Any business using Google Local Business Center can upload mobile coupon offers, and any user searching on Google.com using a mobile device can find the coupons on the businesses' Place Pages - a feature that also debuted relatively recently. Altogether, the direction the company is taking seems better for users and for local businesses, as well.

Product manager Alex Gawley wrote on the Google Mobile blog, "With more of you going mobile to search for this information, it makes sense for coupons to go mobile too... We hope you find these mobile coupons useful and that they help you save money, trees (fewer printed coupons), and your hands (from paper cuts) when you're on the go."

Place Pages for the desktop have also been revamped to ensure that mobile and printed coupons will share a common look and feel, regardless of the device, the OS, or the browser in which they originated.

It will be interesting to hear and read post-holiday metrics and success (or "opportunity for improvement") stories about these new mobile coupons. While we certainly hope the setup will allow users to quickly and conveniently engage with the world around them - and we likewise hope local retailers can reach out to customers wherever they are - we wonder how many quickly the coupons will take off and how much users will be inclined to use them.

Would you redeem a mobile coupon you found through Google search, and under what circumstances or conditions? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

We called Google Maps Navigation a killer feature for Android 2.0 when Google announced it's release last month. Currently, however, there are only a few Android 2.0 phones on the market, so it only makes sense for Google to release this app for older phones as well.

Just like the Android 2.0 version, Google Maps Navigation for Android 1.6 will include voice guidance, traffic data, satellite and Street View imagery. The app will also show geographical information courtesy of the Google Maps Layers feature the company introduced earlier this year.

But now that the news is out, has Chrome OS lost its shine? People had high expectations for Google's new operating system but the end result doesn't look like the revolutionary, "change the world" product many had hoped for.

Don't get us wrong - Google's OS is different than whatever Windows, Mac, or Linux build you have running on your computer today. The new OS does away with desktop applications entirely - everything you use on Google Chrome OS runs on the web. Of course, the company hopes you'll use a lot of Google products like Gmail and YouTube, but it doesn't limit you to just Google-branded services. In the built-in applications area, there are also links to other web apps like the online TV streaming service Hulu.com and music sites Lala and Pandora. To be fair, Chrome OS even links to Yahoo and Microsoft's webmail offerings right out of the box.

Google's major goal with Chrome OS is to moving computing off our personal hard drives and into the cloud...the Google cloud. To accomplish such a feat, they've made the web browser the OS. Everything you need (in theory) is accessible through the included Google Chrome browser, the same browser the company currently offers to Windows users with Mac and Linux versions expected by the end of this year.

As exciting as that vision is, we have to wonder if people - especially the mainstream netbook users the OS is aimed at - are ready for this big of a switch. And more importantly, is the technology itself ready to make the change a comfortable and seamless experience?

...but is it Better?

After digesting yesterday's news, some lingering questions remain. Was this the OS everyone was hoping for or has Google let us down?

You Can't Just Install Chrome OS - You Have to Buy a New Netbook

To begin with, one of the more surprising reveals that came out of yesterday's news is that the OS cannot be installed on your own computer. Oh sure, there are downloads available that use Google's open-sourced code to create bootable builds tech-savvy users and developers can play with, but the official word from the search giant is that anyone wanting to use the "real" Google Chrome OS will have to purchase a new netbook to do so. You cannot simply download it from the web and install it on any machine.

Part of the reason for this restriction is driver support. Google is working with carefully selected manufacturers to offer a handful of netbooks running the OS in the coming year. By going this route, they don't have to provide an entire ecosystem of drivers for every piece of hardware out there - they can pick and choose which ones to support. They'll likely limit the number of peripherals supported, too. According to what was said yesterday, the company will support "mass storage devices" (think USB flash drives and digital cameras) but were cagey on how they plan on offering printing support. All they would say is that they're planning on an "innovative approach" when it comes to printing, whatever that means. Hopefully, they're planning to do something more than just integrating with Kinko's and FedEx's online document services, for example. Printing, (sorry Google) is not a web app just yet.

No Other Web Browsers Supported

Another big disappointment is the company's decision to limit all web surfing to the one included browser, Google Chrome. Firefox and Safari users are out of luck - no other browsers will be supported. But before you cry out "antitrust!," be warned - Google has this covered. The code base used to build the OS is open-source - that means anyone take the code and create their own version of Chrome OS. As was carefully - and haltingly - explained by Google's VP of Product Management, Sundar Pichai, other browser makers can take the code and build their own OS if they want to. But let's get real - Firefox Chrome OS? We don't think so. The reality is that fans of other browsers are simply out of luck if they want to use this operating system.

