A research firm by the name of Net Applications released their report on browser share and it looks like the adoption of Google Chrome has slowed down a bit for the month of July. As shown in Net Applications data, Chrome’s market share has grown since June but at a smaller rate of .34% when compared to the .59% gain Chrome saw between May and June. When it comes to raw market share Internet Explorer and Firefox are still top dogs coming in at 53% and 21% respectively. In third place you have Chrome with 13%, Safari at 8% and Opera coming in last place with 2%.

[Via NetMarketShare]

The move comes after Toshiba’s AC100 flopped, and the company has decided to take a more conservative approach on its future endeavors.

[via Electronista]

[Read on Engadget]

They then snagged Mark DeLoura – you know, that dude from SCEA, Ubisoft, Nintendo, THQ, etc.. – as their Developer Advocate. Things were looking good! Sadly, four months later, he quit.

Time continued to move on forward as time usually does, during which a few more things happened. Google spent another 180 million acquiring Slide while backing other gaming companies like SCVNGR and ngmoco, for example. A couple job postings went up for things like “Product Manager, Games”, and the world continued to wait.

Today, that posting refreshed along with a new one – seemingly looking to replace the position that has been vacant since Mark left. So right now we have two game related job postings before our eyes. Project Manager and Developer Advocate. Looking to Apply? Well you better be darn good at what you do.. and it wouldn’t hurt to be able to solve a Rubik’s Cube.

It is no secret Google cares about games. And in looking at the requirements it seems to me said games could easily be headed to Android, Chrome OS, or Google TV.

Or all of the above.

Now I’m not much of a gamer so excuse my limited imagination here – but even I can think of a few really cool ways for those platforms to play together to introduce some really awesome gaming at home and on the go. Imagine playing a game on Google TV that could also be played from your Chrome OS notebook – while you and your friends use your Android phones as remotes. Your friends on the other side of the world.

Other friends can join in any time. You have a keyboard there to chat while you play. Incorporate GTV HD video cameras, webcams or cell phone front facing cameras into the mix.

Imagine being sucked deep into the world of your new favorite RPG when suddenly you’re forced to go on some dang family vacation and your parents, or spouse, say “NO!” to bringing your Revue box with you. That’s okay, you have your Chrome OS notebook for when you arrive, and your phone for the car ride!

Imagine full scale console-style games all stored in the cloud bought from Google, stored by Google. Extensions onto your devices and phones for on the go playing, maintaining of characters, or chatting with friends. No new hardware or subscriptions required.

…are all these ideas new? Nope – not to me and not to any of you. However.. if anyone can make them happen with a BANG and knock the gaming industry into a whirl, it’s Google. Not only do I suspect they’ll come out swinging once they get everything in place – but they plan on giving you all the tools and resources to do it too.   Just look at the requirements for the Developer Advocate. Part of his or her job will be to blog, podcast, and write tutorial code samples to go on code.google.com.

That’s where the real fun comes in. Countless developers will have everything they need to bring their (much bigger than my) imaginations to reality. I’m excited to see what they can do. What YOU can do.

[ Developer Advocate | Project Manager | TechCrunch ]

[ via GTVsource ]

(As one might expect, these cookies are included in what all clears out when you set Chrome to delete cookies when you close the browser.)

This is great news for people who want to really keep their install squeaky clean. Previously, one would have to visit Adobe’s site to have these cookies cleared out. Of course, this comes with little shock and surprise – as I imagine Adobe is looking to do whatever it takes to make the use and maintenance of Flash as painless as possible – considering the broad use of HTML5 on the horizon.

As far as they know, Adobe Flash is the only plug in making use of the API developed by Google and “others in the web community“. Hopefully others will follow suit!

[Chromium Blog | TechCrunch]

An enabling technology for time-lapse GigaPans is a feature of the HTML5 language that has been incorporated into such browsers as Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari. HTML5, the latest revision of the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) standard that is at the core of the Internet, makes browsers capable of presenting video content without use of plug-ins such as Adobe Flash or Quicktime.

Using HTML5, CREATE Lab computer scientists Randy Sargent, Chris Bartley and Paul Dille developed algorithms and software architecture that make it possible to shift seamlessly from one video portion to another as viewers zoom in and out of Time Machine imagery. To keep bandwidth manageable, the GigaPan site streams only those video fragments that pertain to the segment and/or time frame being viewed.

“We were crashing the browsers early on,” Sargent recalled. “We’re really pushing the browser technology to the limits.”

Guidelines on how individuals can capture time-lapse images using GigaPan cameras are included on the site created for hosting the new imagery’s large data files, http://timemachine.gigapan.org. Sargent explained the CREATE Lab is eager to work with people who want to capture Time Machine imagery with GigaPan, or use the visualization technology for other applications.

Once a Time Machine GigaPan has been created, viewers can annotate and save their explorations of it in the form of video “Time Warps.”

As you can see, the luxury of view Time Machine videos is something only Safari and Chrome users can afford right now. Should you try to view one with a different browser you’ll be greeted with the following message:

Anyway. It’s just something you really should see for yourself.  Fortunately, they’ve made that real easy by providing the following video, which explains how it works and what all you can do with it. Which (as you read above) includes them helping you stitch together your very own images to make your own video. When you realize you must see more, head on over to their site or check it out in Chrome Experiments.

Enjoy!

[CMU | Google Blog | GigaPan Time Machine]

Many of you may already know, but for those who don’t – Chromespot.com is actually owned and operated by Rob Jackson of Phandroid. Our fearless leader got his Cr-48 in the mail yesterday and decided to use the opportunity to provide our Phandroid fans a glimpse of the awesomeness – as well as of course share it here.

Tell us what you think, and stay tuned for more to come. While you’re waiting for more juicy Chrome news, feel free to pop by the forums and introduce yourself!

What I like best about the extension is when you click on one of the article squares, it opens immediately, no loading time. Obviously this is because the content you see is actually in the Atom/RSS feed you requested, but it gives a very crisp, fast feel nonetheless.

I would recommend anyone with Chrome Browser and/or Android to install it by clicking here.

Bumptop for Chrome?

Google has acquired Bumptop, a company that developes 3D desktop environments. So is Chrome going 3d? That would be kinda neat!

Google Chrome OS printing

Making a light OS where everything takes place in the cloud sounds fine and dandy, but Google had to come up with a simple way to allow users to print documents. Not n easy task with so many different printers out there but Google says they’ve cracked it!

The solution sounds kinda brilliant because of its simplicity: printing in the cloud with Google Print Cloud.
This is how Google explains it:
“Rather than rely on the local operating system (or drivers) to print, apps can use Google Cloud Print to submit and manage print jobs. Google Cloud Print will then be responsible for sending the print job to the appropriate printer with the particular options the user selected, and returning the job status to the app.”