This morning Google announced that "offline Gmail" is leaving the Gmail Labs testing area and will be implemented as a standard feature for all users. Once enabled, this feature allows you to access your Gmail even when no internet connection is available. You can read and respond to messages, star them or label them just as you would if you were online. When a connection is restored, all the changes you made are synced with Google's servers and any messages in your Outbox are sent out. As of today, all Gmail users will now have this feature turned on by default, however those who have never used it before will need to configure it first in order to take advantage of the enhanced functionality. Sponsor Gears Makes a Public Debut The Labs section of Gmail is where experimental and in-development programs, add-ons, and extra features are housed, allowing Gmail users to switch them on or off as desired. Offline Gmail was one of those experiments, launched back in January of this year. Using Gears , an open source plug-in technology designed by Google, email messages are downloaded to your local machine when you switch to offline mode. Also, if your internet connection is dropped unexpectedly, offline Gmail is automatically enabled. In the year in which offline Gmail has been in testing, the company says they received a lot of feedback from users. Some of the requested features have already been implemented, including the ability to choose which messages get downloaded for offline use and the ability to send attachments while offline . According to the Google blog post , anyone who was already running the Labs version of offline Gmail won't have to make any changes but those who had never turned on the setting will need to do the following: Click the "Settings" link in the top-right corner of Gmail. Click the "Offline" tab. Select "Enable Offline Mail for this computer." Click "Save Changes" and follow the directions from there. But Isn't Google Switching to HTML5? At first it seems like "graduating" offline Gmail from Labs is step in preparation for next year's launch of Google Chrome OS , the web-based operating system that ditches the desktop, the hard drive, and computer applications for a web browser where everything users access lives online. Because online applications require an internet connection to work, there have been some concerns as to how functional this OS will be in a world that is not yet blanketed in Wi-Fi or 3G. Since Google has made no mention of built-in hardware providing 3G and cellular access as a backup to Wi-Fi, there will be a lot of programs that simply don't work when you go offline...that is, except for the programs that Google develops itself. The company has already implemented its Gears plug-in on two other products in addition to Gmail: Google Reader and Google Docs . Meanwhile, other companies have also adopted the technology including online office suite Zoho and to-do list app Remember the Milk . What's odd about this launch of Google Gears into primetime via Gmail is that this seems to conflict a bit with what Google execs announced last month regarding the company's plans for its upcoming operating system, Chrome OS. During the Q&A session at the end of the press event , an audience member asked about Google Gears support to which Google's VP of Product Management Sundar Pichai replied by saying that Chrome OS will take advantage of HTML5 for local storage. He made no mention of Gears. HTML5 , a proposed revision to HTML, the markup language of the World Wide Web, includes offline storage as one of its many new features. And it's this specification that Google's plans to support in the future, not Gears, according to numerous reports. For example, in a recent article in the L.A. Times , a Google spokesperson was quoted as saying: "We are excited that much of the technology in Gears, including offline support and geolocation APIs, are being incorporated into the HTML5 spec as an open standard supported across browsers, and see that as the logical next step for developers looking to include these features in their websites." Also, Linus Upson, the engineering director at Google told PC Magazine that the company was abandoning its work on Gears 2, the next version of the plug-in, and will be focused on HTML5 instead. "You can almost think of what's in HTML5, with app cache, and database, and those things, as essentially Gears [version] 2," he said. "That's how we view it." Upson noted, too, that the company would be able to influence the adoption of HTML5 through their web browser, Google Chrome, the foundation of the new Chrome OS. "Now that we're a browser vendor, we can help move HTML5 forward not as a plug-in, but as part of Chrome," Upson said. So in other words, the Gears functionality being switched on now in Gmail may not be the same technology used a year from now when Google Chrome OS hits the market. That begs the question: why bother? If Google plans to replace Gears with HTML5 in the near future what's the point of rolling out the soon-to-be abandoned plug-in to all its users now? Will Gears and HTML5 converge somehow or will Google just rip out the plug-in in favor of HTML5's "plug-in-less" technology instead? Let us know what you think in the comments. Discuss

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Offline Gmail Becomes Standard Feature (But Still Uses Gears?)