Offline Access is Limited. Your New Netbook is Now a Brick.

One of the questions that got glossed over during the Q&A session at the end of the event is how Google's OS plans to deal with offline access. The world is not blanketed in Wi-Fi yet, so what can this web-based OS do without the web? Surprisingly, the answer given didn't refer to any subsidized deals with cellular providers regarding deals to offer built-in 3G connectivity for the new netbooks. Instead, Pichai explained that the OS was built for use with Wi-Fi.

Of course, a handful of Google products use Google Gears, a technology that makes websites available offline. For example, Gmail uses Gears to create an offline version of your webmail inbox which you can use to read and respond to email until internet connectivity becomes available again. At that point, all the changes are synced back to Google's servers. Although Google didn't specifically refer to Gears when answering the question, there's no reason to doubt that it will work in Chrome OS's web browser the same as it does now in the standard Chrome browser.

However, Pichai did make note of Chrome OS's support for HTML5, an upcoming revision to the core markup language used to build the web. In the new specification, a key feature is offline support for web apps. However, web application developers will have to rebuild their apps in order to use HTML5, so users will be dependent on each individual company to make this change. While it's believed that one day this spec could make the whole web an offline app, the reality is that most developers have yet to implement this technology in their services yet. Even by Chrome OS's launch next year, there's no reason to believe the landscape will have changed significantly by then.

Do You Really Need an OS or Just the Chrome Web Browser?

Finally, the big question regarding Chrome OS is why? What can the OS do that any operating system running the Chrome browser cannot? Based on what was shown yesterday, the answer is very little. Chrome OS's brand-new features consist of two things: application tabs and panels. The panels are persistent windows that pop-up in front of your web browser's main window. For example, Google Chat, the company's IM service, can live in a panel that stays on top no matter what window you're viewing.

Application tabs, meanwhile, are special tabs that give you easy access to your most frequently used web apps from the browser. Any page tab can be made into an application tab with one click and the resulting "tab" is represented with the colorful icon for that site or service. While that's certainly a cool feature, it alone isn't a major selling point for the OS. That would be like saying you have to buy Mac OS X because of the dock or Windows because of the taskbar. You need a million of these little features combined to add up to a compelling reason to buy an OS.

That's not to say that Chrome OS itself doesn't have worthwhile features of its own - like its built-in security mechanisms or its auto-update system, it's just that these aren't the kinds of things that sell it to an end user. The questions consumers want answers to are what does it do that's special? What does it look like? And for now, the answer is "it's basically just a web browser."

Revolution? Maybe Not Just Yet.

At the end of the day, Chrome OS is an exciting, but not fully realized, vision. Although it has potential, the world may not be ready for a web-based netbook right now. Also, the technology needed to make the Wi-Fi only netbook useful without an internet connection isn't up to full speed either. At the end of the day, the netbook will be marginally more useful than an iPod Touch - when connected, it's amazing. Offline, not so much.

While you might not rush right out to buy a Chrome OS netbook when they first launch, there could come a time - sooner than you think - when it becomes a reasonable choice. When the majority of apps work offline and you've fully transitioned away from desktop apps, a web-connected netbook, especially one that's affordable, could easily become your everyday computer. That day hasn't arrived yet. For now, Chrome OS is an exciting glimpse at the future of computing, but not a practical device for the majority of users.

Disclosure: Sarah Perez freelances for Microsoft's Channel 10 blog, but is not a Microsoft employee. Her primary web browser is, in fact, Google Chrome which she uses exclusively.

Read on for our live updates from the event, which will start at 10:00 am PST.

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. It has 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 didn'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: Three 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 continue to change until release.

Application tabs: just like tabs in Chrome, you will be able to set persistent tabs for apps (Gmail, etc.).

App menu in 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 in the browser: PDF, Microsoft 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 memory.

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 re-images 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 encrypted.

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 Wi-Fi cards, etc.).

Google wants netbooks to have full-size keyboard, larger resolution, better trackpad.

