Cloud Save: The Chrome Extension That Shouldn’t Be an Extension

I consider myself optimistic about Google’s vision for completely web-based computing, but it’s not going to happen without an online storage solution that can replace the act of saving files locally.

Cloud Save, a new extension for Google’s Chrome browser (spotted first by DownloadSquad), takes us part way there. The extension adds an option in Chrome’s right click menu that lets you save files directly to online storage services such as Box.net, Flickr and Google Docs. You grant permission for Cloud Save to access each of these services the first time you save to them, and a notification box pops up when your file has saved successfully.

On the most basic level, Cloud Save eliminates a step if you’re trying to move a web file to an online service. If someone sends you a funny picture, for instance, you just Cloud Save it instead of downloading and then uploading. But by skipping that step, Cloud Save also bypasses the need for local storage when saving files from the web. It’s the kind of feature that Google should bake directly into Google’s Chrome OS, the web-based operating system that will launch in notebooks later this year.

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Iomega’s SuperHero Has Feet of Clay

Backing up an iPhone, in case you hadn’t noticed, is a hassle. You do the job via iTunes, but it’s not a particularly intuitive experience, nor one that’s as automated as it should be. (The syncing that happens automatically when you connect an iPhone via USB falls very short of a full backup.) Unless you’re a lot more careful than I am about protecting your data, you probably don’t back up your iPhone as often as you should.

Enter Iomega’s SuperHero, which I wrote about when it was announced at CES in January. It’s an iPhone charging dock–it also works with the current version of the iPod Touch–that aims to make backup so easy that you’ll actually do it. Or contact and photo backup, at least–the SuperHero can’t protect apps, e-mail, calendars, and other items because Apple provides no way for third-party products to get at this data. Iomega provided a unit to me for review.

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Google Maps for Android Now Helps You Avoid Traffic

The navigation products available for cell phones aren’t perfect, but there are a lot of us out there that depend on their directions to get from Point A to Point B. However, up until now the app had no way of knowing whether a road was closed or a traffic jam or accident would slow your trip down–thus, knowing traffic before you left or during your trip was a necessity.

Not any more. Google on Monday rolled out functionality in its Android app which will use both current and historical traffic data to plan routes, as well as give alternates. The Maps function could do this previously, however it was only for set conditions — i.e. the shortest route in distance or to navigate around toll roads.

Accessing the new functionality is as simple as loading the app itself — no update is required. This seems to be due to the fact that the change is not on the phone itself, but rather on Google’s servers, which the app pings to return directions to you.

The functionality will be available in both the North American and European markets where Google has access to real time traffic data. No word if this will make it to the iPhone version of Google Maps, if ever.

Have an Android phone and live in a congested area? Please let us know how the new version is working for you.

Facebook Comments Expose a Flaw in Zuckerberg’s Vision

“You have one identity. The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly … Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.“

-Mark Zuckerberg, as quoted in The Facebook Effect

It is with Zuckerberg’s remarks in mind that I read a couple of conversations over the weekend about Facebook’s new comment system for blogs and other websites. Although many websites — including this one — allow commenters to sign in with Facebook, some high-profile sites, such as TechCrunch, have switched over the new system, which is run entirely by the social network. This requires commenters to write under their real names, provided they aren’t using an alias on Facebook, and by default displays the comment on the user’s wall and friends’ news feeds.

Not surprisingly, the switch had a chilling effect on TechCrunch, according to MG Siegler. Although the venomous remarks that once dominated the site’s peanut gallery are gone, in their place are “comments that gush about the subject of the article in an overly sycophantic way,” Siegler writes. There are also fewer comments overall.

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Our Tapper World Tour/iPod Touch Giveaway: The Results

Thanks to everyone who entered our drawing for the new Tapper World Tour game and an iPod Touch to play it on. And congratulations to John Erickson, whose name came up when our random-number generator had done its magic.

Speaking of Tapper, I had fun last week meeting Don Bluth and his longtime artistic associate Gary Goldman, the creators of Tapper’s visuals and the animation for two iconic 1980s arcade games: Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace. (That’s Bluth and Goldman in the photo above.) I wrote about Bluth’s take on his videogame work over at Techland.

