The first time I got impressed was when MIT decided to put its courseware online for free. That was dubbed as MIT Open Course Ware, now its Popular Science that has done it. The magazine that has been publishing articles on science and technology, has partnered with Google to place there 137 years of data online for free!

Although there is no utility to browse through the issues but with the search facility one can find relevant stuff. Google ADs are included off course. Head on to the Popular Science Archive page and read to your heart’s content.

Sometime back I wrote about a bunch of useful Chrome extensions. Quite frankly one could have a separate Blog for the Chrome extensions because of the rate at which are coming up, and believe me some of them are very useful. This post is dedicated to some of the newer ones.

• Webpage Screenshot. This extension lets users take screenshots of the web pages they are viewing. The screenshots are taken in Jpg format. It is fast and simple to use. Users can choose the exact size before saving/capturing the page. This can also be done in offline mode, thus ensuring a user’s privacy. Download and install at the Webpage Screenshot page. 
• One Number. Remove the clutter on your Chrome toolbar with this extension which lets you have access to Gmail, Google Voice, Google Wave and Google Reader in one go. It also shows previews of unread items. One can can check the status of the desired service selectively or open up all unread items in all the four services. Can be downloaded from the One Number page.

Google maps for mobile is an impressive mapping and navigation application, while Google maps has quite detailed maps of Pakistan, way better than any other navigation and map provider but one thing which was missing from Google maps for mobile was turn by turn navigation feature. But now Google has enabled this feature for Pakistan and now users using Blackberry, iPhone, Android, Windows and Symbian s60 series smart phones can use this feature. Google maps for mobile is a free application and just requires a data connection on your smart phone, although GPS is not required but availability of GPS or A-GPS can enhance the experience many times.

In my previous post on the Nexus One I wrote that that the Nexus will take sometime in beating the ever present iPhone, I still maintain this. But let me for a change say this that the way things are going (in the Google world) competitors need to feel threatened. What made me think so? well to begin with was the Google’s new approach to buying a Mobile Phone which gives one the ability to explore a mobile phone in ways that were previously unimagined. Impressive is the word that comes to one’s mind followed by “Ingenious”. Imagine holding your hand next to the screen in order to compare it with an editable image and then see how the Nexus One would look in your hand.

The Android today is running on at least 20 devices, in 19 languages, in 48 countries supported by 59 mobile companies. All this happened just a year back! That’s good going so far. Google now is selling the Nexus One on a Google hosted web store and the first device to be sold will be the Nexus One off course. This is quite different form the previous practice and welcome indeed. According to Google they want to “make the overall user experience simple: a simple purchasing process, simple service plans from operators, simple and worry-free delivery and start-up.”

It takes someone like Steve Jobs to make an iPhone, the very device that has literally taken the world by storm. As of today some 21 million devices of various models starting from the iPhone to the iPhone 3G and the 3GS have been sold. Downloads at the Apple Store have crossed the 3 billion mark in just 18 months. Even if these figures are exaggerated by 10% we can safely say that iPhone has sold like no other mobile phone has. Like it or not this makes it the most popular device on the planet. Try as the may Nokia (with Maemo), HTC (with Android) and Samsung (with Bada or TouchWiz UI) are no match for the iPhone.

But now it seems Google with HTC has got the iPhone in the crosshairs with the much touted and hyped about device called as the Nexus One. It is said that the looks alone are enough to make one drool. Both companies have worked hard in an effort to beat the mobile phone the world loves so much. The device is going to have a Snapdragon CPU clocking at a cool 1 GHz, it will boast of Android 2.1 besides having a 5 MP camera. The important specs are:

• 3.7″ capacitive Touch screen with 480 x 800 display.
• 512 MB of ROM and RAM
• 4 GB microSD card (included) and expandable microSD up to 32GB

I think it will be a long time before Nexus will be able to make a serious dent in iPhone’s popularity. Yes, iPhone’s market share will go down but it will take a sometime, ingenuity and good luck for Nexus One or any other mobile phone to beat the iPhone. Simply because people the world will not stop using their devices and Apple will not stop making/selling new models. In my opinion the coming months will see intense competition which is good for the buyers. The unlocked device it is said will cost around $530, whereas a two year contract with T-Mobile will cost something like $200.

