Windows Phone 'Mango' search offers location-specific results, app integration

Windows Phone's latest iteration (codename Mango) is all about keeping it in the hood. We had a chance to sit down with a Windows Phone rep before today's big reveal, and they let us in on a couple of new features that will most definitely set the OS apart -- at least when it comes to navigating the tangled web that is the internet. We did get a quick glimpse at IE9, but the new browser isn't much of a game changer -- it supports HTML5, but still won't deliver Flash or Silverlight compatibility. The real news here is in the Bing-powered search function, which lets users surf the vast expanses of the web four different ways, with a focus on the local.

Clicking the dedicated search button from the Windows Phone home screen takes you to a familiar Bing page, offering the visual, audio, and voice options we heard rumored earlier this month, along with a city scape icon. That skyline represents Local Scout, a function that focuses your queries on the neighborhood you're in, providing location-specific results that highlight important information about establishments and events in your immediate area. Clicking through on any link brings up general information as well as reviews gleaned from popular user-generated sites. That's not all that's new, however, as Mango also offers some nifty tricks in its visual search. Instead of just snapping a barcode, you can actually use a shot of the product itself to bring up information about pricing, availability, and relevant apps.

The demo we saw used the cover of The Girl Who Played With Fire, and supplied among the search results a link to the title in the Kindle app. This isn't exactly groundbreaking technology -- Google Goggles does much the same thing -- but what's truly different here is the tight integration of such functions in the operating system, as well as links to outside applications. Thus, the experience is a bit unlike any other in the OS atmosphere, upending our idea of what it means to search the internets without resorting to standalone programs. Whether it's something users will take to is anybody's guess, but we're certain it's enough to get folks talking. For a deeper (and very vertical) look at Local Scout, hop on past the break.

Opera Mini lands on the iPad in version 6.0

Been loving the Opera Mini experience on your iPhone and wishing for it on your larger iOS device? Opera is today turning that desire into reality with the release of v6.0 of its Mini mobile browser, which now has support for all iOS portables, including the iPad and iPad 2, plus a specific shoutout for the iPhone 4's retina display. The overall design of the web explorer has also been freshened up, with a "new look and feel," while a social sharing function will let you blast URLs into Twitter and Facebook directly from the app. Additionally, the new version includes the ability to load tabs in the background and improves support for non-Latin alphabets like Arabic and Chinese. Hit the source link for the download.

iTunes

Lady Gaga uses Chrome, and here's the 91-second film to prove it

One of the world's most (in)famous names has picked a side in the browser battles -- last night saw the debut of a new Google Chrome commercial, starring Lady Gaga and her "little monsters." Spanning a minute and a half of Gaga and her fans singing and gyrating their way through her latest single, the ad is intended to illustrate the power of the web and its creative new modes of interaction. To be fair, said interaction is mostly Lady Gaga saying "jump" and a crowd of YouTubers doing it without bothering to ask how high, but hey, the result is fun to watch. You just need to disable your sense of shame for all humanity and click past the break.

googlechrome (YouTube)

Fabrice Bellard builds PC emulator in JavaScript to run Linux in a browser

Tired of playing around with Android apps in your web browser courtesy of Amazon's virtual machine? Well, thanks to super hero programmer Fabrice Bellard, you can now try your hand at something a little more challenging. "For fun," he built a complete PC emulator in JavaScript, and then used it to run a fully functioning version of Linux in a web browser. How did it turn out? You can hit up the source link below to try it out for yourself.

Geekosystem

Bellard.org JavaScript PC Emulator

Angry Birds gets a web version, coming to Chrome Web Store

Yet another platform has been conquered by the affronted fowl: the web! Angry Birds' web client is built in WebGL, so presumably browsers other than Google's Chrome should be able to run it as well, and even if you can't handle WebGL, there's Canvas support too. 60fps are promised on most modern PCs, and we've spotted SD and HD labels, suggesting there'll be a choice of quality to match your computer's performance. Offline gaming will also be available.