Skype Gets Ads

Skype is adding (relatively unobtrusive) banner advertising–a move it’s kind of surprising it didn’t make years ago with its free version.

A (Somewhat) More Affordable Cisco ūmi

Last October, Cisco unveiled ūmi, a consumer-oriented version of its business telepresence systems. It turned your HDTV into a very high-quality 1080p videophone, and it was neat. But at $599 for the system, plus $24.99 a month for service–times two, since it it assumed you knew at least one other family that owned one–it was too pricey to change the world. (I’ve only seen one in the wild–at the offices of a company that bought two so its Silicon Valley office could communicate with colleagues in Israel.)

Cisco made some announcements today that make it at least somewhat more likely that ūmi will show up soon in a living room near you. First, it knocked the price of the original version down from $599 to $499. Maybe more important, it slashed the price of monthly service from $24.99 to a more plausible $9.99. It also says it’s going to release a 720p version that will go for $399 and require less bandwidth. (3.5-Mbps up and down is recommended for the 1080p edition.) And it’ll offer free ūmi clients for Windows PCs and Macs so owners have more people to talk with.

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Technologizer at SxSW

I’m getting ready to head for one of my favorite tech conferences, Austin’s South by Southwest Interactive, which starts this Friday and goes well into the next week. I’ll mostly be hanging out, meeting interesting people, and looking for cool companies to write about–but I’ll also be part of two official events at the show.

Official event #1: On Monday, March 14th at 12:3pm in room 12AB in the ScreenBurn section at the Austin Convention Center, I’ll moderate a panel called “Platform Success: Earning Developers’ Trust, Hearts, and Minds.” Panelists include Peter Hoddie of Marvell, Brandon Watson of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 team, James Keller of iOS developer Small Society, and Ben Satterfield, the CEO of TestFlight.

Official event #2: On Tuesday, March 15th at 3pm at the SxSW Block Party, I’ll be doing my darndest to fare well in a competition called Das IronGeek, which pits a few folks against each other in a tech tournament including a typing race, a build-your-own server competition, and other challenges, including at least one they haven’t told me about yet. (I competed last year, in the inaugural edition, and didn’t do so well–but this year I’ll prevail. Or at try not to embarrass myself.)

Hope to see some you at one (or both) of these events, or just around town.

Angry Birds’ Next Conquest, and Biggest Challenge, is Facebook

Although Angry Birds got its start on the iPhone, it didn’t linger there for long. The hit bird-slinging puzzle game has since migrated to Android, iPad, WebOS, Windows, Mac and the Playstation Network.

Next up is Facebook, where Angry Birds will be landing later this year, according to Develop. And because of the game’s existing popularity — it’s been downloaded 75 million times on other platforms, and some pundits have compared its cultural impact to Pac-Man — Angry Birds has a decent shot at stealing the Facebook gaming throne from Zynga, developer of Farmville, Cityville and Mafia Wars.

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Google Shows Its Spirit

Someone at Google–maybe Sergey Brin, maybe Larry Page, maybe just whoever’s in charge of choosing “Google Doodles” is a cartoon fan*. We know because the company sometimes pays tribute to cartoons and cartoonists. And it’s currently demonstrating its laudable good taste by using a Google logo featuring Will Eisner’s Spirit, the most notable work of one of the greatest comic artists ever. The art celebrates the 94th anniversary of the birth of Eisner, who passed away in 2005, and is inspired by his famous splash pages.

With the US Postal Service having long ago debased itself by releasing too many cartoon-related stamps featuring too many subjects that aren’t all-time greats, Google doodledom may be the highest honor currently being paid to comic art’s greats. Well done, Google.

*Actually, come to think of it, this 2008 Wired article by Steve Levy says that Google search boss Udi Manber likes cartoons–New Yorker cartoons, to be precise. Maybe he’s responsible for the Spirit tribute. Then again, we haven’t (yet) seen Google doodles commemorating the work of Peter Arno, George Price , or Barney Tobey…

More Video Goodness Headed to iPad (NCAA, BBC)

As I’ve proclaimed several times these last few months, smaller media consumption devices are poised to become our kitchen or den “televisions.” Of course, the tablet with the richest third party ecosystem is Apple’s iPad. And I don’t see that changing any time soon, despite possibly stifling some development via their recent subscription commission policy change. Comcast recently launched 3,000 hours of on demand iPad video content and announced their intentions to broadcast live video to tablets. I’m hopeful my provider Verizon follows suit. But beyond the broad aggregation by the larger players, there’s a huge amount of specialized or niche content – currently active… and those coming down the pike.

