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Top 10 Google Stories Of 2010

Google may be the company of the decade -- the previous one, if not the next one. As such, its actions are closely scrutinized, and its steps and missteps make news. What started as a search engine is now a company that's shaping our technological future, with initiatives in mobile phones, tablet and netbook computing, telephony, and TV. Unburdened by decades of legacy tech and customer expectations, it's proven more nimble at exploiting new niches than its competitors. From successful forays into mobile devices to embarrassing breaches of people's privacy, Google was in the news a lot in 2010, most often for its steps but sometimes for its missteps. Here are the ten top news stories involving Google this year.

Flock Browses All Your Social Connections

Years before the social networking oriented RockMelt browser there was Flock. Now Flock 3.5 shows that the original social networking browser still has strong features that should interest users looking to integrate social networking into their Web browser. Flock works with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, newsfeeds and, new in this release, LinkedIn. The newest Flock browser is also now based on the Google Chromium engine, providing a faster and more streamlined browsing experience. A social networking sidebar in Flock makes it possible to view status updates from all of your connections on all of your networks and lets users post status updates to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn with a single click.

Google Chrome OS Promises Computing Without Pain

Before a crowd of reporters and guests, Google provided an update on its forthcoming browser-based operating system, Chrome OS, and invited attendees and select early adopters to try Chrome OS running on an unbranded netbook through a pilot program. Chrome OS aims to be speedy, simple and secure: all the things that the typical PC is not. It achieves these goals by limiting the user to Web apps, running in the Chrome browser. But Google doesn't see this as a limitation; it sees it as a way to prevent the user from mucking up the works by installing bloated or malicious software. Google sees the Web and cloud computing as a better user experience.

Clicking Through Opera 11 Browser Beta

The Opera web browser, from Opera Software, has long been one of the most innovative browsers available, and has been the first to introduce many features that became common in all browsers, such as tabbed windows. With the recent released beta of Opera 11, the browser continues this tradition with several interesting new capabilities, including the ability to load plugins on demand within web pages. The Opera 11 beta also includes some features already found in other browsers, such as competing betas Microsoft IE 9 and Firefox 4, and has adopted some of the interface characteristics of Google's Chrome web browser.

Desktop Twitter Programs Revealed

Desktop Twitter clients offer some advantages over browser-based options for the more than 175 million registered Twitter users navigating the tens of millions of daily Tweets. Desktop clients free user from the limited range of controls and UT metaphors found in the browser, and there's less chance of being bitten by a web-based exploit. Moreover, third-party browser-based clients, such as HootSuite and Slipstre.am, hint at different ways of interacting with Twitter. It's no wonder that third-party applications have emerged as a significant means of accessing Twitter, with almost 15% of unique users coming through one of the leading clients. Based upon ease of use, the number of services supporting, interfaces to additional services such as URL shortening and filter management, here are five Twitter clients worth a look.

RockMelt Social Web Browser Revealed

RockMelt, a new browser backed by Mosaic and Netscape web pioneer Marc Andreessen, tightly integrates web browsing with social networking, letting users easily track their Facebook friends, Twitter feeds and changing news feeds, while surfing the web. RockMelt is not the first attempt to reimagine the web browser as a social tool. Back in 2005, the Flock browser was released with similar ambitions. Initially based on Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine, the forthcoming 3.0 version of Flock will, like RockMelt, be based on Google's Chromium browser engine. Despite being just an early preview release, RockMelt offers some of the best social networking features we've seen in a browser and could already be considered one of the best browser choices for heavy Facebook users. And with its Chrome heritage, it is already strong as a standard web browser. Here's a look at some of the key features of the recently released early preview of RockMelt.

Best Mobile Apps For Busy Professionals

Today's smartphones have led to the development of hundreds of thousands of mobile apps. Apple's iPhone, RIM's BlackBerry and phones based on Google's Android all have access to extensive libraries of apps that you can download and install for our increasingly mobile world. When you're always on the go, having the right smartphone app makes it easy to transition from business to pleasure and back again without skipping a beat so you can get the most out of every minute. Here we pick 17 of the best apps for pros on the go -- steering clear of the silly and the stupid -- to help you manage your mobile lifestyle.

