Not to get your hopes up, but a recent update to the Google Chrome Privacy Policy makes us wonder. A few days ago, the first two opening paragraphs of the Chrome Privacy Policy were revised. The old and new versions are provided below with bold indicating the changes:

OLD:

The Privacy Policy below applies only to Google Chrome for Windows. For the Developer channel releases on other platforms see the privacy policies for Mac OS X and Linux . The Google Privacy Policy describes how we treat personal information when you use Google's products and services, including information provided when you use Google Chrome. In addition, the following describes our privacy practices that are specific to Google Chrome. Google will notify you of any material changes to this policy, and you will always have the option to use the browser in a way that does not send any personal information to Google or to discontinue using it.

Information Google receives when you use Google Chrome

You do not need to provide any personally identifying information in order to download and use Google Chrome. When you download Google Chrome or use it to contact Google's servers, Google receives only standard log information including your machine's IP address and one or more cookies. You can configure Google Chrome to not send cookies to Google or other sites as explained here.

NEW:

The Google Privacy Policy describes how we treat personal information when you use Google's products and services, including information provided when you use Google Chrome. In addition, the following describes our privacy practices that are specific to Google Chrome. Google will notify you of any material changes to this policy, and you will always have the option to use the browser in a way that does not send any personal information to Google or to discontinue using it.

Information Google receives when you use Google Chrome

You do not need to provide any personally identifying information in order to download and use Google Chrome. When you download Google Chrome or use it to contact Google's servers, Google receives only standard log information including your machine's IP address and one or more cookies. On Google Chrome for Windows, You can configure Google Chrome to not send cookies to Google or other sites as explained here. Google Chrome for Mac and Google Chrome for Linux currently do not allow this level of configuration.

What Do You Think?

Maybe we're grasping at straws here, after all, the change could be referring to the developer builds of the browser and they're simply cleaning up the language for simplification. Still, that would be odd considering that they removed the reference to the developer builds' privacy policy, wouldn't it? Or then again, maybe Google is just consolidating the privacy policies for both the developer and public builds. A third option is that Google could be getting a little of the administrative work out of the way before they make the Mac and Linux builds public.

Testers have been reporting that the developer builds have been seeing steady improvement and the Chromium builds (the open source project that serves as the testing ground for Google Chrome) have been shaping up on a daily basis, too. Maybe a public version of Chrome for Linux and Mac is almost here? We can only hope.

1. Jolicloud

The netbook OS getting the most buzz today is one that doesn't scream "I'm a Linux distro!" Instead, Jolicloud's internet OS provides easy access to all your favorite applications whether those are online apps like Gmail and Facebook or desktop apps like Skype and Boxee. A bar at the top tracks all the applications you're currently running for easy switching between them. However, the most unique element to this netbook OS is the social component which lets you "subscribe" to other Jolicloud users so you can see what applications they've installed and vice versa. Jolicloud is still in private alpha, but those who signed up to try it are starting to receive their invites now. You can request one too from the Jolicloud home page.

2. gOS's Cloud 1.0

Most people remember gOS as the distro that tried and failed to make it big by way of a deal with Walmart. The company was the pre-installed OS for the low-end Everex machines sold at the American superstore. But that failure shouldn't count gOS out of the running just yet. For one thing, the Everex machines were boring, cheap desktop computers sold without monitors. Plus, the Walmart shoppers...well...let's just say they probably didn't know what they were getting into. While the original gOS is still available for download today, we're more intrigued by the company's upcoming Cloud 1.0, an OS optimized for notebooks. This new version boots straight to a web browser (one that looks just like Google Chrome, in fact). Cloud is supposed to go into private beta this year. You can sign up here to be one of the first to try it.

