First Google Android netbook ships with Firefox, not Chrome!

The Acer Aspire AOD250 netbook running Google Android

A few days before the launch of Windows 7, Acer has released the first netbook to ship with the Google Android operating system. And a juicy tidbit has come out of an early review: Android comes with Mozilla Firefox for Web browsing, not Google’s own Chrome browser or the Android browser that comes on mobile phones.

 

Google has previously announced its intentions to get into the netbook game with Chrome OS, but with Android’s ready availability, it was always going to be first onto machines. Acer had said that it wanted to get Android onto its netbooks soon, and last week, the company launched the popular 10-inch AOD250 mini-laptop for this purpose. Full specifications and features can be found here.

 

However, the AOD250 isn’t solely an Android device. Acer has included the option of dual-booting into Windows XP – a much-needed option, according to a review of the new system by PC Mag.

 

“What looks like a peel-off tab on the top left corner gets you back into WindowsXP, in case frustration builds—and it will,” writes reviewer Cisco Cheng.

 

By all accounts of the review, Android for netbooks appears to be half-baked as of now. The home screen has four gadgets (Google Talk, FireFox, Webmail, and Calendar), while a further 20 are housed in a slide-out tab on the far right (including system settings, multimedia, Webcam, Gmail).

 

With no Android Marketplace available, there is no document editing program available. So even if send or receive emails with Word documents or spreadsheets, Android won’t recognise them.

 

And since Google has not yet come out with an official stable version of Chrome for Linux, the Android system still runs on Mozilla Firefox. Of course, using the default Android Web browser for cell phones would be quite inconvenient on a computer. The reviewer notes that while it handles most Web sites like any normal Windows version of Firefox would, sometimes, certain key commands wouldn't register in Google Search or Firefox.

 

“As with past Linux operating systems, the advantages of having one are for quicker boot times and better battery savings than Windows XP. Otherwise, Android for netbooks has a long way to go before it can work alone,” the review concludes.

Chrome OS browser leaks First Time On Net

Just days away from an event at Google where the company will reveal more about one of their rumored and now confirmed projects - Chrome OS, package files and pictures have leaked showing the operating system (or at least the browser part of it) running on top of a Ubuntu install with themes and a new logo.
The files that leaked were hosted on a public Google server, and were found by Living in a Google World earlier this week. The Operating System which is very unstable (as expected) was leaked for only a few hours, and then taken down - but not before some users got copies of the files.
The part of the Operating System we can see here, at this point, looks like the Linux variant of Chrome, but with new universal themes and a new logo - that when clicked sends you to Google Short Links (which we don't know about either) - but this requires a Google.com account, which are reserved for Google Employees. At this point the "Chrome OS" is actually running on top of Ubuntu.
In addition to this, on Thursday night Google is hosting an event to reveal more about the Operating System and other emerging Google technologies. This recent invite was sent out to some bloggers:
"Join us for an evening at Google featuring presentations by Paul Rademacher on Google Maps and Ben Goodger on Chrome OS. Presentations will be followed by a short Q&A. Once the formalities have finished there will be further opportunity to meet and mingle with other attendees as well as Googlers from Chrome/ChromeOS, Maps, GMail and Search. Oh, and of course there will be plenty of food and beverages for everyone. We hope to see you there!"
Not much else is known about the Operating System at the moment, but Chrome OS is expected to be a very bare-bones OS, relying on the cloud for most of it's operations (for obvious reasons).

Screenshots:

How to preview Google Docs in Gmail

Ideally you will need to toggle, got back and forward to see contents of Google Docs file received as attachment in Gmail. Using new Google Labs feature “Google Docs previews in mail”, you can preview and read contents on Google Docs file (including document, spreadsheet, presentation) directly in Gmail.

How to preview Google Docs in Gmail

1. Goto Gmail.com & login into your account.
2. Click Settings link at top right.
3. Then click the Labs tab option.
4. Select enable next to “Google Docs previews in mail”.
5. Click Save changes button.

 

After you enable this Labs feature, you can preview Google Doc files directly in Gmail inbox, just like previously launched feature to preview Youtube videos, Picasa and Flickr Photos.

source: GmailBlog

Firefox 3.6 beta to be released next week

Mozilla's popular web browser, Firefox, is quite a big name in the realm of the Internet. It's multi-platform, easy to use, and packs a extremely vast amount of add-ons to improve the user experience. In addition to this, it's about to get a new version.
The newest version of the browser, currently in development, is 3.6; it's not a huge upgrade, as Mozilla plans to save the bigger changes for version 4.0, but it's still packing some nice improvements. According to The Register, the new version will come with tweaks which improve the TraceMonkey javascript engine, an 'optimized session restore', plus additions to the CSS technology in the browser and improved page rendering speed. There is a discussion about the new version here, with official Firefox developers putting together the following schedule:
Oct 5: Code freeze late evening PDT.
Oct 6: Start build1 of the beta assuming trees are green.
Oct 7: Begin QA testing (or earlier as builds become available).
Oct 13: Complete QA testing by AM, ship beta in late day PDT.
Indeed, that means that the beta of the new version will be hopefully available October 13, less than a week from now. However, in the previously posted discussion, Mozilla's Mike Beltzner stated that there's no shame in missing the deadline. Understandably, this is just a beta, so people shouldn't be rushing to upgrade.