Gay marriage scored a victory Wednesday in Connecticut. A Superior Court judge issued its final ruling to uphold the earlier 4 to 3 Connecticut State Supreme Court ruling that said same-sex couples have the right to wed. This recent news stands in sharp contrast to California’s Prop. 8 referendum that banned same-sex unions in that state.

Where in the world is Osama bin Laden? That is exactly what President-elect Barack Obama wants to know according to his national security advisers. Obama plans to renew the United States’ commitment to finding the al Qaeda leader. During the Oct. 7 presidential debate, Obama said, “We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority.”

And Obama appears to be sticking to his principles and promises… President-elect Barack Obama will not allow lobbyists to help pay for any costs related to his transition to power said his transition team yesterday. As he promised to keep big-time money interests and lobbyists out of his campaign, Obama remains firm that lobbyists will not foot his transition and inauguration bills.

Mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money for more finance companies? U.S. Treasury Secretary Paulson is seeking to include non-bank financial institutions, such as credit card, car loan and student loan companies into the government’s $700 billion bailout. Paulson said Wednesday that he wants to help American households and businesses have access to various credit and borrowing options. Apparently, there is still $350 billion that is uncommitted after putting the first half into direct capital investments into banks.

And for troubled homeowners, the verdict is still out on government help. The House Committee on Financial Services is looking at what the banking industry can do to help distressed homeowners. Chairman of the committee, Rep. Barney Frank, told CNN “not all borrowers should necessarily be rescued.” Some banks like Citigroup and IndyMac have taken matters into their own hands and launched homeowner programs. Yet “Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Economy.com, estimates that 1.6 million Americans will lose their homes this year through foreclosure or distressed sale, and that another 1.9 million families will lose their homes in 2009.”

On the tech front…. Hoping for a boost in e-mail users, Google adds video and audio chatting to Gmail with new service called Google Talk. Although video and audio chatting aren’t new technologies, Google’s the first major email provider to add the new technology directly to its email system. Google wants to gain the lead on Yahoo and Microsoft, which still have more users.

Image Courtesy of Gizmodo.com

I’m no software expert, but I thought I’d take Google Chrome for a spin and give a review in lay terms. My credentials? Software glitches and slow load times piss me off. And I’m a sucker for cool features.

First off, Chrome is still in beta, which means the folks at Google haven’t finished putting it together but they’re eager to let intrepid techies try it out—the feedback they get will help them smooth out any glitches for the final (actually, read “official,” as no software release is ever final) version. In anticipation of the initial release, Google released an online comic that described what makes Chrome different from the competition. It’s worth a read for the technologically curious, though it might seem condescending to some users.

I’ve been trying Chrome out for a few days, and I can say it’s discernibly faster than Internet Explorer much of the time. However, I just discovered version 3 of Mozilla Firefox. In a side-by-side comparison (without clocking them), Firefox seemed a bit faster. The pages popped, and when I visited the home page for Barnes & Noble, Firefox was napping at the finish line while Chrome was hung up waiting for a Flash graphic to load and start scrolling across the screen.

On the other hand, Chrome beat Firefox to the punch on a few other pages, so I can’t say for sure which is faster. I can say only that either one is a breath of fresh air after waiting on Internet Explorer for so many years. (As an aside, I do have to wonder why a company that sounds like baby talk and adorns itself in bright primary colors and Sesame Street letters would call its browser Chrome—the browser’s logo is, in fact, green, yellow, and red. For now, the interface is somewhat silvery, but if they give users the option to customize the colors, there won’t be any reason to call it Chrome, at all. But, then, I guess there’s no reason to call its competition Firefox.)

Chrome has what everyone is calling either a “stripped-down” or “minimalist” interface. I’m all about simplicity. The tabs go above the address bar in Google’s browser, which may feel strange at first. But if you hide the bookmarks toolbar (which you can easily bring back by hitting “Cntrl-B”) you get a maximum of browsing space. There’s not even a status bar at the bottom, so it’s all about the Web site. I like the minimalist approach a lot—the Web should be about the Web, without the extra architecture and framing to remind you that you’re inside another program.

Chrome takes this purist approach to the Web site as an online “program” to its logical conclusion by giving you the option to save a page as an application. A link to that site can reside anywhere on your computer, and when you open it up again, it lives in a bare-bones window without any browser controls. Obviously, this works best for online applications like Office Live, Google Docs, or say, a blog. I saved the Pop + Politics dashboard site as an application, and since blogging software has all the necessary navigation tools built directly into the site, there’s no need to ever use a back button or an address bar. I just open it up and treat it like a word processor slash html editor.

Another cool feature not found in other browsers: you can drag and drop the tabs outside the browser. Apparently, each tab operates like an individual browser window. Drag one to the desktop, for instance, and it actually becomes a new window. Drag it back inside the other window, and it becomes a tab again. Is this anything other than a gimmick, really? Supposedly, yes. Because each tab operates on its own, if it fails, one tab closes without crashing the whole browser. I haven’t seen a tab fail yet, so I can’t report on the usefulness of the feature.

And perhaps most interestingly, Chrome has dropped the separate search box in favor of what Google is calling an “omnibar.” You can type an address or a search query into one box, and as you type Google pulls from your favorites, your search history, and a typical Web search to suggest sites in a drop-down box under your text. If you type a few words of natural language and hit Enter, you’ll go to the search results from the engine of your choosing (you preset the default engine…Google politely asks whether you’d like to keep it as the default when you first install and run Chrome). If you type a full address and hit Enter, you’ll be taken directly to the site. CNET reviewers apparently feel the need to have two boxes (for comfort?), but I come down again on the side of simplicity. One box equals less clutter.