Cisco Umi Takes Telepresence To The Home

Cisco has spent the past four years pounding "telepresence" into the brains of business and IT professionals, and now it has introduced Umi, a full telepresence solution for the home. From Umi, you can have video chats with other Umi users (or, it supports Google Video chat), leave video messages and upload video to share with your Umi contacts.

Best Bluetooth Headsets For Business

Bluetooth headsets eliminate clumsy wires, boost productivity and, with more states requiring hands-free devices in vehicles, have become required equipment for businesspeople on the go. Vendors offer a dizzying array of headsets, differentiated by price, battery-life, weight and clarity. Many of today's headsets are multipoint, allowing use for both desktop and mobile phones. Developers also look to separate themselves from their competition through software or hardware design elements designed to reduce ambient sound and improve sound quality. In addition, Bluetooth headsets must be somewhat rugged to withstand long hours of usage and frequent removal and replacement. We culled through the thicket of features, noise-cancelling technologies and battery-life claims to find 13 of the best models for business.

15 Budget Busting Technology Projects

Large-scale information technology projects can balloon to inconceivable figures very quickly with endless revisions, change orders and delays pushing budgets into the stratosphere. Sometimes the cost of an IT project can be measured simply in dollars, but just as often these projects costly in other ways -- in reputation, for example. With government projects, it's easy to look at the budget and see how much it costs -- or at least how much it's supposed to cost. In the private sector, it's not as clear cut: often the people working on a specific project are employees of the company anyway, so you can't really measure the cost of the project in just dollars and cents. Many of the projects and products here the $100 million barrier; others are harder to put a figure on yet have to be considered "expensive" by any measure. Regardless of how you quantify it, these 15 projects cost their organizations a bundle.

12 Most Disruptive Enterprise IT Vendors

These vendors, large and small, are shaking up the status quo with their new products, approaches and models.

19 Gadgets That Changed The World

Every so often, a device comes along that changes the way we live our daily lives and things are never the same again. With today's digital technology, such devices may come more frequently than in the past, but our list revolutionary gadgets extends back two centuries.

IT Hall Of Shame, Part 2

Welcome back to our rogue's gallery of computer industry flops, frauds and foibles. In this installment, we're pleased to present ten more exhibits, from Y2K to the Pentium Bug, that prove the best laid plans of mice and men don't just go awry -- they lead straight to the IT Hall of Shame.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 Beta Revealed

The latest version of Explorer, now available in public beta, is the company's attempt to get back into the web browser race and its success will determine if users look to Microsoft or elsewhere for their window to the web. Peek in on the beta launch event and the new features in this slideshow.

Top 10 Most Hated Tech Mascots Ever

Mascots are marketing personified. When they're good, they're grrreat, as Tony the Tiger, one of the world's more successful mascots might say. When they're lame, uninspired, annoying or perplexing, they might end up on a list like this. Mascots are particularly important in the technology industry, because so many tech products and services are intangible and would benefit from an evocative symbolic representative. It's hard to imagine Linux without thinking about penguins. As for the mascots that follow, some would be better forgotten.

Top 20 Android Productivity Apps

Android handsets are pouring onto the market every day and there's a deluge of Android apps competing to fills those screens. To sort through the storm surge of app choices, we've trolled through the Android Market to hauled in 20 Android apps that no business user should be without.

Mobile Football Madness: Best Apps For The Gridiron

College football season is in the first quarter and the NFL season about to kickoff. Take your football experience mobile this fall by arming yourself with the best mobile apps for following your team, be it fantasy or real, and staying in the game no matter where you roam. Here's 20 of the best.

Strategic Security Survey: Global Threat, Local Pain

Highlights of exclusive InformationWeek Analytics research as it appears in "Global Threat, Local Pain," our report assessing whether the high-profile infiltration of corporate networks worldwide (Google China leaps to mind) is forcing execs to reconsider their security strategies and pony up related resources.