smaller footprint, more robust architecture, openness and cost effectivity makes it a perfect match for the netbook. The growing acceptance and awareness of the ordinary consumer will contribute to it’s increasing market share. But it looks like that’s not the only thing that will contribute greatly to the acceptance of Linux.

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A private group of developers called “cupcake” is poised to merge into the next release of Google Android a bunch of fixes, changes and enhancements. Google is in the process of merging the private branch into mainstream that will take the changes into the public mainstream. I’m particularly happy to hear that video capture and A2DP bluetooth will now be available.

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Several months after the official launch of the T-Mobile G1, I have yet to see the second commercially available Android-based mobile phone. The title of “Second Android-based mobile phone” is still up for grabs since someone has yet to deliver on their promises and someone has yet to blog about their just delivered Android mobile phone.

As far as I am concerned, all of these articles going around the Net is simply just vaporware and marketing hype. Poised to come out with an Android-based mobile phones next year are companies like Motorola, Asus, Toshiba, Vodafone and Sony Ericsson.

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Wait no longer. If you’re dying to get your hands on a SIM-unlocked and hardware-unlocked Android-based T-Mobile G1 mobile phone, here’s your chance. For just USD 399.00, you can get your own T-Mobile G1 mobile phone that you can use for developing those nifty Google Android applications. You can even hack and create a custom Android OS and install it on the unlocked T-Mobile G1. Great opportunity also for those wanting to have an Android mobile phone and you don’t live in one of T-Mobile’s geographic locations.

If you’re a developer, you can even get your own hacks into the Android kernel and install it on the unlocked Android Dev Phone 1 device to create your own customized version of the T-Mobile G1 cell phone.

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