In late October, after Bit.ly had firmly established itself as Twitter's service of choice, it looked like URL shortener service Cligs would close down. As of today, the company will see a new management team as social bookmarking service Mister Wong has agreed to acquire it for an undisclosed sum. Sponsor Says Clig's founder Pierre Far, "I'm very happy with Mister Wong as they have an excellent track record of building large communities and keeping them happy. They also have the resources to continue the development of the service and keep it competitive in the market. Cligs has always been a side project, but the service grew too big to take care of in my spare time." Far began his quest for a buyer in early October. In August ReadWriteWeb covered the commercial demise of URL shortener service Tr.im and its subsequent resurrection as an open source release . A number of services have failed to find exit strategies in this crowded space so it appears that Far's deal with Mister Wong is fortunate one. When we asked Far where short links go when they die, he pointed to 301works.org . 301works is an Internet Archives initiative created to preserve short URL links in the event of a shutdown. If a short URL company faces closure 301works takes control of shortening domain services and ensures that links remain intact. While the technical side of the program has not been completely laid out, a number of companies have agreed to show the 301works seal including Bit.ly, Cligs, Twurl , Awe.sm and AppsFire . To apply check out 301works.org here . Discuss

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Where do Short URLs Go When They Die?

Dell has just released a customized version of Chromium OS, the open source code behind Google's new operating system called Chrome, in a build designed specifically for Dell Mini computers. According to a blog post on the Dell Community site , several company employees were inspired create this custom version after seeing Engadget's video showing Chrome OS running on a Vostro A860 netbook. After tinkering around with the code, they were able to create their own version of Chromium OS, complete with functional Wi-Fi drivers, and have made the build available for download as a USB key image file from the Direct2Dell blog . Sponsor About Google Chrome After last week's sneak peek at Google's upcoming operating system dubbed Google Chrome OS, tech enthusiasts everywhere have been playing with the open source code which Google released to the community on the day of the press conference. This code, called Chromium OS, lets anyone take the basic building blocks of Google's operating system and customize it for their own purposes. Going the open source route isn't just an example of Google's desire to "not be evil," but protects the company from anti-trust, anti-competitive claims surrounding the new project - a project which is basically an OS that runs only one web browser: Google Chrome . In fact, Google's browser is the operating system in its entirety. No desktop applications will be supported on this web-based, Wi-Fi only machine. As Google's VP of Product Management, Sundar Pichai, said during the press event, if any other browser maker wants to build their own version of the OS using their own browser, they can. Since the launch of the Chromium OS source code, there have been a number of articles explaining how to run the operating system in a virtual machine on your own computer as well as how to boot the operating system from a USB flash drive . But up until now, these efforts have been steered by enthusiastic technology users and not those associated with any large computer manufacturer such as Dell. And while the Dell Chromium build isn't exactly an "official" company product, it's noteworthy for the fact that it was designed by company employees, posted publicly on a Dell website, and is customized to run specifically on Dell Mini computers. Dell's Chromium OS Build According to the Dell blog post , the USB key image file (available here: http://linux.dell.com/files/cto ) only works on Dell Mini 10v computers . Most importantly, the build makes the built-in Broadcom Wi-Fi adapter on these machines functional, a feature needed when running a web-based OS. After all, what good is a cloud operating system if you have to be tethered to an ethernet cable? The blog post includes instructions on how to copy the USB image file to a USB flash drive, but unfortunately the directions are aimed only at those who have access to another Linux machine. We're not sure why Windows and Mac users couldn't just modify the instructions found on this website to make their own Dell Chromium OS USB keys by substituting the Dell build for the one hosted on that site. In addition, if you're interested in trying out the Dell version of Chromium OS, there are a couple of things you should know: You'll need a hefty USB key drive - 8 GB minimum. It may take 5-10 minutes for the Chromium OS network connection manager to "see" the Wi-Fi access points. Some issues with the connection manager are still present. If it gets hung, reboot and try again. And by the way, there's no "reboot" - you have to press the power button on the Mini laptop. The Dell build is unsupported and minimally tested - use at your own risk. If you're still feeling brave, the download is available here . Discuss

