Nov 02

Google: You too could win millions in stock

By jason IT News World 1 Comment »

Google is once again dangling incentives before engineers.

Google’s Chrome browser earned its developers millions in stock bonuses.

The company threw open its doors Monday to the engineering community Monday, announcing that it granted a Founders’ Prize–"a multimillion-dollar stock bonus"–to the team that developed Google Chrome. "(The) future is shaped by small teams of creative people who want to make a difference. We’re on the hunt for these kind of people — let us know if you think you’re one of them," wrote Alan Eustace, senior vice president for engineering and research at Google.

Google is still one of Silicon Valley’s most generous companies in terms of employee perks, but Google’s hiring slowed over the past year as the recession took hold and the company scaled back some of those famous extras. Google even was forced to cut employees in March, and has also suffered as a number of high-profile employees decided to seek (or expand) their fortunes elsewhere.

But CEO Eric Schmidt is ready to let the good times roll once again, announcing earlier in the year that Google was set to expand hiring and acquisitions, and backing up that confidence on Google’s most recent earnings conference call.

Google also announced that Chrome now has 30 million active users. The browser trails market leaders Internet Explorer and Firefox by a wide margin, but it’s growing faster than the competition.

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Oct 05

Google lets 100 artists paint on Chrome canvas

By jason IT News World 1 Comment »

I’m a little confused. Is Chrome supposed to be a minimally intrusive window to the Web or a splashy showcase for your favorite graphical style?

If you’re in the latter camp, the type of person who picks desktop wallpaper carefully and reskins every software that can be reskinned, you’ll be pleased with Google’s unveiling Monday of artist themes for its Chrome browser. If you’re the more utilitarian sort, avoid clicking on the Themes Gallery page.

These two possible attitudes aren’t mutually exclusive, but they do live awkwardly together in Chrome. For an artistic canvas, Google’s browser has only a minimal menu bar across the top, and it’s often obscured by tabs. The best opportunity to show off some graphical pizzazz is the new-tab page, which perhaps someday will become some all-purpose Google portal page but for now is just a means to getting to some other Web page as fast as possible.

But Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search and user experience, enjoys any opportunity to promote her fondness for fashion and art. Who else could have been behind the Oscar de la Renta, Chloe, Kate Spade, and Dolce & Gabbana themes?

A total of 100 new themes are now an option alongside the less eye-catching themes that Google already offered on its own. Mayer’s status as patron of the arts only goes so far, though: several artists declined the opportunity to give their work to Google for free, according to The New York Times.

Themes are just eye candy, though perhaps HTML5′s built-in audio support will add another dimension some day. Nevertheless, plenty of people care passionately about themes as a way to lighten up their computing experience or display loyalty to some cause. (Any Porsche fans out there?) One feature in Firefox 3.6, code-named Namoroka and about to enter beta testing, is the advancement of the Personas visual customization tool from plug-in to built-in.

I ran into a few snags. The menu-bar text of Mariah Carey’s Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel theme was only visible on a very wide monitor, with Chrome not maximized and few tabs showing. With the Takora Kimiyoshi Futori theme, I couldn’t read status bar pop-up text such as a Web address I hovered over with my mouse. And switching from one theme to another changed the menu bar but not an already visible new-tab page, producing an even more jarring opportunity for visual cacophony.

I generally don’t use themes, but I have to say I’m glad they exist. They enable a certain whimsy and help add a bit of spice to a computing experience that can be very impersonal.

Sixteen of the hundred themes now available for Chrome.

Sixteen of the hundred themes now available for Chrome.

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Aug 05

Google launches Chrome gallery

By jason IT News World 2 Comments »

Google on Tuesday launched a gallery of 29 themes for Google Chrome. But Mozilla, while refraining from sniggering, boasted it’s now up to 20,000.

Cosmetic changes are, well, cosmetic, but a lot of people like them as a way to add some flair to their machines. Many had been pestering Google to add themes support even though Chrome employs a Spartan user interface without much acreage for artistry. Last week’s developer version of Chrome added a "Get themes" button in the Options dialog box, and now Google has flipped the switch to activate the Web page that button points to.

The collection of themes includes Legal Pad, Star Gazing, Transparent (it’s not, on my Windows XP machine), Dots, and Pencil Sketch. One monochromatic theme called Minimal downloads nearly instantly, but Grass, at 1.3MB, takes more time.

Why so large? Themes can come with a background image that shows on Chrome’s new-tab page that offers a much greater chance for expressiveness, especially since that page is the default when Chrome launches. That could help Google with its attempt to recruit artists to supply their own themes, as some have done with the iGoogle customizable home page.

Mozilla has its own skinning technology in the works, a plug-in called Personas that launched on Mozilla Labs in March. That head start, coupled with its vastly larger and more engaged external audience, gives it a big lead over Chrome when it comes to getting gussied up.

Mozilla Labs announced Monday that Firefox now has 20,000 Personas, with 10,000 of them arriving in the last 10 weeks.

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