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Download Google Chrome 4.0.266.0 Dev

Google Chrome has had a very busy week. The latest beta came out, the first to be released on all supported platforms, Windows, Mac and Linux, a major milestone for the project. Google also opened the doors to its Extensions Gallery, which is already proving rather popular. However, in order to make sure that the latest Chrome build was beta quality, the latest updates to the dev channel have been mostly small bug fixes.

In the meantime, the dev team was still working on a bunch of new features and the Chromium project was moving ahead. Now that the beta is out the door, the dev channel was also updated moving ahead quite a few builds from Chrome 4.0.249.33 straight to 4.0.266.0. Interestingly, the Mac build was held back as the team is still working on bringing extensions support on par with the other platforms.

“Initial implementation of the HTML5 sandbox attribute for iframes. Copying an image from a web page and pasting into Gmail now works. Spellchecker moved to renderer,” Orit Mazor from the Google Chrome team listed the updates for all platforms. “Fixed download dialog truncation in German locale. Fixed options panel truncation in various locales. Implement keyboard access between bookmarks and main toolbar” were the fixes specific to the Windows build. The Linux build also got several fixes.

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Techcrunch says Google Phone is real

Even before there Google’s Android OS, there was talk of Google launching its own smart phone, something that could stand up to the iPhone.

We eventually realized that Google wasn’t getting into the hardware game, it was building a software platform called Android that could power devices from a bunch of companies. But the thought of Google building its own device has been a tantalizing one that just won’t seem to go away.

The latest media entity to revive the story is Techcrunch, which is reporting today that the Google Phone is indeed very real and headed to market early next year. It’ll be a phone that Google designs by itself and will be sold directly and through retail.

Michael Arrington of Techcrunch said, according to less solid reports, that the phone is likely being made by either Samsung or LG with LG the likely maker. You might recall that the Street.com in October quoted Northeast Securities analyst Ashok Kumar, who said Google was working with a smart phone manufacturer to build its own Google branded phone using the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor for this year.

This follows, however, a number of denials from Google about their hardware ambitions. Just last month, Google’s Andy Rubin said the company was not in the business of making phones. “We’re not making hardware,” said, VP of engineering for Android. “We’re enabling other people to build hardware.”

So what gives? I think if Google is smart it will stay out of the hardware business. It doesn’t make sense to build up this ecosystem and encourage partners to build atop Android, only to turn around and compete with them and burn their trust.

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Xperia X10 versus iPhone 3GS: The battle of the smartphones

Xperia X10, which is expected to land in select countries sometime in the first quarter of 2010, is Sony Ericsson’s best bet ever to take on Apple Inc.’s unrivalled iPhone. It is the company’s first smartphone to run on the critically acclaimed Google Android platform but does Xperia X10 have what it takes to replace iPhone as the most coveted device in the smartphone market?

According to previews, it does.

The quadband GSM-based smartphone is powered by Qualcomm 1GHz Snapdragon processor, runs on Google Android 1.6 OS, boasts of a 4-inch WVGA capacitive scratch-resistant touchscreen with 480×854 pixel resolution, and is loaded with a whopping 8.1-megapixel camera that takes breath-taking shots and amazing features such as 16x digital zoom, autofocus, face and smile recognition technology, image and video stabiliser, flash and video recording (@30fps).

On the other hand, iPhone, which is also quadband and GSM-based, is powered by the slower ARM Cortex A8 600 MHz processor, runs on proprietary iPhone 3.0 OS, has a 3.5-inch widescreen multitouch display with a 480×320 pixel resolution and fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating (i.e. anti-smudge and anti-scratch coating), and comes loaded with a 3.15-megapixel camera with autofocus (but no flash and no digital zoom) and video recording (@30fps).

A quick comparison of the two phones based on the above-mentioned specs easily reveals that Xperia X10 is the winner – by a mile. It not only has a faster processor, but also it boasts of a bigger touchscreen (bigger display and better resolution means less pixilation and distortion and hence watching videos on Xperia X10 are more enjoyable), a better camera and a better OS, which can handle multitasking like a pro.

The only letdown is that Xperia X10 comes with Android 1.6 and not the latest 2.0. Had it been the latter, Xperia X10 could have blown away iPhone blindfolded. Thankfully, though, we can upgrade the OS to the latest version for free, starting sometime later this month.

But wait. The comparison’s still not over.

Xperia X10 packs 1GB internal flash memory, has a microSD card slot (expandable up to 16GB) and ships with 8GB microSD card. On the other hand, though iPhone has 256MB onboard flash memory and comes in two variants – 16GB and 32GB internal storage – it lacks a microSD card slot.

Till now, iPhone has always held sway as most iPhone challengers came with very little onboard memory (usually 128MB or 256MB), which means that except for very little data, you are forced to store majority of your media content and apps in the microSD card using the slot. Of course, with the high capacity SD card for the SD card slot, you can store virtually limitless amount of data but you will still want some files, apps and map data to be stored internally on the device. But this was not possible…till now. Now Xperia X10 changes all that by packing in a whopping 1GB onboard memory. It means you can store your favourite apps, video, music or data in Xperia X10 without having to worry about using a microSD card very quickly even as the card slot helps you to expand your phone’s storage space to match your growing needs.

As for apps, well, iPhone users have access to a hot App Store with over 90,000 apps unlike Android Market, which looks a bit bare at the moment (it has around 20,000). Yes folks, on paper, it sounds much less, but I feel that Android Market is good enough for anybody as it has more apps than one would ever use in one’s lifetime.

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