Launch: Google 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: Shows 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 is 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 to make those discoverable. Drivers: working with hardware partners. Want devices to be built 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 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 running only 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 is mainly meant to run online, though it 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 can't do in Firefox with plugins?

Answer: most of what we do is available in other browsers. 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 and are always in control.

Question: data syncing: will this be open or will data be controlled only 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 OS'es in Dell machines, etc.? Does Google want to do this?

Answer: No - we just want it to start up 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 will share more about that next year.

Question: Open Source.

Answer: we want to upstream what we do and help the community.

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, and make it easy to manage software on these devices. The Web is the right platform for this. We're trying to fulfill this need.

For now, Image Swirl only works for about 200,000 queries, though Google plans to include more in the near future.

Better Photo Search Through Smarter Algorithms

This new feature takes image search to a new level, as it doesn't just display the most relevant images. Instead, Google notes, these "are the most relevant groups of images." To create these clusters of related images, Google analyzes the characteristics of the images themselves, but the algorithm also looks at meta tags and other clues in the description of these images. Google uses the same algorithms to find and organize images of landmarks in its index.

In an interview with eWeek, Google Image Swirl Product Manager Aparna Chennapragada said that this new service is part of Google's drive to "go beyond just relying on text." Bing introduced its visual search feature a few weeks ago and is still ahead of Google in bringing these features to its core search product.

Image Swirl makes looking for images on Google a far more interactive and fun experience. For now, Image Swirl is only a labs product - and some of the results can be a bit off at times - but chances are that this feature will find its way into the search options panel on Google Images in the future.

As Google points out in the announcement, finding these legal opinions has typically been difficult. Now, the company makes it very easy to find any legal opinion about Napster, for example. Google notes that it hopes that access to this information will allow regular citizens to "learn more about the laws that govern us all."

It's interesting to see that Google continues to add more and more public data to its repositories. Just last week, Google added data from the World Bank to its search results. Earlier this year, Google also started to include data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau's Population Division. Google didn't go as far as integrating these legal opinions on its search results page yet - though for searches for Roe v. Wade or Miranda v. Arizona, these results could really enhance the current search results.

One great feature of this release is the fact that users can track their travels via a GPS device and save the results as a KML file to be viewed in the application at a later time. The example given is a look at the route taken to climb a mountain; however, the same tool can be used to track marathons, sailing regatas, road trips and basic travel. For information on how to convert GPS data into Google Earth, users can visit Google's KML Support Section. If you haven't already downloaded the application, you can do so here.

But did the message get through to potential phone buyers? It appears that it did...at least according to mobile analytics firm Flurry. In their latest report, the company found that the Droid is now the fastest-selling Android phone to date, beating the sales of the myTouch 3G by more than four times.

Flurry's analytics service monitors over 10,000 mobile applications on both the iPhone and Android, or approximately two out of every three iPhone and Android handsets on the market. While obviously this isn't a look at the mobile ecosystem as a whole, it's a big enough slice to form some initial conclusions about the popularity of the latest mobile device to run Android, Google's mobile operating system.

By monitoring the new Android devices on Flurry's system, the company estimated the first-week sales for the Droid handsets as compared with both the myTouch 3G and Apple's iPhone 3GS. Although the iPhone still outsold the Droid within its first week, Flurry notes that the iPhone simultaneously launched in 8 countries worldwide while the Droid only launched in the U.S.

It's also important to note that the iPhone 3GS was just the latest model of the iPhone to arrive on the market, it is not the original device. Prior to the 3GS, the iPhone had two previous versions, the second which finally allowed for 3G cellular access and GPS capabilities. This update made the iPhone 3G a hugely popular upgrade and the company sold 1 million or so units on their opening weekend. Comparing the third generation iPhone to the first version of the Droid isn't a true "apples to apples" comparison, but on the other hand, the comparison of the T-Mobile myTouch 3G and the Droid is.

According to Flurry, Droid is dramatically outselling the myTouch 3G based on first week sales. That may say something about the quality of the Droid's hardware, the impact of a good marketing campaign or perhaps even people's frustrations with the iPhone's limitations. Or maybe a little of each. Then again, Verizon has nearly triple the number of subscribers as T-Mobile, so they already have a head start.

The Growing Power of Android

In the end, while we can't take any of these numbers to the bank, what we can learn is that the Android OS is making serious headway in the smartphone market. Although no one Android phone on its own may beat the iPhone, as more and more "worthy competitors" launch on numerous hardware platforms, the Android OS's install base may eventually catch up to that of the iPhone's. 

