Wal*Mart Wednesday will begin selling the T-Mobile G1 smartphone, powered by Google’s Android platform, for only $148.88 with a 2-year contract. That’s less than the $179.99 available directly from T-Mobile with the same commitment. The phones will go on sale at 550 Wal*Mart stores in the US. This according to CNNMoney. The Wal*Mart bump bodes well for Android.

I’ve been checking regularly for the past few hours, and Google Chrome is now available for download for Windows XP/Vista. As I said, it sounds interesting, looking forward to checking it out. (It is installing now.)

There have long been rumors that Google was working on its own browser, but they were discounted by most. I didn’t really believe them myself, since Google has heavily backed Mozilla’s Firefox for a long time now I figured that was their presence in the browser market. Or that if they did produce a Google-branded browser, that it would pretty much be just Firefox with a new skin. In the same way AOL skinned Mozilla Suite, and then Firefox, for their last versions of the Netscape browser. And pushing the limit, maybe something new built around Mozilla’s Gecko rendering engine, like Camino for the Mac.

When I didn’t expect was a nearly all-new browser which takes a clean sheet approach to browser design and changes some of the fundamental elements that have been common to browsers for a while now. But then again, this is Google, I probably shouldn’t be surprised that that is exactly what they’ve done with Google Chrome. It has been outed on the Official Google Blog, and interestingly via a 38-page comic book Google commissioned. I have to say, the comic format really worked for me. It made it somewhat entertaining, yet all of the elements were clear and understandable. Of course, I’m a geek and I’ve been doing web development since 1991. The first browser I used was Cern’s command line browser. (I won’t go into old-man mode and say ‘and we liked it that way’ - because, frankly, it sucked. I’m much happier with today’s browsers, believe me.)

Word got out prematurely when hard copies of the comic were received by bloggers early, and it was scanned and posted to Google Blogoscoped, which also followed up with some more information. The official launch is planned for later today (September 2nd). I’m looking forward to checking it out, it sounds like an interesting project. (I’m amused, but not surprised, that it already has a Wikipedia page.)

Of course, it is entering a market full of competitors. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer still dominates the Windows market, and I have to admit IE8 looks to be shaping up to be a fairly decent browser so far, based on the beta releases. Safari has a strong hold on Mac users. Firefox is the number two browser overall, a popular choice on Windows and giving Safari a run on Mac. Opera is still chugging along, though it is really not a strong player on desktops overall. Opera seems to have found more success on embedded and mobile devices.

Interestingly, Google Chrome’s rendering engine is based on Apple’s Webkit. That’s the engine at the core of Safari on the Mac, Windows, and, of course, the iPhone/iPod Touch. (And it evolved from the KHTML engine from the KDE project’s Konqueror browser.) Webkit is also used as the core of the browser in Google’s Android mobile platform, as well as in the browser included on Nokia’s Symbian Series60 mobile devices. It has also been used in a number of other products.

However, Google Chrome appears to only using the WebCore layout and rendering component from WebKit, and not the JavaScriptCore scripting engine. Instead Google has selected a new JavaScript engine from V8 in Denmark. They’ve taken a new approach to JavaScript engines which is designed to offer improved performance, especially when running increasingly complex web applications. Under the covers it offers better memory management and garbage collection, which should help make things more stable and reduce memory bloat.

Those seem to be three of the major goals of Google Chrome, better performance, better stability, and reduced memory leaks/bloat, along with a fourth goal, improved security. They’ve changed the way browser processes are handled, offering better sandboxing to protect the system from malicious web apps. Google’s anti-phishing and anti-malware filters are also built into Chrome. (These are also offered in Firefox.) Google Gears is also included with Chrome, which will help performance with websites and web applications that use the Gears API. (For example, WordPress supports Gears on the admin interface to improve performance.)

And the best part is that Google is releasing Chome as open source. So all of the work they’ve done, and will do, is available to other developers and vendors to borrow and learn from. It sounds like they’ve done some very interesting things, so there are probably a few things others could learn from this.