For 2011, CBS is offering a March Madness On Demand iPad app for free. In fact, I’m willing to bet their online streaming NCAA baskbetball properties are amongst the most lucrative when it comes to advertising. So why not give the app away? It’s expected to launch March 10th with games getting underway on the 15th. Unfortunately, my poor Maryland Terrapins aren’t even on the bubbleat this point.

Next up, 2011 looks to be the year that the BBC brings their online content to an international audience. It’s expected to launch later this year and will run “a small number of dollars per month, definitely fewer than 10.” Unlike a Netflix, the BBC iPlayer, in its current form. is referred to as a “catch up” service and only streams recent episodes versus entire seasons. But I’m hopeful the UK powers that be realize we have a lot of catching up to do here in the US… and will consider providing a more comprehensive library.

(This post republished from Zatz Not Funny.)

In Bits and Pieces, Mozilla Shows Off Web Apps Project

Mozilla is taking its first significant steps toward building an ecosystem of web apps.

The Firefox maker has announced the first developer release for the Mozilla Web Apps Project. Unlike Google’s Chrome Web Store, which launched in December with apps from big names like the New York Times, Sports Illustrated and NPR, Mozilla’s project is off to a modest start, with a series of disparate parts that will eventually coalesce into a full-blown platform.

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Xoom Looks Headed to Sam’s Club for $539

If Apple has one thing over its Android competitors, it’s definitely (and surprisingly) the iPad’s low starting price. Well, leave it to a wholesaler like Sam’s Club to come to the rescue. According to some information obtained by Android blog Droid Life, the retailer appears set to start selling a Wi-Fi only model of the Motorola Xoom at a price of $539.

This would be $60 less than the target price Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha alluded to about two weeks ago–although still $40 more expensive than the cheapest iPad–and seems to confirm the company has plans to bring it to the US, which was also a question. Obviously, you have to pay for membership to Sam’s in order to buy the item — so the deal is not necessarily open to everybody.

The report doesn’t mention a release date, but does note that a Wi-Fi version is headed for the European market in April.

Microsoft Tries Its Darndest to Bid Internet Explorer 6 Adieu

It’s weird: In terms of durability and the sheer numbers of people who have used it, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 is one of the most successful software products of all time. But between its security holes and its poor compatibility with Web standards, it’s also one of the most headache-inducing applications ever–not just for the people who use it, but for those who build sites and strive to keep the Internet safe. And in early 2011–nearly a decade after IE 6 shipped with Windows XP–it’s a product from another era. Yet NetApplications says that 12 percent of Internet users worldwide are still running it.

These days, Microsoft has at least as much reason as anyone else to try and close the books officially on the IE 6 era: It doesn’t want to support it and would prefer that IE 6 holdouts upgrade to a newer Microsoft browser running on a newer Microsoft operating system. So the company has launched an Internet 6 Countdown site, with stats on IE6′s current usage and a stated mission of driving usage down to under 1 percent.

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Honesty is the Best Samsung Policy

The last time a Samsung executive was quoted saying something surprisingly forthright, it involved sales of the 7″ Galaxy Tab being “quite small“–but Samsung later said it was all a misunderstanding and the exec has said they were “quite smooth.” Now VP Lee Don-Joo has been quoted calling parts of the upcoming 10.1″ Galaxy Tab “inadequate” in the wake of the iPad 2. I wonder if there’ll be any backpedaling this time?

(Footnote: This IntoMobile post has the audio from the “quite small/smooth” sound bite…and it does sound like “smooth” to me–even though Steve Jobs took delight in quoting the “small” version at the iPad 2 launch.)

Nostalgic Over Noises

The New York Times’ David Pogue bemoans–or at least notices–that the digital world is robbing us of the analog noises that provide the communal soundtrack of our subconsciousnesses. It’ll be sad day when we all stop going “ka-ching!”  (Then again, a little log being sawed is still our shared shorthand for snoring…and when was the last time you sawed a log?)