Webware

Already known for its speed, Google just boosted Chrome's Web site rendering speed by another 5 percent.

The latest stable release of the browser, Chrome 27 (download for Windows, Mac, or Linux), received the small improvement by managing its resources better. To boil down the jargon, the browser's internal resource scheduler now favors more critical resources over preloaded sites.

Chrome engineer James Simonsen wrote in the company's blog announcing the update Tuesday that, across the hundreds of millions of people using Chrome, the amount of time saved equals around 510 years per week. But what we're … Read more

Unexpected instabilities forced Adobe Systems to hasten a planned outage for its Creative Cloud Connection, a service that keeps files made on mobile devices or uploaded to the Web in sync with customers' PCs.

Adobe launched it a half year ago in a preview version, and had planned to take it offline this week to update the interfaces the software uses to communicate with Adobe's servers. However, the company said in a blog post on Friday, " some updates...have caused instability in the service. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused you."

As a … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google Translate provides a billion translations a day for 200 million users, the company revealed here Friday at its Google I/O show for developers.

Google doesn't often share details about the scale on which it operates, but Josh Estelle, leader for Google Translate's front-end and mobile engineering, had a few statistics to share about the service during a talk about it.

Estelle, who's worked on Google Translate for seven years, also said 92 percent of the usage is from people outside the United States. The Internet is famously English-centric, but it's expanding … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- A month and a half ago, Google began using its WebP image format in its Google+ app for Android, and now it's saving tremendous amounts of network usage as a result.

"We're saving many terabytes of bandwidth a day, and because of the cost factor, we're saving our users money," said Stephen Konig, a Google product manager, in a well-attended WebP Google I/O talk Friday.

Users' cost savings come because they're less likely to run into data usage caps or incur onerous roaming fees outside their home countries.

But of … Read more

Mozilla is taking steps to lock down mixed content Web sites for Firefox in an update Friday to Firefox 23 Aurora.

In Firefox 23 Aurora, the pre-beta version of the browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Mozilla will block by default mixed active content. Mixed content is a term that refers to a Web site secured with HTTPS that loads some of its content, such as images or scripts, from standard HTTP sources, and can lead to eavesdroppers and man-in-the-middle attacks.

Mixed active content describes things like scripts because they can actively change how you interact with the site. Mixed … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google's mapping service relies on mammoth data centers, vast quantities of satellite imagery, and a fleet of Street View cars. But it also relies on you.

At the Google I/O developer show here on Friday, Google engineers described how they've overhauled Google Maps, and two areas in which information from Google users is key to that.

First, using anonymous data collected from people using Google Maps on mobile phones, it picks the best navigation routes. Second, using photos people upload to its Panoramio and Picasa photo services, it generates immersive tours that swoop around … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google long has been a firm believer that JavaScript, the programming language used to build Web apps such as Google Maps and Gmail, could shoulder a much heavier computing load.

But even as the company continues to push JavaScript's abilities with Chrome's V8 engine, some at the company believe JavaScript is pushing up against its limits. For that reason, Google developed its Dart programming language, and at the Google I/O developer show here, the company made the case for Dart.

"The ultimate goal is to get Dart into Chrome. I hope you all … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google would like to endow Chrome with Microsoft's technology for letting Web applications deal with input from mice, pens, and touch screens.

Developers of the Google browser said at the company's Google I/O show here Thursday that Microsoft's Pointer Events approach -- built into IE10, Windows 8, and Windows Phone 8, and being standardized at the World Wide Web Consortium -- has some real advantages.

"We're going to start landing some experimental support in Blink for Pointer Events," said Chrome programmer Rick Byers. Blink is the open-source browser engine at … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- By now Street View is a routine part of online mapping. But people might not be so familiar with how Google actually gets the data for its 360-degree panoramic views of the world.

Street View imagery launched in 2007 with photos taken by cameras perched on cars. That's still the mainstay of the project, but there's much more to it now, and Google was showing off its methods at its Google I/O 2013 developer show here this week.

Exhibits included not just a car, but also a snowmobile, tricycle, backpack, trolley, and self-propelled underwater … Read more