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Dell Releases Customized Version of Chrome OS

This Monday we're releasing our latest premium research report, entitled The Real-Time Web and Its Future . You can pre-order this in-depth report for just $200 . One of the 50 interviews we conducted was with Ted Roden , a Creative Technologist at The New York Times. In this post, an edited extract from our new report, we explore how Roden works with real-time data at The Times. We also discuss the creative real-time development he's doing on a side-project called EnjoysThings . Pre-order now: The Real-Time Web and Its Future, $200 if you order before 30 Nov ; check out the Table of Contents (PDF) and a sample chapter (PDF). Sponsor The primary contributions Ted Roden makes to understanding the real-time web include articulating: the material benefits of going real time the importance of user experience the changing landscape in analytics and advertising We had a conversation with Roden about what happened after he added a real-time feed to EnjoysThings; he articulates well some of the biggest advantages of a real-time infrastructure. EnjoysThings is a visual bookmarking site, like Delicious for images and other media. Even text snippets bookmarked are highlighted visually. User experience is a key consideration in all the site's developments and the service is a lot of fun to use. This summer Roden added a premium subscription option to the site, called Joy accounts. Joy accounts cost $20 per year for access to all the current and forthcoming premium features, or users can pay $5 for a single premium feature like disabling ads on the site or being able to view NSFW content. One of the features Joy account holders get is access to a real-time view of new content shared. That real-time stream can be viewed in any browser but may be best served up via a Firefox sidebar. A real-time feed as up-sold value add? That's remarkable and Roden says the response has been positive. The sidebar is simple but compelling. New content is pushed live into the side of the browser as soon as it's shared on the site, including images. At first Roden said he used AJAX set to poll his site every few seconds. Then he switched to a Comet implementation. He says he's using the open source infrastructure Tornado , from Facebook, for his real-time prototypes at the Times. EnjoysThings is still very small but the implications of adding real-time to this site could likely be incurred by sites of any size. 1. INCREASED TIME ON SITE "People leave it open all day long," Roden said of the sidebar. "Time-on-site has seen a huge increase. It's like when the new content comes in on the Facebook Live Feed, if you know it's about to pop in 5 seconds you'll stick around." There are a number of different factors that are making time-on-site an increasingly important metric on the web, compared to pageviews. Increased consumption of video is the best known, but as real-time streams of aggregated content become increasingly common, increased time-on-site will be an important measurement of how successful an implementation is. 2. DECREASED SERVER COSTS After implementing real-time infrastructure, Roden reports that "my site runs a lot more smoothly, I'll probably move the whole site to that technology because deep down it's much easier on the database for me." "I used to get hit by Stumbleupon and [the site] would start to crawl. Then I changed to some of this real time stuff and I've reduced the number of servers. Instead of the users sitting on the page and refreshing, I push it out to them. My EC2 bill has gone way down." Roden's experience compliments the story that Google's Brad Fitzpatrick told us about using PubSubHubbub push feeds to deliver shared items in Google Reader to FriendFeed. Changing from polling to real-time push cut traffic between the two sites by 85%. Likewise, magazine-style feed reader Feedly says that the part of its service that now consumes PubSubHubbub from Google Reader has seen a 72% reduction in bandwidth. ...(continued) To read the rest of this sample chapter, see the PDF download . You can also check out the Table of Contents and pre-order the full report at a discounted price of $200. Discuss

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Case Study: The Real-Time Web at the New York Times & EnjoysThings