3. Moblin 2.0

Moblin 2.0 is a netbook OS which is publicly available right now. Designed for Intel Atom-based netbooks, this Linux distro focuses on aggregating your social networking activity and media content. A dynamic start page called the "Myzone" is the centralized area where you can get instant access to files, tasks, your calendar, updates from your social networks, and more. Unfortunately though, when it comes to social networks, only Twitter and Last.fm are supported at this time. If you're not sure if Moblin is right for you, there's a "test drive" available as a downloadable live image. Once you're ready to install it for good, you can grab the full download.

4. Ubuntu Netbook Remix

The Ubuntu Netbook Remix is a netbook-friendly version of one of the most popular Linux distros, Ubuntu. This OS features a customizable Ubuntu Mobile Edition (UME) Launcher which basically serves to replace the desktop for easy access to applications and system settings. Categories on the left display related icons when clicked and a "Favorites" category lets you store your most frequently used applications for quick launching. Remix also offers a unique window switcher which lets you move between programs similar to how you switch between tabs in your web browser. This version of Linux is available for download now from here.

5. Google Chrome OS?

We can't help but put Google Chrome OS on this list. Although the OS isn't actually a product yet, only an announcement, we're incredibly excited to see what Google comes up with for their first real launch into the OS market (Android notwithstanding). All we really know about this Linux distro is that Google aims to build a real "cloud OS" where web applications run in the company's Chrome web browser. We also know that their goals include a fast boot time to get you on the web quickly and an OS which is safe from malware and viruses. But what we don't know about Chrome OS could fill a room. According to Google, this OS will make its debut in the second half of 2010. We're not sure if we can stand the wait.

For now, the code has not yet been submitted to the Linux kernel and the community will most definitely look at it with a fine tooth comb. The Linux community's backlash against Microsoft is somewhat justified. In 2001, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer spoke to the Chicago Sun-Times and likened Linux to a cancer. He said, "Open source is not available to commercial companies. The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source... Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works."

Nevertheless, whether for legal purposes or business purposes, it appears that Microsoft is wholly ready to release the isolated device driver code to the open source community. The code would directly benefit the company in expanding Microsoft's market share amongst administrators running Linux.

The granddaddy of Linux, Linus Torvalds has not yet looked at the code; however he made the statement to Linux Magazine, "We all "scratch our own itches". It's why I started Linux, it's why I started git, and it's why I am still involved...Complaining about the fact that Microsoft picked a selfish area to work on is just silly. Of course they picked an area that helps them. That's the point of open source - the ability to make the code better for your particular needs, whoever the 'your' in question happens to be."

UPDATE: In response to Stephen Hemminger's accusations, Microsoft spokesperson Sam Ramji made the following statement to Port 25, "Microsoft's decision was not based on any perceived obligations tied to the GPLv2 license. For business reasons and for customers, we determined it was beneficial to release the drivers to the kernel community under the GPLv2 license through a process that involved working closely with Greg Kroah-Hartman, who helped us understand the community norms and licensing options surrounding the drivers." Too see the full statement, visit Port 25.

In reality, open-source software provides stable solutions, created by people and for people and used by companies of all sizes. Use Firefox? That's open-source software. Google Chrome? It too is based on an open-source code. Ever look up a term on Wikipedia? The site is completely built on user-generated code and content. "In fact," says Allison Randal, Program Chair of OSCON, "chances are you're using a lot more open-source software than you know: on your computer or powering you favorite websites."

Author: Ravit Lichtenberg is the founder and chief strategist at Ustrategy.com -- a boutique consultancy focusing on helping companies succeed. Ravit works with CEOs, marketing groups, and social media managers to craft customer-centric engagement strategies that result in higher customer value, stronger customer community, improved monetization, and higher profitability. Ravit authors a blog at www.ravitlichtenberg.com.

What Is Open Source?

"The ideas behind open source are about freedom," continues Randal, "that people should have certain basic rights in the software that they use, the same as every other part of life. It's about people's rights to create things they're passionate about."