In any event, that's what Google believes. In a recent earnings call, Google CEO Eric Schmidt proclaimed that "Android adoption is about to explode," citing 12 Android phones on 32 carriers in 26 countries. Research firm Gartner predicts that the Android OS may end up ranking second worldwide by 2012. However, if more of the Android launches prove to be as successful as it appears the Droid's may be, Android may move up the charts even faster than predicted. Of course, who ends up on top all depends on Apple's next move. If the company decides to launch their phone on more carriers, all bets are off. If that's the case, Apple's market share could double, says Morgan Stanley's Kathryn Huberty. But that doesn't necessarily mean that Android would be left far behind. "Android is "backed by the power of Google's search engine," said Huberty. "Google's other up-and-coming consumer and enterprise products should make [Android] a dominant platform."

How to See these Stats

Getting to this data isn't easy, though. First of all, you have to use AdSense for feed or FeedBurner to track this data. Then, in Google Analytics, you have to go to Traffic Sources and click on All Traffic Sources. After this, you still have to filter your traffic by entering 'feedburner' in the search box at the bottom of the page. In the Campaigns view you can also filter stats by 'feedburner.'

In today's announcement, Google explains how to customize the way FeedBurner tags clicks it sends to Google Analytics. Google plans to create more endpoints for FeedBurner data in the near future.

More to Come

FeedBurner users will be happy to hear that Google plans to release more features in FeedBurner that will take advantage of this new functionality in the coming weeks. FeedBurner had been lying dormant for quite a while. Today's announcement hopefully signals the end of this stage in FeedBurner's development.

In today's announcement, Google stresses that SPDY is not a replacement for HTTP. It uses HTTP methods and headers, but it overrides the parts of the protocol that manage connections and data transfer formats.

Google will soon release its open-source SPDY-enabled Web server. The source code for the SPDY-enabled version of Chrome can be found here.

Creating a Faster and More Secure Web

According to the SPDY white paper, the project's goals are to reduce page load times by 50%, minimize deployment complexity and avoid the need for website owners to make any changes to their sites to implement SPDY. Instead, all the hard work will happen in the client and the Web server.

The team also wants SPDY to allow many concurrent HTTP requests to run across one TCP session and to make SSL the standard transport protocol.

Google clearly has an interest in making the Web experience as fast and secure as possible for its users. One of the reasons Google released its own browser was to get every other browser developer to focus on speed again. SPDY is even more ambitious. With SPDY, Google wants to change one of the most fundamental protocols on the Internet.

According to Google, these are the basic improvement of SPDY over HTTP:

• Multiplexed requests. There is no limit to the number of requests that can be issued concurrently over a single SPDY connection.  Because requests are interleaved on a single channel, the efficiency of TCP is much higher.
• Prioritized requests. Clients can request certain resources to be delivered first.  This avoids the problem of congesting the network channel with non-critical resources when a high-priority request is pending.
• Compressed headers.  Clients today send a significant amount of redundant data in the form of HTTP headers.  Because a single Web page may require 50 or 100 subrequests, this data is significant. Compressing the headers saves a significant amount of latency and bandwidth compared to HTTP.

While some early testers of the Waveboard app complained that it didn't do anything more than what the iPhone optimized website already offered, the next release of Waveboard may have those naysayers changing their mind. Waveboard 2.0 has a few new features, but the one that will grab everyone's attention is its ability to offer "push" notifications on the iPhone.

Quick Inbox

One of the new features of Waveboard 2.0 is something called the "Quick Inbox" view. Since Google Wave loads a little slowly on the iPhone - something developer Dirk Holtwick says is out of his hands - he's come up with a workaround for a speedier launch. The new "quick inbox" feature offers a fast-loading overview that displays the waves that have changed, as you can see in the following video:

Push Notifications

Even more exciting, perhaps, is the push notifications feature. In addition to displaying a badge on the app's icon showing the number of new waves, the push notifications feature will tap into the iPhone's ability to display pop-up alerts on your device. As new text is entered into a wave, the iPhone will display the additional text in a push notification message:

Of course, depending on the number of waves you're involved in and how heavily they're used, this feature could easily become an annoyance. Unfortunately, Google offers few control mechanisms for managing the waves you belong to at the moment - something that could lead to serious information overload for Wave users. For example, anyone can add you to a wave - even without your permission. This can lead to an inbox crowded with waves that you don't really care about following. For some, this feature is a key selling point for Wave, but for others it's just a chaos-inducing mess. That may change in future, though, when Google implements the "whitelisting" feature, which will allow users to create an approved list of fellow wavers, and only people on that list will be able to contact you.