Google has scheduled a press event for 10am PST this morning where the company plans to announce more details about its Linux-based Google Chrome OS . According to the information we received from Google, the company plans to launch Chrome OS next year. We don't expect Google to release an early build of Chrome OS today, but we would be more than happy to be wrong. We do, however, expect to hear more details about the OS and to see a demo of Chrome OS's functionality. Read on for our live updates from the event, which will start at 10am PST. Sponsor 9:55am: Ahead of the event, Google has already made the Chrome OS source code available . 10:00am : Still waiting for the event to begin. "Some of our attendees are unavoidably delayed in traffic." 10:05am: Event gets started. No beta, no devices today. But they will give a demo and focus on technical demo. 10:06am: Google Chrome has been open-sourced. 10:07am: Why did we do Chrome? We wanted to push the web forward. Over 40 million users. Focus on speed. Mostly on the JavaScript engine, but also on other parts of the browser. Updated Chrome over 20 times in the last year, but users don't notice this because it happens in the background. User experience should be seamless. Coming soon for Chrome: Chrome for Mac will be ready this year. Chrome for Linux is coming along "very well." Extensions are coming soon as well (with automatic updates). 10:10am: HTML5: we want web application to get more access to the hardware. Example: graphics; multiple threads; real-time communication 10:12am: 3 trends in the industry: netbooks, cloud (everything is a web application today), phones getting computing capabilities Phones are becoming more like laptops and laptops are becoming more like phones. Chrome OS 10:15am: Chrome OS will be focused on speed, simplicity, security. Every application on Chrome OS will be a web application. Simplicity: Chrome OS is just a browser - all your data is in the cloud. Users should be able to log into any Chrome OS machine and be up and running with their apps and data in seconds. Security: users don't install binaries on the OS. Keeps the system safe. Everything runs in the browser. 10:18am: Demo time. Booting up on laptop takes seconds. "Everybody knows how to use a browser and we want Chrome OS to feel that way. UI will still change until release. Application Tabs : just like tabs in Chrome, you will be able to set persistent tabs for apps (Gmail etc.). App menu on the top left to access apps as well (see first screenshot above). These apps will be little widgets that appear in a panel just like Google Chat in Gmail. 10:23am: As netbooks get better, we expect them to become entertainment devices. Shows chess game. Shows Google Books in full-screen mode. Chrome OS will feature multiple windows. You can drag and drop tabs from one window to another. Even the file browser is a Chrome tab. Shows what happens when you click on an excel file. Actually launches Windows Live Office apps to show them. "Every app you write for the web is a Google Chrome OS app." 10:29am: Every file opens up in the browser: PDF, Micorsoft Office, etc. Under the Hood 10:30am: Matthew Papakipos, Engineering Director for Google Chrome OS on stage now. "We want Chrome OS to feel more like a Television." Instant on - all flash memeory. How to make the boot-up faster? Right now, operating systems still spend a lot of time on unnecessary boot steps (looking for floppy drives etc.) 10:34am: Verified Boot: makes sure all the components are working and haven't been modified by malware. System automatically fixes itself and reimages the computer with the last working version - saves all system settings and cache data. Security : all apps are web apps. The OS does not trust any app. Other security steps: files system is licked down, every tab runs in a secure sandbox. There is only a small list of known programs (verified and signed). User data on a Chrome OS machine is ALWAYS encrytped. All the data is synced to the cloud (on the Google Drive?) - user partition on the machine is basically just a local cache. 10:41am: Back to Sundar Pichai, Vice President of Product Management. Going to market: Chrome OS - but also working with hardware manufacturers. Will only support flash drives - not traditional hard drives! Google will specify reference hardware (specific wifi cards etc.). Google wants netbooks with a full-size keyboard, larger resolution, better trackpad. Launch: wants devices to be out by next holiday season. Chrome OS Open Sourced Google wants to work with open source community. Will give all of its contributions back to the community. 