Mozilla's founders, who spawned Firefox, walked away from the ashes of Netscape with a desire to change the Web browsing experience. Drupal and Joomla are content management systems that enable unlimited options in website building and publishing. Remember how difficult it used to be to build your own website? Now building one is free, open to all, flexible, and extendable: anyone with a passion or idea can build for it, and numerous companies are taking Drupal and Joomla and building easy-to-use website templates that anyone can use, no programming needed. Don't want to pay for Microsoft Office? You can use OpenOffice for free -- it will serve most of your needs.

In essence, these projects, developers, and organizations address mature, business-critical issues in better, faster ways. This form of crowd-sourcing enables businesses to use solutions that would otherwise have required a lot more time and/or people to develop at a much higher total cost.

Open Source Is Evolving

You may have heard the phrase, "Open Source is free as in speech, not as in beer." This phrase refers to the notion that while everyone can freely start and contribute to any project, the actual use of open source solutions may still come with a price tag -- often for services and additional product layers that a company bundles with the open code. But for corporations that already spend millions of dollars just to keep the lights on, investing in open source increasingly makes better business sense. For the CIOs and CTOs of these companies, it's not about the price tag of each solution but rather about the total cost of ownership over time, especially in a downturn economy.

In a study conducted by Gartner and reported by Matt Asay at CNET, CIOs reported they have increased investment in open-source software and decreased investment in proprietary software. CIOs reported that by investing in open source they were able to do the following:

• Reduce costs by 87% (while meeting or exceeding expectations),
• Improve quality by 92%,
• Ease integration and customization by 86%,
• Quicken pace of innovation by 82%,
• Improve support by 84%,
• Increase standards compliance by 91%,
• Decrease time to market by 82%.

Michael Fauscette, Group Vice-President of Software Business Solutions at IDC, recently highlighted changes in the adoption of open source. IDC found that as recently as 2007, CIOs were reluctant to adopt social media software for fear of IP infringement and poor support: two mission-critical elements of any enterprise. By 2008, says Fauscette, CIOs reported that they preferred open-source software precisely because of the quality of support it comes with. And as for their fear of IP infringement, that was no longer at the top of the list because of standards and self-policing.

Open source doesn't only serve IT companies, though. It is now being explored for government and health care data management and access. Open-source software, in other words, has moved from the basements of Linkin Park fans to the desks of the largest corporations in the US.

Sound familiar? The evolution of open source may sound a bit like the evolution of another web-related phenomenon, what has become known as Web 2.0 social media and social networking. Like open-source software, social media is about the basic human right to communicate, organize, and maintain control of one's own experiences. And both address the needs of companies to do more at higher quality with less money. Both social media and open-source software involve communities and are fed by content: code in the case of open source, and media content in the case of social media.

But unlike open source, social media has thus far primarily been a consumer play and is only now being explored by enterprises. Living on the Web, social media is also hardware and distribution-channel agnostic: it does not require pre-installation and does not compete with pre-bundled proprietary products. Historically, open source, being hardware dependent, has had greater distribution challenges: unless the software came pre-loaded on your hardware, notes Fauscette, you would rarely seek out alternatives to replace what you already have. Without a channel for hardware, distribution was driven primarily by hard-core tech enthusiasts.

Seeds of Change

Companies that erected insurmountable barriers to protect their source code now realize that the cost of innovation and competition may be just too much compared to that of their competitors that use open-source software. Take Google's Android, an iPhone competitor built on the open-source platform Linux. Android started off as closed-source software but very quickly became an open-source project. Developers can now build applications on top of Android's platform and then use the code for their own Android-like products, just as developers use Firefox code to build their own browsers.

2008 saw another significant milestone: the establishment of the Symbian Foundation to oversee the development of the Symbian operating system as an open-source platform, licensed under the Eclipse Public License (EPL). The Foundation's members include Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, NTT DoCoMo, Texas Instruments, Vodafone, Samsung, LG, and AT&T. With this development, a once highly protected closed-source cell-phone operating system has opened up.