There's no word yet on if or how you'll be able to manage the new push notifications feature in the app's settings. If there were configuration options that let you exclude some waves (like public ones, for example), then it would be even more useful.

In any event, the app will now have some value-added features that make it worth the $0.99. Stay tuned to the GetWaveboard blog in the coming days for more details on the new features and how they work.

But a new discovery in the Google Chrome OS browser code base points to a "mount library" that monitors devices inserted in the computer. Would Chrome OS be able to see your iPod? Your camera? And what would it do then?

Thanks to some serious sleuthing on the part of the DownloadSquad blog, a site that often scours through Chrome OS code to uncover hidden gems, we've learned that the new operating system will monitor for new devices attached to your system. As Sebastian Anthony points out in the blog post, the Chrome Web browser can already access your local file system (e.g. Windows users can just type C:\ in the address field to see a list of files), so this new feature would simply extend the browser's current functionality. Anthony then speculates that in Chrome OS you may be able to launch a new tab in the browser to see a real-time view of "My Computer," complete with attached devices and the files they contain. Or perhaps a new window would pop up showing you the drive you've just inserted into the netbook's USB slot.

That would certainly be an unusual trick for a Web browser to handle; navigating your local file system is a task usually left to file explorer programs like Windows Explorer and Mac OS' Finder. But because the interface for Chrome OS is the Web browser, it appears that the browser will have to step in and do the OS' job in this case.

If Chrome OS' Browser Can See Your Drives, What Could You Do With Your Files?

More importantly, what does this mean for the end user? If the browser can "see" your attached devices and the files they contain, how would they then display them to you? If you plug in a USB flash drive containing spreadsheets and text documents, would Chrome OS launch Google Docs to display them? Or would it allow you to preview them in HTML, as is possible in Gmail? Or both?

And what about when you plug in a digital camera? Would Chrome OS prompt you to import your photos to Picasa? Your videos to YouTube?

If so, Chrome OS would overcome one of the perceived stumbling blocks of being a cloud-based operating system - the need for the computer's hard drive to act as the middleman when it comes to importing external content hosted on other drives and getting it posted to the Web.

Wait a Minute... Didn't We Already Decide This Was a Bad Idea?

As exciting as that sounds, a commenter on the blog post points out that a browser that acts like this could mean serious security issues for the new operating system. Would a malicious Web page be able to tap into this feature to wreak havoc on your system? We know that Google has said that security is one of the key aspects of the OS, but we also know that hackers are extremely crafty as well. No matter how good the security measures Google puts in place to limit this sort of access, nothing would provide 100% protection. And isn't this the same sort of functionality that Microsoft ditched in Internet Explorer years ago with the launch of IE7 due to these very same security concerns?

What do you think about this new feature? Is it a great feature for the Web browser or a security hole just waiting to be exploited? Let us know in the comments.

Earlier this year, Google also added data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau's Population Division to its search results page. The queries that Google showcases in today's blog post (gdp of a country, internet users in the US or energy use in Iceland) are exactly the kind of queries where Wolfram Alpha excels. Currently, Bing doesn't display this kind of data from Wolfram Alpha and just focuses on math and nutrition, but a deeper integration between the two is just a matter of time.

Wolfram Alpha uses curated data sets - just like the World Bank or Census Bureau data - to compute its results. Google's current use of this data is less ambitious. Google wants to make public data more accessible - Wolfram Alpha wants to be a 'computational knowledge engine' that can manipulate these data sets.

Google Wants Your Public Data

One interesting aspect of today's blog post is that Google points out that there are "still many other data sets and sources out there, and we're excited about the possibilities for the future." Google also asks data publishers who are interested in making their data discoverable in Google to contact the company.