Getting users to adopt Chrome is going to be the hard part. Firefox has been out for years and still has a small minority of the market. IE is still hovering around 70% of browser traffic in the Internet. People tend to use what is in front of them, for better or for worse. And with the current IE, that’s for worse. While IE7 is light years ahead of IE6, that’s not saying much as IE6 was utter crap. IE8 does look like it will help, but until it is out of beta most users won’t run it. Even once it is out of beta, unless MS pushes it as an automatic update, most users never upgrade.

For me I’ll have to see how Chrome performs, what the new UI is like, and what features it offers. I’ve never been a fan of Opera because I couldn’t stand the UI choices they made. It just didn’t suit me. I’ve played with Safari, and it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t that appealing. Certainly not enough to sway me from Firefox. I like the Firefox UI, I’m sure in large part because it has evolved steadily from the old Netscape UI. I started using Netscape when it was still around .9, up through 4.79. Then I switched to Mozilla Suite. And finally to Firefox after it hit 1.0. But also because of the extensions that allow me to customize it to my tastes and needs, as I recently covered.

As intrigued as I am by the new design direction Google has taken, it will come down to usability and functionality. I think Google probably has better odds of winning me over than any other player to date, especially if they can deliver on the performance and security. It will be interesting to see if they offer any synchronization between Google Chrome and the browser on Android. Being able to transparently store my browser preferences, bookmarks, etc, ‘in the cloud’ and access them from any Google browser would be a big appeal for me.

You know, with all of Google’s web-based applications (Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Reader, etc), they’re really close to being able to release a Google PC. From what I’ve seen Android could make a decent OS for a ‘netbook’ style computer, and Chrome could provide the main application environment.

Mark recently covered the Palm Centro, and there is still a promotion running that can save you some money if you’re interested. And not the Centro is an option for even more users.

First off, I failed to cover this a couple of weeks ago. On June 12th the Palm Centro became available on the Verizon network. As is usual with the Centro, the standard price is $99.99 with a 2-year contract. But through July 6th it is eligible for the above deal, a $50 rebate that drops it to $49.99. And Verizon is offering a $29.99/month ‘email and web’ plan for the Centro.

And now, as of Monday, Palm is selling an unlocked GSM Palm Centro for $299. It is more than the $99.99 you can get with a subsidy locked phone from AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon, but those require a 2-year contract and only work on the purchase network. The unlocked GSM Centro has no contract requirements and it works on any GSM network, just stick in you SIM card.

And there’s more good news for all Centro owners. Google Mobile Maps has finally been updated for Palm OS, from 1.2.0.9 to 2.0.2.0 - including ‘My Location’. ‘My Location’ is a beta feature for Google Mobile Maps which uses the cellular network to estimate your location. It isn’t as accurate as GPS would be, but it can be pretty close. You can download it directly to your Centro by visiting http://m.google.com/gmm using the browser on the phone. Well, actually, I fibbed - it isn’t all Centro owners. My Location doesn’t work on the Sprint Centros - yet. Sprint users have to wait for a software update due this summer.

Actually, the update is available for all Palm OS Treo models as well. However, the ‘My Location’ feature only works on the Centro - for reasons yet to be explained. If you try to use it on a Treo, like my Treo 680, it tells you:

The My Location feature is not available for this device. It is available for Palm Centro phones.

Palm, and Google, claim that the issue is that the version of Palm OS on the Treo lacks the API’s required to support My Location. OK, well, I have an idea - update the blasted software to add the APIs! Is that really so hard? They’re doing it for the Sprint Centro!

Actually, it is worse than that. Reportedly the APIs are in the OS already, but they’re private so 3rd party developers like Google can’t access them. They’re used for the E911 location requirements for emergency services. So it would seem all Palm would have to do is make them public, as they are on the Centro.