10:45am: Showing marketing video. Q&A Question : What is the target group for a Chrome OS device? Will there be Chrome server solutions? Chrome as a server? Answer: First we want to get netbooks out - no servers - but this is a paradigm shift in computer. Other questions: time will tell. Question : Cost of Chrome OS netbooks?> Answer: We will see larger netbooks - no price point - no price target.Demo ran on Asus EEE PC. Question : How can manufacturers join the program? Answer: Documentation on website. Reaching out aggressively to hardware partners. For software developers: there will be a page that shows which devices are compatible already. Question : Will there be an app store? Will Google certify drivers from OEMs? What about applications to edit photos? Answer: App store: the web is our app store and we will work hard on making those discoverable. Drivers: working with hardware partners. Want devices to be build on reference devices and with open source drivers. Editing: some apps are not available on the web. Most people who will buy this machine will have another machine in their home. This is not meant to be a primary OS - just a "delightful experience to be on the Web." This is a companion device Question : What about video codecs? Answer: working on that. Trying to use hardware acceleration where possible. Everything that's available in Chrome will be available in Chrome OS - including the http://code.google.com/p/nativeclient/ technology. Sidenote : a lot of what you will see in Chrome OS will also flow back into the Chrome browser. Question : Silverlight support? Answer: No comment. Question : Plugins? Other browsers? Answer: code is available, but we won't support other browsers to run on Chrome OS. Question : Do you expect to see this just running on netbooks or other devices as well? Answer: more info about devices will come next year. Google is currently focused on delivering compelling devices: netbook-like form factors. Question : How big is the OS? Answer: nothing specific. Question : Offline access? Google Gears support? Answer: you can play media - but device mainly meant to run online but will make use of HTML5 local storage. Question : can you run it in a virtual machine? Answer: yes. Question : are you working with partners? Can Android apps run on Chrome OS? Answer: we focus on making web apps better - mission of Chrome is to push web apps forward. About Android apps: no. Question : will there be third-party apps? Answer: no - on phones you need native apps, but not on laptops. Question : Native Client needs Intel - will you still support ARM? Answer: we will support X86 and ARM - working on Native Client for ARM. Question : What's the business model? Advertising in the browser? Answer: Right now, we are focused on getting the OS and devices out. Chrome OS is free and open source. As people use the web more, it benefits Google. No specific real-estate in Chrome OS will be devoted to ads. Question : What does Chrome do that I couldn't do in Firefox with plugins? Answer: most of what we do is available in other browser. But not the application tabs etc. We are offering a fundamentally different model of computing (fast, simple, secure). In Chrome OS, Google can offer things others can't: fast boot, security. Question : How do you get people to trust the cloud? How do you assure people that their data is secure? Answer: most of what you are doing is already in the cloud - so problem is not specific to Chrome OS. Google thinks the cloud is just as secure as local storage. Users have a choice - always in control. Question : data syncing - will this be open or data just controlled by Google? Answer: none Sergey Brin drops in and joins the Q&A. Question : Support for Java? Answer: nothing to announce right now - hopefully we can do something interesting with this in the future. Question : What about instant-on OSes on Dell etc.? Does Google want to do this? Answer: No - we want to just be able to start super fast. A lean and mean netbook. Question : Will a Chrome OS machine be able to run printers? Other devices? Answer: we will support storage devices. Printers: we are taking an innovative approach and share more about that next year. Question : Open Source. Answer: we want to upstream what we do and help the community. Want to collaborate with Question: Real-time notifications. Answer (Sergey Brin): We need better real-time notifications in the browser. Chrome will use the W3C Notifications API. Question (for Sergey): How does Chrome OS fit into Google's strategy. Answer: we want users to be able to use netbooks easily. Make it easy to manage software on these devices. The web is the right platform for this. Trying to fulfull this need. Discuss

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Live Blog: The Google Chrome OS Press Event