Chrome will get some exclusive content, such as "Chrome bombs" and other cutesy bits. Rovio just noted it's "really, really happy about the 5 percent," referring to Google's pricing model of charging a flat fee of 5 percent to developers on in-app purchases in the Chrome Web Store. Yes, the Mighty Eagle will be a purchasable option for the impatient among you. The game will be available in the Store immediately after Google's I/O 2011 keynote, so look out for it shortly.



Update: And the Angry Birds have landed. Hit up the source link below to obtain the free app.

Chrome alone

About a year after the debut of the first Android handset, Switched On discussed the threat that Chrome OS posed to Android. We'll briefly reprise it here: Like chief rivals Apple and Microsoft, Google has two operating systems trying to bridge the rift between consumer electronics and traditional computing, but Chrome is different than Mac OS and Windows in an exceptionally important way.

Rather than trying to refine the traditional software experience (as Apple has done with the Mac App Store and other iOS-inspired developments in the queue) or move that experience forward to tablets (as Microsoft is doing with Windows), Chrome OS is not looking to carry forward any legacy beyond the browser.

Unlike with Mac OS vs. iOS or Windows vs. Windows Phone, the battle isn't over which apps make sense, but rather the irreconcilable difference around whether apps to begin with. This makes Google's suggestion that the two operating systems might merge at some point less credible, and sent a mixed message to developers about whether to focus their efforts on apps or the web. At Google I/O 2011, however, the company clarified its position.

At Moscone Center in San Francisco, Google celebrated the duality of its operating systems, but further explained that each targeted particular devices. Whereas it was once said that Chrome might be an option for tablets and Google TV, Android has fully claimed that slot with Honeycomb, whose apps will appear on televisions. Furthermore, Android will venture forth into categories that Google hasn't tackled before, such as Project Tungsten, its media streaming/home automation platform.

Meanwhile, nearly everything beyond Android's direct grasp will be have the option of communicating with it directly via the Android Open Accessory Platform and indirectly via Android @ Home. Where does that leave Google's second OS? Chrome has been relegated to notebooks -- Chromebooks, specifically -- with the team offering up the silver lining that the laptop is still where most people do most of their Web browsing.

Chrome will play defense and try to carve out a niche, by reminding us of the liabilities of the app environments on Mac and PC.

Many have suggested that Chrome is primarily of interest to managed, security-minded corporate or educational environments, but Chrome's refocus has other implications. The app paradigm will carry forward into the next generation of nimble devices where Android has big numbers (although has room to improve) and expansion to new platforms entirely. Chrome, on the other hand, will play defense, trying to carve out a niche against one Goliath (Mac OS) and that Goliath's even bigger rival (Windows) by reminding us of the liabilities of the PC app environment. The Chromebook emerges as less of a platform warrior, and more of a complement device. To borrow Steve Jobs' characterization of Apple TV, here the Chromebook becomes a "hobby."

However, while Chrome OS has now been set aside for notebooks (and a nettop), there doesn't seem to be anything keeping Android at bay in the very same space -- devices such as the Eee Pad Slider and USB host support demonstrate that Android itself could function in a similar role to Chrome OS. If Android can make significant headway – or at least significantly more headway than Chrome – on the classic clamshell, then this may indeed bring about the ultimate merging of the two operating systems. The result would probably look a lot more like Android, with its flourishing app library, than the sparse Chrome OS, but an Android with an even faster and more powerful desktop-class browser

Stable version of Firefox 4 released

Yesterday, after a one-year long period of development, it has been released the stable version of Firefox 4. But the news aren’t finished: the Mozilla team has decided to have no break and, as reported by the US website Conceivablytech, the start day for the creation of the version 5 has already been chosen. Mozilla seems to be intentioned in a change of strategy about the time and ways to release it to the public. Apparently they want to follow the example of Google, that divides the browser development in four parts.

Download Firefox 4 here

The team has organized the development of every single version in 16 weeks, divided in 4 periods: in the first 6 weeks, Mozilla won’t release any version to the public, and will test it. Then it would start the distribution of the experimental and beta version, that would probably precede (as in tradition) the classical release candidate before that the final version of the browser was developed. There aren’t certain news about that, but we’ll see the decision of Mozilla in the next months.
The development of Version 5 should start in the last days of June, but for the moment it’s just a hypothesis, though it’s reliable enough to be took in consideration.