geekosystem

If there's one genre of video game that always managed to avoid piquing my interest, it's the series of marble mazes that were created. These games -- like Super Monkey Ball -- revolve around navigating a rolling ball across a shifting plane. The particulars are always mildly different, but that's the general idea. Google's actually done the mighty and somehow made me interested in this type of game thanks to one of their Chrome Experiments. See, this particular doodad, called World Wide Maze, turns any website into a marble maze you can control with your phone.

We panicked along with everyone else yesterday when Gmail went down. Without email, how would we find out about all the new T-shirt designs and Kickstarter campaigns that are happening? It was maddening. Sure, the outage only lasted about 20 minutes, but it really messed up a very brief part of our day, and even included issues with Google Chrome, and we want answers. Thankfully, Google engineer Tim Steele has them.

Google Chrome is once again making a name for itself as the go-to browser for neat stuff, weird toys, and all kinds of stupid browser tricks that are kind of awesome. The latest gizmo to be added to Chrome's toy chest is 100,000 Stars, a three-dimensional guided tour of stars throughout the Milky Way. Whether you're looking for a better way to get a sense of your place in our incomprehensibly vast universe or just looking to kill some time between meetings, we highly recommend checking this thing out today.

At Google's I/O conference yesterday, the company announced that an iOS version of the much beloved Chrome browser would be available in the app store. Released several hours later, the app quickly became the most downloaded app on the store. However, if you're expecting the lightning-fast desktop browsing experience you've come to expect, you might be disappointed.

According to the web usage tracking site StatCounter, Google's Chrome browser appears to have just snatched the title of the most used web browser in the world from Microsoft Internet Explorer. Though measuring web stats is a tricky business, StatCounter indicates that Chrome was above IE for a sustained seven days -- from May 14 to May 20. The Internet is changing, folks.

Everybody talks trash about Internet Explorer. It's just what you do. And yes, Internet Explorer might not be quite as bad as it used to be, but you'd still be hard pressed to find a loyal fan. Those of us who are loyal fans of other browsers might have something to start worrying about. Windows RT, the ARM version of Windows 8 designed for use on tablets, effectively cripples all third-party browsers, and will force hapless users to go crawling back to IE whether they want to or not. Unsurprisingly, Google and Mozilla are less than pleased, and are making their opinions known.

Late last year, Google's Chrome browser finally overtook Firefox in global usage. Now, Chrome is making new strides in its quest for dominance and coming to Android. For the moment, it's still in beta and relatedly only available for Ice Cream Sandwich users, but even so, it looks pretty sweet. Along with speed increases and better UI, mobile Chrome intends to make good use of its desktop sibling.

Twitter recently gave its web interface a much-needed redesign, and it's actually a pretty good one. But some people might object to how the stream of new tweets suddenly jumped from the left side of the page to the right. Thankfully, for those of you that are scared and confused, there's a quick and easy fix.

A forthcoming update to Google's Chrome browser will soon add support for gamepads, as well as cameras, microphones, and real-time chatting. While most Chrome users are focused on mere browsing, these additions could be a major step for bolstering Google's ambition to take more everyday computing onto the cloud, with Chrome as the centerpiece.

It's Black Friday, formally the worst day for retailers during the year, so it's not too surprising to see ads popping up in unusual places. I was, however, taken aback when I opened a new tab in Chrome and found that Google was using my homepage as an opportunity to try and sell me a Google Chromebook.

The giant brains at Google have rolled out a bold new web app for their Chrome web browser that really pushes the boundaries of what browsers can do. Called Chrome Remote Desktop, the app allows users to take control of a computer remotely and securely, all within a Chrome window. While this technology has been an established tool, especially for long-suffering IT support workers, placing it within a browser is an interesting move. Currently in Beta, the app uses a secure one-time code to allow access to the host computer. Both computers must have the app installed to function. The system is designed to work cross-platform on Mac, PC, and Linux, which is a pretty strong mark in the app's favor. It also works in the Chrome OS, which is likely the focus of the app in the long run. After all, Google is aiming to lower the cost of doing business with their web-based OS, and bundling a valuable piece of IT software will likely help in that regard. The app is pretty massive, a whopping 17mb, and is available for download from the Chrome App Store.

Cast your mind back to a time, not that long ago, when the Internet was fresh and young. It was the mid-1990s, and the first web browsers crawled forth from the primordial ooze, and into our hearts. To celebrate the third birthday of Chrome, Google commissioned this handsome infographic chronicling the great grand-daddy's of today's modern browsers. What's really fun about this graphic is that it's built in HTML5 and fully interactive. More than just pretty to look at, it's chock-full of factoids about the growth of the net, as well as some useful information about how tools like HTML developed. Perhaps the most interesting are the screenshots of various versions of each browser, with each set practically a museum unto itself. Part historical timepiece and part show-off of their own browser, it's a glimpse back into the foundational days of the Internet we all take for granted. (Google Blog via Engadget)

When Chrome, the web browser backed by search giant Google, was first unleashed onto the internet it brought the innovation of the "Omni Box;" a single text field that accepted URLs as well as search terms. After three years, it seems that Google is further simplifying by doing away with the URL bar altogether. The feature appeared in Canary, Chrome's nightly build project. In it, the menu buttons move up to the tab-bar level, along with the navigation buttons. To view the tab bar, users can double click the tab they are in, or hit CTRL+L. For netbook users, the extra thirty pixels of visible real estate should be a welcome boon. However, there are some concerns that users could be more vulnerable to phishing scams, since they can't immediately see the URL of the site they are visiting. There is currently no word as to whether this feature will make it into the final distribution of Chrome. If you're curious about trying it out, download Canary and bask in the glow of an dead simple interface. (Conceivably Tech via Life Hacker)

The Chrome browser has survived three years in the Pwn2Own competition it has fallen to the French security firm VUPEN. The hack takes advantage of so-called "0-day" vulnerabilities in the Windows operating system and could allow nefarious types to download and execute code within the browser. So far, the hack only seems possible on Windows computers.

We're big fans of Google Chrome, and based on our site stats, more than a quarter of our readers are too. We're not fans, though, of the "sad tab" page which pops up whenever Chrome blows up, as happens with some frequency whenever Google updates the browser with a few bugs still intact. That said, we approve of the new sad tab page in the latest Chromium build, which shamelessly panders to its techy early-adopter audience by quoting Dr. McCoy. Some foreign Chrome users report a gorier crash page with a bullet hole through the sad tab's head. This seems excessive. (via Unofficial Google OS)