I have a suspicion that it is really some stupid business decision to try to draw people to the Centro by giving it features the other models lack. Why do I suspect this? Because there is a freeware patch to GMM 1.2.0.9 for the GSM Treo 650 and 680 (sorry, not CDMA Treos nor the old Treo 600) which adds ‘My Location’ functionality! So, clearly, it isn’t a hardware issue on GSM Treos, and it isn’t even a big software issue if a 3rd party developer can hack together a patch! (It may well be possible for CDMA Treo’s as well, but the radio systems are different.) Even if the APIs used on the Centro are missing, it seems more like a convenient excuse. And, again, software can be updated. If Palm has any plans to do so it would be good customer relations to say so. At it stands it looks like they’re snubbing the users of their more expensive phones.

Things like this really make me less likely to stick by Palm, and more likely to jump to the first decent Android handset I can get. Heck, I’d even consider the iPhone now that it is 3G, if only they’d get it past 60GB storage so it could replace my iPod completely. And I’m not the only one upset by this, going by the comments on Palm’s blog. I’ll note that the moderate comments, so those comments are only those that Palm approved. And I know they haven’t approved all the comments they’ve received, because mine never appeared. Readers at Treonauts and Palm Infocenter are rather displeased as well.

If you’re looking for an inexpensive smartphone with a lot of capabilities, the Centro is the one I’d recommend. It has more features than many phones that cost far more. There are ‘feature phones’, which are a step down from smartphones, which cost more and don’t have as many features as the Centro, let alone the thousands of applications (many free) available for Palm OS. Palm could stand to improve their customer communications though.

This is something I’m personally excited about. I’ve been a Palm OS user since 1998, and I currently use a Treo 680, but I have to admit that Palm OS is getting a bit long in the tooth and it is getting hard to overlook its shortcomings. And Palm’s new Linux-based OS has been repeatedly delayed and now won’t hit devices until 2009 - unless it is delayed again. At this point I haven’t seen anything from Palm to encourage me to wait. Actually, I haven’t seen anything encouraging from Palm in ages, period. At least for my use, the Centro is a nice phone and I do recommend checking it out if you want an entry level smartphone. For the price it is a great smartphone.

On the other hand I’ve been impressed by the previews of Android, and it already has more industry support than Palm OS - before it even releases. I’ve tried Windows Mobile and Symbian S60, but frankly I’d rather stick with even ragged old Palm OS than use either one. Android is the first alternative I’ve seen that has tempted me to switch. More than tempted really, at this point I’m pretty sure I’ll be jumping to Android this year unless something goes drastically wrong with the devices.

So I’m happy to see T-Mobile confirm they will have Android-based phones available in 4Q2008. Personally I use AT&T, but since they’re both GSM odds are any phones available for T-Mobile will also be available for AT&T, or at least in a non-subsidy-locked model that I could use. I want a GSM/HSPA smartphone with a decent touchscreen and a good physical keyboard, like my Treo, but with an OS that isn’t five years out of date like Palm OS or clunky like WinMob and Symbian (IMHO, of course). Yeah, I’ve tried RIM too, I’ve never liked any of the Blackberry designs and find the OS to be kind of clunky too, and I prefer something more open.

It’s been a while since I was eagerly anticipating the release of a new product family, I just hope Android doesn’t disappoint.

Picked up from Engadget.

One of the first ‘built-in’ broadband applications on TiVo was Yahoo! Photos. However, Yahoo! closed down Yahoo! Photos in favor of Flickr, after acquiring the latter. Many users expected TiVo to replace the Photos application with a Flickr viewer, and there was a hint that Flickr support is being developed for Australia. However, instead of Flickr support TiVo has added support for Photobucket and Google’s Picasa Web Albums. They officially announced availability this morning with this press release:

TIVO DELIVERS THE BEST WAY TO VIEW & SHARE PHOTOS ON THE TELEVISION – NOW IN HD

TiVo Teams Up with Leading Online Photo Services to deliver Memories to the Living Room

ALVISO, CA — December 3, 2007 — TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), today announced that all broadband-connected TiVo DVRs can take advantage of viewing and sharing their digital photos directly on the television set. By working with two of the most popular online photo services, Photobucket and Picasa Web Albums™ from Google, TiVo subscribers can easily access their own digital photos as well as those shared by friends and family using the Emmy award-winning TiVo user interface. Photos will be displayed at the highest possible resolution on each TiVo box, meaning TiVo Series3™ and TiVo HD subscribers can see their memories in full high definition.

“At TiVo we’re focused on the entire entertainment experience, from movies to music, and in this case - memories,” said Jim Denney, Vice President of Product Marketing at TiVo. “By working with these well-respected and popular photo-sharing partners TiVo enables families to share their pictures in new, fun ways. TiVo continues to show our commitment to differentiated product offerings by allowing subscribers to share their memories on the best picture frame in the house - - their television.”

“Personal media sharing is clearly moving beyond the desktop,” said Alex Welch, President of Photobucket. “Photobucket helps its users creatively express themselves and share their lives with friends and family. Be it through cell phones, computers or TVs, we aim to offer our users the best service for searching, uploading and sharing this content. TiVo gives our audience an excellent way to bring Photobucket into their living rooms.”

Among other features, TiVo subscribers will be able to customize their photo viewing capabilities by searching community photos of interest by keyword, all using the intuitive TiVo search interface. For example, sports fanatics can create a custom slide show of their favorite team or player and dog lovers can sit back and enjoy a slide show composed of literally hundreds of puppy photos from around the world, all with the power of the peanut-shaped remote.

“Families and friends who use Picasa Web Albums to stay connected with each other’s lives are often looking for more ways to share those important photos,” said Mike Horowitz, product manager for Picasa Web Albums at Google. “Broadband-connected TiVo DVRs provide a fun way for people to view their own favorites or bring their photos out for everyone in the living room to see.”

TiVo subscribers can access the photo sharing application through the Music, Photos, Products & More screen on their TiVo DVR, and is offered at no additional charge as part of the existing TiVo service subscription fee. TiVo boxes are available at leading consumer electronic retailers including Best Buy and Circuit City. See www.TiVo.com for details.

I’m interested to see if ‘full high definition’ means 1080i (since the TiVos don’t output 1080p), since that’s what most of the industry means by ‘full high definition’. Existing high definition HME applications, such as the local TiVo Desktop photo application, display at 720p. I also wonder if we will see Flickr support in the future, especially if Australia gets it. (There is a basic Flicker viewer available today via Apps.tv.) In any case, it is good to see support for these applications, especially with HD support.

Palm seems to be using Black Friday to clear out some old stock, since they have just two specials, and both are on old PDA models and not smartphones.

Black Friday Special Offer – $50 off ($149 total) the Tungsten™ E2 handheld plus FREE hard case ($39.95 value). Offer valid 11/20/07 to 11/26/07.

Black Friday Special Offer – $100 off ($199 total) the Palm® T|X handheld plus FREE wireless keyboard ($69 value). Valid 11/20/07 to 11/26/07.

I do have to say that the T|X is a fine handheld, and if I were still using a straight PDA and not a smartphone, that is what I would own. One of my co-workers has one, and I’ve played with it. I think it is the best PDA Palm produced, but it appears to be the end of the line as they shifted focus to the Treo and Centro smarthphones. I’ve always been a fan of Palm, and I’ve used a Palm IIIx, Handspring Visor Deluxe, Sony Clie NZ-90, Palm Treo 650, and now a Palm Treo 680. But I have to say that I’m seriously eager to see what ships next year using the Google Android platform. That may be my next mobile platform.

Aside from the stock-clearing Black Friday specials, Palm also has general holiday specials on handhelds, smartphones, hands-free, stocking stuffers, and special offers.