Caleb Sima, Chief Technologist at Hewlett-Packard, calls this "a clear move on Nokia's part to try to catch up to the competition by using open source and the community to help evolve its features to those of smartphones." Companies are now realizing that open-source software is a competitive advantage.

What Open Source Means to Social Media

Open source is the natural platform for fast-evolving social media and social networking. Forget about having to scale the walled gardens of social networks or having to upload, download, and link together multiple applications. With open source, everything is seamless and transparent. Picture a huge festive dinner table, set with dozens of mouth-watering dishes for you and your guests to pick from. You can heap whatever you like on your plate or, better yet, just dab your bread into whatever dish your please, all while seeing what others are putting on their plate and seeing whether they're using a fork or a spoon and hearing the conversation around the table.

But with all of these capabilities and openness, people will face new challenges on the Web. One big challenge will be to make the Web more personal and make it possible to simulate live interaction. One of the most promising companies to address this is Kaltura, maker of the only open-source online video management platform, with a free community platform, now used on over 35,000 websites and soon to be integrated into Wikipedia for user co-creation of rich media content. (Disclaimer: Kaltura is one of my client companies.)

"Extensions like Kaltura make the Web real," says Fauscette. "Video is in fact one of the big things we'll see. This is an opportunity space, and first-mover advantage will be big." For Fauscette, trust is a major sticking point: with the proliferation of networks, friends, followers, and brands online, helping people figure out who and what to trust will be key to making the Web personal.

Whoever tries to control people's relationships will lose. Whoever enables people to create and share experiences that are relevant to them across any website, with anyone, the way they want will win. And open source will create many more winners than losers.

More About Open Source

OSCON is celebrating its 10th year anniversary this coming week in a four-day conference in San Jose, California. In addition to the usual technical tracks, OSCON has added people and business tracks and many free events. You can register for a free pass to the expo hall (yes, free as in beer) and attend the "Birds of a Feather" un-conference, Ignite party, Hackathon, and much more (all free). Check out the list of events.

Great resources online include Open Source Initiative Open Government, Open Data Initiatives, SourceForge (where you can find a list of ongoing projects and downloads), Open Video Alliance, and the excellent short and sweet write-ups by open-source experts such as CNET's Matt Asay.

Oh, and there's always Wikipedia (where smiles are always open).

In order to make an iPod work with an alternative software program - like gtkpod, Winamp, and Songbird, for example - developers need to understand a file called iTunesDB. To prevent people from writing to this file, Apple protects it with a checksum hash which has to be reverse-engineered. Usually that process only takes a couple of days.

With the latest iTunes update, Apple has once again changed the hash, meaning it needs to be reverse-engineered again. The developers doing so collaborate together and share their thoughts on iPodhash, an open-source project hosted on Bluwiki, a free web site that lets users create wiki pages.

Now Apple has asked for that site to come down, a request that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) says is out of line. Earlier this month, a lawyer from Apple's legal firm O'Melveny & Myers sent out a takedown notice to the site stating the content was illegal under the terms of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). According to the cease-and-desist email, the site is "disseminating information designed to circumvent Apple's FairPlay digital rights management system." It continued, "FairPlay is considered anti-circumvention technology under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA explicitly prohibits the dissemination of information that can be used to circumvent such technology."

The EFF has jumped on this case, saying that Apple "doesn't have a DMCA leg to stand on." According to EFF senior staff attorney Fred von Lohmann, this move is effectively bending the law in order to stifle free speech. "Apple is essentially saying here that people can't even talk about the mechanisms that Apple uses to lock in its music to the iTunes software," he said.

The EFF web site goes into more details as to why the EFF believes Apple to be in the wrong, listing the numerous reasons why there's no DMCA violation on the site.

Where Does This Leave The Linux Community?

Since the Bluwiki site has complied with the takedown notice, the question is where does this leave the Linux community now? The main reason for the iPodhash project's existence is due to the fact that Apple does not provide a version of iTunes that runs on Linux. The project is an important community effort that helps Linux users create software programs that work with their iPods and iPhones.