In the current implementation, Google can display results for the following types of questions:

CO2 emissions per capita, Electricity consumption per capita, Energy use per capita, Exports as percentage of GDP, Fertility rate, GDP deflator change, GDP growth rate, GNI per capita in PPP dollars, Gross Domestic Product, Gross National Income in PPP dollars, Imports as percentage of GDP, Internet users as percentage of population, Life expectancy, Military expenditure as percentage of GDP, Mortality rate, under 5, Population, and Population growth rate.

However, the system still only works with Gmail and the photo-sharing service Picasa. There's no mention of it expanding to encompass other Google services like Google Docs, for example. And there's definitely no mention of the seemingly mythical GDrive, the long-rumored online storage system supposedly under development which would allow for the upload of any file type for safe storage in the cloud. We're beginning to wonder: will Google ever offer us a real cloud storage solution?

Over on The Next Web, blogger Alex Wilhelm thinks the increased storage space hints at Google's future plans with their upcoming netbook operating system, Google Chrome OS. We have to admit, the same thought occurred to us as well. After all, netbooks don't typically have the same hard disk space as their larger, less totable counterparts. However, that's not always the case these days given the new middle-of-the-road offerings like the HP Mini 311, for example, which falls somewhere between an ultra-portable netbook and full-sized notebook with its 350 GB hard drive option.

But Alex has a point: by providing this type of cloud storage solution, netbooks can remain basic machines which are smaller and cost less. That would pave the way for the Google Chrome OS line of netbooks to be even more affordable devices than what's on the market today since they wouldn't need to come equipped with large hard drives.

Obviously, an OS-integrated cloud storage system of this nature would be a natural fit for Google's cloud operating system designed specifically for netbooks. And yet, it still seems to be an incomplete offering at this time.

But Still So Limited!

As much as we want to believe that the new changes are a sign of Google's plans for Chrome OS, it's just as possible that they're nothing more than the great discounts they appear to be. There's nothing all that new being introduced here - just better rates and more available space.

Sadly, the core storage offering itself is unchanged. It's still very limited, only encompassing Gmail and Picasa photos. What about the rest of our files - like the ones stored in Google Docs? What about our music and movie collections? What about the hundred or so of home videos we can't bear to delete from our hard drives? Google has no centralized solution for any of this yet. And many are beginning to wonder if they ever will.

In the tech community, there have been rumors about an all-encompassing online storage service called GDrive for years on end now, and yet, nothing has ever come of it. According to speculation (and wishful thinking), the supposed system would allow for the upload of all types of files and would tie together all of Google's services.

In our imaginations, we envision a dashboard that links us to our online Google Docs, our photos, our Gmail, our Google Sites, and our multimedia content. The GDrive of our dreams would be accessible from any computer, keeping in sync all our user data, preferences, and settings. You can see a hint of how this sync could work with the way the Google Chrome web browser stores your favorites. Your bookmarked sites are now available in the browser no matter what PC you use while a backup copy sits in Google Docs. GDrive should do the same, but not just for web browser favorites - for everything. That would be the final step for making a cloud OS a reality.

It's almost strange at this point that Google hasn't released something of the sort yet. In fact, they've let Microsoft beat them to the punch in this instance courtesy of Microsoft's SkyDrive service which launched back in early 2008. SkyDrive offers a free 25 GB of online storage for your files and also serves as the central repository for Windows Live Photos as well as the documents created via the new Office Web Applications service, Microsoft's challenge to Google Docs. But where's Google's answer to this? When will it come? Will it ever?

Perhaps the company is waiting for the release of Google Chrome OS to dazzle us with some sort of revamped interface for a game-changing cloud computing operating system. Or perhaps the company is just doing what it does best: offering solutions that are simply good enough.

Today, Google has announced a new feature of Maps that will allow users to find flu vaccines near them. In partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the American Lung Associaltion, and Flu.gov, Google Maps is now helping users search for seasonal flu vaccination locations, H1N1 flu shots, or both together.

Now, Google has gathered information about locations of flu vaccine shots from 20 states in the U.S. Google is also collecting information from chain pharmacies and other vaccine providers in all 50 states. Currently, users can find vaccine shots available from retail chains such as Walgreen's, CVS, Kmart, and WinnDixie.

The application gives vaccine location hours, when available, and even lets users know when vaccine supplies have run out at a particular location. All in all, it's a useful tool for quickly and simply finding the nearest place to get a flu shot.

For more information on how Flu Trends works, check out this video from Google.org: