client

Google building 3D hardware boost into Chrome

Departing significantly from what other browsers offer, Google has begun building its O3D plug-in for hardware-accelerated 3D graphics into its Chrome browser.

"The O3D team is working on getting O3D integrated into the Chromium build, and we're close to being able to complete our first step towards integration," said programmer Greg Spencer in a mailing list announcement Wednesday about Chromium, the open-source project that underlies Chrome itself. "I'll be making the Windows build of Chromium be dependent upon building O3D as part of the build process."

By helping to pave the way for high-powered Web-based games, the move furthers Google's ambition to speed the transformation of the Web from a static medium into a foundation for applications. Another piece of the work is Google Native Client, which is designed to let Web applications take advantage of a computer's native processing power. … Read more

Easy to use

iMagic Restaurant Reservation aims to save trees by letting you manage reservations on a computer and, in the process, lets you keep track of regular customers. For such a high price tag, we weren't that impressed by its design and brief trial period; however, it gets the job done.

The user interface is pretty plain, but it's intuitive and easy to navigate even without the Help feature. Should you need it, it also contains helpful tutorials and tips for getting started and pinpointing any issues you might have. Command buttons for viewing and making reservations line the top … Read more

Security expert blesses Google Native Client technology

Two security researchers are splitting a cash prize from Google after winning a bug hunt contest designed to improve the security of Google Native Client technology, Google announced on Tuesday.

Despite the dozen or so bugs they found in the code, which lets Web-based applications run native code and take advantage of a computer's processing power, one of the winners predicted the technology will be secure when it is deployed.

"The quality of the implementation was pretty good," said Mark Dowd, X-Force researcher engineer at IBM Internet Security Systems. "Everyone makes a few mistakes here and … Read more

Email Love

Setting up my main email accounts on the Palm Pre was a breeze. Gmail automatically signed in and pulled my settings. All I had to enter was my email address and my password. Next I tried a business email associated with a self hosted domain name. I couldn't believe it when that too pulled everything in automatically! I'm used to having to set up emails manually, entering SMTP, POP/IMAP settings, SSL, etc.

The email application on the Palm Pre feels like a real desktop email client. My Samsung Instinct's email client worked more like text messaging. Seriously, it didn't feel professional. The only thing the Instinct has that I miss with the Pre is the ability to select multiple emails to delete without ever opening them. … Read more

Real estate organizer

Real Estate Assistant can help agents track listings and clients. It throws in a few related tools, but we would've liked to see more integration between the list of properties for sale and the list of clients who want to buy.

This program looks like the database-driven application it is. Very little has been done to dress up Real Estate Assistant's interface, but the plain window is fairly easy to navigate. Tiny command icons run along the top of a large pane for major functions. Basic command icons running along the left hand side are for printing, saving … Read more

Google Native Client grows out of research phase

Satisfied that its security underpinnings are solid, Google has promoted its open-source Native Client technology to accelerate Web applications out of its research phase and is taking steps to build it into the Chrome Web browser.

"Based on our experience to date, we believe that the basic architecture of our system is sound and the implementation is supportable. So now we are undertaking a number of tasks to transition Native Client from a research technology to a development platform," said Brad Chen, Google's Native Client engineering manager, in a mailing list announcement Wednesday.

Native Client, called NaCl … Read more

Google shows Native Client built into HTML 5

SAN FRANCISCO--Google wants its Native Client technology to be a little more native.

Google Native Client, still highly experimental, lets browsers run program modules natively on an x86 processor for higher performance than with Web programming technologies such as JavaScript or Flash that involve more software layers to process and execute the code. But to use it, there's a significant barrier: people must install a browser plug-in.

However, Google wants to make the technology more broadly accessible in browsers through new technology coming to HTML, the standard used to build Web pages, and at the Google I/O developer conference … Read more

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Google plugs PC power into cloud computing

Even at the cutting edge of cloud computing, Web-based applications can be frustrating to write and to use.

Spreadsheets can't sort data well, there are lags between mouse clicks and the program's response, graphics look Mickey Mouse rather than lavish. But Google, among the most aggressive cloud computing advocates, is trying to address some of those shortcomings.

The company has released experimental but still very much real software that brings in some of the power of the PC, where people often use Web applications. Google Native Client--first released in 2008 but updated with a new version Thursday--is a browser plug-in for securely running computationally intense software downloaded from a Web site. And on Tuesday, Google released O3D, a plug-in that lets Web-based applications tap into a computer's graphics chip, too.

The projects are rough around the edges, to say the least. Native Client--NaCl for short--is more security research project than usable programming foundation right now, and O3D exists in part to try to accelerate the arrival of some future, not necessarily compatible, standard for building 3D abilities into Web applications.

But both fundamentally challenge the idea that Web apps necessarily are stripped-down, feeble counterparts to the software that runs natively on a personal computer, and they come from a company that has engineering skill, a yen for moving activity to the Internet, and search-ad profits that can fund projects that don't immediately or directly make money.

"There are things you can do in desktop apps that you can't do in Web apps. We're working very hard to close that gap, so anything you can do in a desktop application you can do safely and securely from a Web application," said Linus Upson, a Google engineering director. … Read more