![Google Experimenting With Browser Login For Chrome OS]( "Google Experimenting With Browser Login For Chrome OS")
Google has made a change to Chrome OS to move the user login from the machine to the browser. Our guess is Google is, or will eventually use, Google Friend Connect to facilitate login.
The feature was first mentioned on October 13: “Using Chrome as our login manager has a number of potential benefits.
Explore these tradeoffs and decide what to do about the login manager.” The code was checked in on December 14: “An early version of this change is finally in. It’s not ready for daily use yet, and we haven’t gotten the network picker on there or anything yet, but at least we’ve got a baseline in there. I’m filing issues for the follow-on work.”
There are lots of potential benefits to having users log into machines via the browser. In particular it makes syncing easier and furthers the notion that you can log into any Chrome OS machine and have exactly the same experience as you would on any other machine. The fact that users can’t download any software to Chrome OS computers furthers this experience.
But it’s also clearly interesting from an identity standpoint. Facebook and Twitter are both making strong plays as the defacto online identity for hundreds of millions of Internet users. Facebook Connect in particular is becoming a very popular way for third party sites to easily add identity and login features to apps (it’s what we use on our own CrunchBase).
But people using Chrome OS devices will be logging into the Internet first and foremost with a Google account, or via Friend Connect (which currently allows signin via Google, Twitter, Yahoo, AIM, Netlog, OpenID, etc.). By centralizing authentication once, Google can then use the same Friend Connect credentials to automatically login to sites that support it.
If Chrome OS becomes popular, it will be a very powerful weapon for Google to compete with Facebook Connect.
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Last night a bunch of us from TechCrunch went to see the midnight first showing of Avatar. Sure, we’re hosting a screening in San Francisco today at 4, but we just wanted to see it right then.
Verdict: Flawless. Epic. Awesome. I can’t wait to see it again in three hours.
We’re pleased to announce that all attendees will get a medium popcorn and medium soda free of charge, thanks to our four sponsors:
Building43 – A great resource for learning about how to leverage the web’s newest tools.
Mashery – A powerful API management service.
Kontera – Provider of in-text advertising generated based on the content around it.
SingleFeed – Helps retailers manage product listings on multiple shopping sites through one feed.
The tickets for the screening tonight are long gone, and we have a short waitlist (most of the waitlist should get in). But just for fun we’re giving away five last tickets. Want one? Just tell us a joke (we need a good laugh right now). Just type it in, link to a video, or whatever. Whoever is funniest gets the tickets. We’ll pick the winners at 2.
Here’s one of my favorite all time:
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Boondoggle, a Belgian interactive agency, has cooked up a deliciously useless product called TweetNotebook that basically lets you create a physical notebook that features a random set of your Twitter messages.
No joke.
Here’s how it works: you go to the website, enter any username (make sure the owner’s tweet aren’t protected) and let the app browse through the account owner’s 3200 latest tweets and automatically select some to populate the bottom sections of your notebook pages.
While you wait for the tweets to get selected, you can enter a custom message on the cover of your notebook (max. 140 characters, of course). Once the app is done selecting, you’ll get to preview your custom 320-page notebook, tweets included, before you order. You have three color choices: white and turquoise, black and turquoise or plain white.
The cost of the überpersonalized notebook is €12 (or $12), not including the shipping costs, which obviously differ from location to location.
I wish there was an option to select your tweets manually, or have them fetched from the Favstar.fm site, although that would create unwelcome copyright issues.
All in all, @TweetNotebook is a fun concept, which reminds me of Nick Douglas’ book Twitter Wit (which I enjoyed reading).
Now let’s see if they can get some traction on Twitter.
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The recently released e-book reader from Barnes & Noble, the Nook, has been rooted by the community of enthusiasts at nookdevs.com. The complete instructions for hacking the device and obtaining root access are detailed on the site. The Nook went on sale in late November and aims to compete with the dominant Amazon Kindle, a device which has spurred its own community of hackers and modifiers.
The Nook retails for $259, and is an Android-powered device with built in AT&T 3G service and WiFi, along with an e-ink screen that is found in most other readers. The instructions for rooting the device require that the device is opened up and that the SD card which stores the operating system be removed. The process seems a little too simple, almost as if the device was designed to be hacked. The storage is on a removable card, which can then be loaded in another machine where the process of acquiring root access to the operating system is carried out.
This will likely lead to DRM controls being bypassed, and a slew of homebrew projects being created based on the hardware – which might ironically help Barnes & Noble in its bid to unseat both the Kindle and Sony e-Reader.
Full detailed instructions and photographs are available on the site here. The entire process is straight forward and only takes around 30-45 minutes. I might actually order a Nook now.
Tip via Nenad Nikolic (@shonzilla)
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