Jash’s Blog

Google has released its wallet on the Nexus S 4G on Sprint in the US. The product will roll out on other carriers and devices soon. The initial version of its Android app looks very promising even though it is incomplete and will undergo a lot of development. It allows users to add credit cards (or use Google’s prepaid MasterCard) and add loyalty and gift cards for various stores (the current version only has American Eagle). When you make a purchase, it would first use the gift card balance, then pay the balance with a selected (or default) credit card. It should also scan the loyalty card automatically though this has not yet been tested.

Here is a video of Google wallet in action: [Engadget] A week with Google Wallet

NFC or Near Field Communication, has been catching a lot of heat. There are ventures by groups like BlackBerry and Bank of America or Google and MasterCard that are working on NFC solutions. So what is NFC? Its a way of electronically transmitting data (payment information in this case) to a receiver or the POS (Point of Sale) system used in stores.

It is true that our smart phones are taking care of our lives by providing networking, connectivity and convenience at our palms. It is the device of the future that holds our life, right from personal data to important work documents. The next step is replacing our wallets. Google seems to be taking a major step with its new offering of Google wallet.

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Along with the Amazon Kindle store, Apple iBooks store and many others like Barnes and Noble, Google has joined the eBook race. Google just released its eBookstore with over 3 million titles. Just like Amazon Kindle, Google supports a wide variety of devices. eBookstore has launched with clients for iOS, Android, Nook, Sony and a web-based reader, though some functionality is restricted to web at the moment.

The eBookstore website is massive with lots of content but navigating through the content is not very intuitive. There is a lots of searching and scrolling to get around the store. There are some categories like New Arrivals and Top Sellers to get you started. I tried out the iPhone client which seems pre-mature, you can only download and read purchased books, to get new books you are redirected to Google’s website in Safari and there is no way to manage books. This needs to be done through its web-based client on the computer. So the eBookstore is a little raw at the moment be some revamp and further development of clients can get Google along with Amazon and Apple in the race.

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It was the third Google I/O and there were many exciting announcements. From the new 2.2 Android firmware to Chrome’s AppStore with rich web apps. But the one announcement that caught everyones attention was Google TV.

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Google was very innovative when they launched Google Gears. It allowed users to access all their data offline. Right from Gmail to Google Reader to Google Docs. Even third parties like Remember The Milk started implementing Gears to provide offline data access to users.

However, Google has announced that they are pulling out Gears support from Google Docs and would be implementing new ways to achieve offline data access, not surprisingly HTML5. They might soon remove Gears support for other products as well and use HTML5 to achieve the offline functionality.

So long Gears….

Google Chrome has been out for a long time with users switching to Chrome from all different browsers. The main feature lagging in Chrome that kept users to Firefox was Extensions. But since Google has finally added support for extensions in Chrome, there are tons of cool extensions pouring into the extensions gallery. Today I have a new extension that takes your Chrome browser to a higher level.

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So there has been news about a Google Web Drive or GDrive that will provide online storage to users. There were numerous posts on this topic on various blogs, one of them was by me over here. After all this time, Google has decided to allow users to upload all file types to Google Docs. So you can upload, store and share any type of file you want with Google Docs. There is a detailed post by Google over here.

There is also a brief storage limit section that tells you that you get 1 GB space and cannot upload a file larger than 150 MB. More storage can be purchased at 25 cents per Gig.

I think this is a great step for Chrome OS…

So Google Chrome OS was unveiled yesterday and everyone was excited. Google released the source code of Chrome OS and the Developer build for preview. Many people read through the documentation and compiled the source to test Chrome OS. I thought to give Chrome OS a try and review it - the features, interface and speed. I tested the Developer build and made a small 4 minute video showing Chrome OS, right from booting to all menus. This will give you an idea of what Chrome OS is like and give you the feel of it, so you need not spend your time figuring out how to get Chrome OS running.

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Google just announced about a new project they are working on. Its the Google Chrome OS. Google is amazed by the feedback of their web browser Google Chrome with over 30 million users. Now, Google thinks that the Operating Systems today are not Web-friendly or Web-optimized. So, Google is making an Operating System called Google Chrome OS which will be focused on Web users.

Google Chrome OS will be a light-weight and Open Source OS targeted for netbooks. The source code will be available in around the last quarter of 2009 where as the OS will be available to consumers in the end of 2010.

More on official Google Blog post.

Google Chrome is one of the most preferred browsers today. Thought it was launched accidentally while the build was pre-mature, Chrome has gained a significant amount of users and is also preferred over Firefox to some users.

Chrome has only been for Windows as of now and the Mac and Linux versions were under development. However, Google has just released a beta version (which is rather a Pre-beta) of Chrome for Mac and Linux. This build is not very stable yet and Google has warned “DON’T DOWNLOAD THEM!” in their blog post here. But if you are really enthusiastic and don’t mind the little bugs, you can give it a try.

Download
Mac version
Linux (32 bit)
Linux (64 bit)