Bluwiki's founder, Sam Odio, had said he was unsure if putting the site back online would be possible. Says Odio of his compliance with the takedown notice, "I regret having to do this. I may be able to put the site back online, but quite honestly it's unlikely because I can't afford a legal battle with Apple." Luckily for him, the EFF is now involved, so he will not have to worry with the legal fees.

Apple may only be protecting their very profitable iTunes business, but in this case, they're suggesting that the DMCA covers people merely talking about technical protection measures. If that's so, then as EFF says, "they've got a serious First Amendment problem."

You can follow this case's progress on the EFF's web site, Odio's blog, and on the iPodhash project's homepage.

• A minimum of $1 million. We don't want $50,000 financing being called Series A. Sorry, no grade inflation here.
• Lead Institutional VC. There are plenty of other very good types of financing. We celebrate bootstrappers in our Gritty Entrepreneurs series. Angels are wonderful, and we all love friends and family. But this series is about the classic VC fund, the core of the start-up financing world. We only report the lead VC because that is what matters: with a good lead there is never a shortage of followers.
• Reported data. We need to see the dollar amount and the lead VC publicly reported. No "unreported sum" or "undisclosed investors." If you want to be stealthy, you don't need any visibility, which is fine.
• Web technology only. We are seeing a lot in alternative energy, biotech, and other sectors, which is all very interesting, but not what we do at ReadWriteWeb.
• Series A only. We recognize that getting Series B or C financing is important as well, but it is hard to see from public data whether these are really positive events or not. During a downturn, many of them, sadly, will be down rounds that protect VC capital but, because of onerous preference terms, often leave the entrepreneurs with very little. We don't want to celebrate something only to find it is viewed as negative by the participants. But everybody can celebrate a Series A: it speaks of optimism, new trends, and a go-for-it spirit.

The Heroes And their Partners

We believe that entrepreneurs are the heroes, but we also really want to celebrate their partners, the VC guys who have the guts to go against the trend and back them during tough times. All VCs talk the talk, which is that this is a great time for investing. We want to report on the ones who actually walk the walk as well. There is only one way to get into this list: close a Series A round and wire the money.

We want to use this to learn about changes in the VC business and so that entrepreneurs can see who is actually doing deals today.

Our A-Team Series Starts in October

October 2008 was a unique month for anybody in the business world. The word that kept dropping from the lips of even the most experienced been-there, done-that kind of person was "unprecedented." These are not normal times. And October was certainly not a normal month.

So, the October list was pretty short. We have heard plenty of stories from entrepreneurs about deals that were agreed on and in the final legal phase but that got pulled in September and October. We did not track September because the worst and final phase of the crash kicked in mid-September, and deals were still being done in the early days of September. So, October was the first full month of the new reality.

We count from the date when the deal was announced. But we recognize that the contract may have been signed some weeks before then.

Enough Preamble. What Deals Were Done?

Oops! Using our strict criteria, only one deal was done in October. We saw some that came close. We saw a seed round of $225,000 for a game company called Kirkland North from a venture fund called Harrison Meta Capital. We saw a Series B for $4.5 million coming from RRE Ventures to our good friends at Adaptive Blue. We saw an Israeli company called CogniSafe getting an undisclosed seed round from 21 VCs.

The one deal that squeaked into October was Zimbio with a $6.8 million Series A from DFJ and Menlo Ventures. The deal was announced on September 30th. So it is entirely possible (indeed probable) that this contract was signed before our official Meltdown Day. But the deal got done, and that is what matters.

Zimbio has very few facts on its "About Us" page. TradeVibes at least has a CEO listed; so we tracked down Anthony Mamone, and the data was sparse, not even a LinkedIn profile. All we found was a sketchy profile on Link Silicon Valley.