In the days when there was no Chrome from Google, Safari or even Opera in the browser arena Internet Explorer used to have almost 90% share of the web traffic. Netscape navigator used to be common then. Now things have changed a lot, IE is down to 62 % and Safari has a share of 4.46% of the total web traffic. Chrome however, has beaten Safari at its turf by getting an impressive 4.63% of the traffic. While this might not be much in terms of traffic but it certainly speaks of Chrome’s popularity since it was released just 16 months back. With these stats Chrome is the world’s third most used browser,  and the way it is gaining ground the time is not far when it might even beat the heavyweights and we know who they are .

It’s a Google Google world, that’s for sure. The Google Chrome browser has some very good extensions lined up for users. The various categories are Alerts and Updates, Appearance and Functioning, language & Translators, Music, Videos and Photos, Tabs etc etc. The basic purpose is very similar to that of add-ons in Firefox, making certain required actions easier by making them a one click effort.

In order to use these extensions one will have to upgrade to the Google Chrome 3.6b or maybe to some other Beta, depending on the type of extension you want to install. This shouldn’t be a problem, just download and start using. However, you will be asked if you want to participate in a survey which will notify each time your browser crashes. Adding an extension is as simple as downloading and installing it, again a one click process. After it is done you will see a small icon of the extension in the top right corner adjacent to the address bar. Extensions that do not shop up can be viewed/accessed from the “Extensions” in the Tools menu. Some of the extensions are really good and promise to make our lives easier. The selected ones are posted below, do try them out.

Custom Colors. For those of you who are tired of watching the same colors scroll by in the Google browser try this extension out. It will give the Chrome a new look and feel. This makes your browsing experience good and the change is definitely worth the effort. Link Custom Colors.

The latest feature which Android phones are going to have is called Google Goggles, well actually this is visual search. Imagine going to a place where you need to find info on a certain building or a landmark. The obvious way would be to take out a tourist map or ask someone nearby, but with Google Goggles proud owners of Android devices will be able to snap the picture of that feature and hit the search button and let Google handle form there on. With in seconds audio/visual results will be displayed providing info about the landmark.

This certainly sounds like a useful feature for tourists. And yes this might as well come handy in case one gets lost in a new city. Watch the video here.

Since its announcement Google Wave has been making waves in the IT industry and elsewhere. The communications platform for the next generation which was announced somewhere in May 2009 has some very advanced features for collaboration, communication and networking. Best of all it lets users work and share stuff in real time. A preview release was given to 100,000 users somewhere in September 2009. All others were asked to register for an invite. This scribe registered for an invite and verily it was received just a few days back.

Using the wave has been one good experience and I must say it is going to be the medium of choice for most if not all in the coming years. This is something new, innovative and far ahead of the rest of pack by leaps and bounds. Imagine having the facility to work in real time on projects, share thoughts, chat,collaborate and then view the entire communication in a timeline view as if reminiscing about it. One could go on and on writing about it, but unfortunately it would make little sense for most folks out there since the public at large is devoid of a Google Wave account. This sounds familiar doesn’t it? remember the time Orkut was released to the public albeit by invites only? The public went bonkers just waiting for an invite.

 Ok now I have to break the suspense surrounding this post. We at BiggTech have decided to give away twenty, that’s right 20 invites of Google Wave to readers. All you have to do is send us an e-mail stating the reason why you want to use Google Wave, or why you want an invite. Let’s see the creative in you, the mails are to be sent at tips@biggtech.com with the words Google Wave Invite in the subject. Closing date is 25 th December 2009, hurry and get invited. Users names along with their replies will be posted on the blog.

The official Chrome OS is still to be released, some say next year, so what all choices do we have? Wait for a year or just wait? well not for long the since folks at Dell have tinkered with the OS and have produced a hacked version of the OS (8 GB in all) which can be loaded in to a Flash disk for trying out Live, but in a Dell Mini 10v. This certainly comes as a surprise because just recently Google declared the project Open Source and the trend certainly has caught on rather fast.

The hacked version is available for download and instructions are also available online for users to follow. To do this one has to own a Dell Mini 10v though. So Mini 10v owners are the blessed ones or people who can afford and are dying to try out Chrome can buy to take the plunge. After downloading the image one will have to load the image on to a 8 GB thumb drive and reboot via the USB for previewing Google Chrome.

The OS boots up in under 12 seconds and is known to work well. Driver support may vary according to the model but since this hack is exclusively for the Mini 10v so owners of these machines will find no glitches hopefully except for the Wi-Fi which is known to show hiccups during operation. Anyways it won’t hurt to try out the OS on any machine just to experience its looks and response minus the depleted driver support.