A Special Cheer for Syncplicity and True Ventures

The deal that kicked off the A-Team series and gave us the idea for it was the one with Syncplicity with its $2.35 million Series A funding from True Ventures. So we went to meet Leonard Chung, CEO, at True Venture's offices in San Francisco. True Venture's open-plan offices on Pier 38 do not look like classic VC, and that is probably the point. Phil Black of True Ventures made the point that ever-increasing fund sizes were taking VC away from its entrepreneurial start-up roots.

Then we noticed that our friends at GigaOm have their offices right next door. No coincidence as it happens, True Ventures was the lead investor in their Series A funding. So, True Ventures is a founding member of our A-Team. Take your best venture to them!

We have not had time to fully review Syncplicity yet. We promise to do so soon. So, in the meantime, we will fall back on the journalistic standby, quoting from its site:

"Everyday sync, backup, and sharing as simple as can be. The only all-in-one service that makes sure your files are everywhere you need them."

That is a crowded space. But so was search when Google entered the market. Getting an A round done in today's market makes one think they must have done something right, so we will check them out and urge you to do the same.

Good News from a November Sneak Peek

Here is the good news. Taking a sneak peek at November, around the middle of the month, we already see quite a few Series A deals that meet all of our criteria. We will tell all in our A-Team report in early December.

Who did we miss in October? (No spam please; look at the qualifying rules above.)

Windows Only

When Microsoft first publicly showed a demo of Photosynth in 2006, it almost looked too good to be true. Now, getting started with it couldn't be easier - as long as you have a Windows machine - there is no Mac version available yet. You first have to install both a browser plug-in and a desktop application (all done through just one installer). The installation was as standard as Windows installations get and finished in less than a minute. We tested the plugin in both Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 7 without any problems.

One interesting aspect of the uploader is that you can choose a license for your creation. You can either choose a Creative Commons license, put the pictures in public domain, or mark it as 'All Rights Reserved.'

Desktop App

The desktop application does most of the heavy lifting for creating the 'synths' and seemed to make good use of all available cores. You only have to pick your photos, give your collection and name and click 'Synth.' After it has finished, it will create a score telling you how 'synthy' your photo collection was. Obviously, your photos need to have common areas for Photosynth to be able to stitch them together. While Photosynth does a great job making these connections, it can't work magic and our first attempts with relatively unconnected images were futile.

The more pictures you have, the longer the process of creating your synths takes, of course, and depending on your connection, the upload to Microsoft's servers can also take quite a while. In the end, though, your patience will be greatly rewarded.

Online Viewer

The online viewer is quite intuitive and allows you to zoom in and out, move around the picture and also go through the pictures in a 3D slide show mode. One nice feature is that you can also go full screen, which is really the best way to showcase your photos.

You can also embed a copy of your synth on any website and email a link to your friends.

The animation in Photosynth is astonishingly smooth and our screenshots really can't do it justice. If you haven't seen it yet, you should watch Microsoft's demo of Photosynth at TED2007, which will give you a good impression of what the final product looks like.

Different Way of Shooting

It really takes a different approach to shooting pictures to make the most out of Photosynth. If you often stitch together photos, you are probably already used to this, but Photosynth also gives you more freedom, as you can zoom in and out, or walk around an object and still have Photosynth recognize the common areas.

In our tests, Photosynth performed flawlessly, but we would recommend that you have a set of at least 10 to 20 photos to create an interesting 'synth' and the more photos you have, the more interesting it will be.

Caveats

A couple of caveats:

• All synths are public - there are no privacy controls!
• Photosynth only runs on Vista and XP so far.

Verdict

Even though we only had a short time to test Photosynth, it has already changed the way we think about taking pictures. Suddenly, you can do so much more with your photos. But besides the cool factor, we can also see a lot of other interesting applications for Photosynth. A realtor, for example, could use it to create a more immersive virtual tour of a house.

If you already have Photosynth installed already, you can see a 3D view of Venice below - otherwise, clicking on the image will take you directly to the installer.