A lot of Mac users are going to be frustrated that Chrome won’t run on their systems yet (or on Linux for that matter). Google supposedly has plenty of plans for the second release. And the program still has a few problems. For one, and I find this a bit annoying, Chrome sits on top of the taskbar at the bottom of my screen. I set the taskbar to auto-hide, and with every other browser the taskbar pops up again when I move my cursor to the bottom of the screen, but not so with Chrome. You have to minimize Chrome to get the taskbar back. Clearly that’s not the case if I have the taskbar always on, but it’s a nuisance nonetheless. I’m sure they’ll have it fixed in future versions.

If you want the whole scoop on Chrome, you can read about it to your heart’s content on CNET. I’m definitely infatuated with my new toy, but I still need a few more days running Firefox and Chrome together before I make any commitments. One thing’s for sure—I’m not going back to Internet Explorer anytime soon.

Another distraction for McCain? It was reported today the 17-year-old daughter of John McCain’s running mate, Alaska governor Sarah Palin, is five months pregnant and out of wedlock. The news came while many eyes were already focused on FEMA’s response to Hurricane Gustav along the Gulf Coast, pulling even more attention from the Republican National Convention, which began today. It also sparked a discussion in both camps over how much importance the media should place on it and whether it might affect Palin’s performance or McCain’s campaign for the presidency. McCain’s rival, Barack Obama, appeared on TV to agree that it was a private matter and should be left alone.

Iraq regains control of Anbar. The U.S. officially relinquished control of the region, which includes Fallujah, the site of the biggest battle in the 5-and-a-half year war. American troops will play backup and let Iraqi military and police lead the way, bringing the total to 11 of 18 provinces that the war-torn nation will take responsibility for securing. Anbar once held the grisly distinction of being the center of the Sunni insurgency and being the location for a quarter of the American death toll. Both Americans and Iraqis at a festival celebrating the handover expressed surprise at the turnaround, according to the New York Times.

Google is releasing its own Web browser. Google Chrome is supposed to be available on Tuesday and marks a new challenge to arch-rival Microsoft, which has attempted to usurp some of Google’s prominence on the Web by developing its own search engine and trying to buy Yahoo, Inc. With the expectation of a Google cell phone (gPhone or an iPhone, take your pick), the stakes are as high as ever as the digital titans duke it out. But with Google controlling about two thirds of the search market and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer being used by 75% of Web users (not to mention the market dominance of Microsoft’s Windows operating system), is anyone else wondering what’s happened to free-market competition? It’s still a relevant question: uniformity makes it easier on consumers but denies healthy competition.

E.U.: Watch it, Russia. Russia’s handling of a conflict with Georgia over South Ossetia, which wants independence from Georgia, drew a unanimous warning from 27 members of the European Union after a one-day emergency summit today. According to The Economist, the E.U. previously had threatened Russia with “decisions on the continuation of discussions on the future of relations”–an empty threat in mangled English that would have made George Orwell cringe. Whether the current threat has any bite remains to be seen.

Talk is Cheap: Rampant speculation continues over who Obama will (or will not) choose as his VP running mate.  It’s Biden! Bayh is out! Mehh.  The papers are saying the announcement will come anywhere from 10 minutes ago to Thursday.  Many in the media seem to agree that Obama-rama laid a turd in his chapel date with McCain.  It’s Bush v. Kerry all over again!  The Simpleton v. The Meanderer.  Lowest common denomiator wins.  I’m just waiting on that text from Obama telling me who it is (OMG, J-Bid 4 VP!).  Until then, I’ll be snoozing in my cone of silence.

The Bat Has Legs: The Dark Knight was finally toppled by Ben Stiller’s Hollywood send-up Tropic Thunder after surpassing Star Wars as the second highest-grossing film of all time, all while spending 5 weeks on top of the weekend box office charts.  The film’s tally stands at roughly $471 million, meaning it still has $130 million to go to catch that boat movie.  And of course, all of these feats are measured in crappy, 2008 dollars, which we all know couldn’t buy you a small fries at Mickey D’s (in Zaire).  Also, no line in Knight can hold a candle to Jack’s “This town needs an enema!”  Truer words have never been spoken, Jack.

Dem Particulates Are FINE: The buzz term when one is talking air pollution and its health impact these days is “fine particulates.”  The LA Times reported last year on the continued construction of schools near freeways, where recess and P.E. classes have been drastically scaled back to limit students’ exposure to the cancer-causing particles.  But a recent story in the UK Telegraph claims that the pollution from ships (you know, those things on the ocean) could be responsible for up to 60,000 deaths a year.  Playing dodgeball next to a freeway is one thing, but if ocean liners are jacking up the air in coastal cities, that’s a whole other beast that has yet to fall under Al Gore’s regulatory crusade.

GoogleWatch: Google is stepping up it’s presence at the upcoming Democratic and Republican conventions, The Wall Street Journal reports, just as a an American Consumer Satisfaction Index study reveals that the search giant is the main catalyst behind a surge of satisfaction in online commerce.  They’re offering a whole host of branded Google and YouTube services from their “Big Tent”, making the WSJ muse that “[w]ith the potential for a blogger around almost every corner and delegates with cellphone cameras everywhere, including private parties that shut out journalists and bloggers, privacy will be hard to come by.”

Two Sides of the Same Apple: Meanwhile, the other tech behemoth that always seems to be in the news one way or another gets a series of conflicting reports.  A CNET vis Yahoo! News story says that “Apple blew away its PC industry peers in this year’s American Customer Satisfaction Index, perhaps because it was the only company that didn’t release a Windows Vista PC.”  That type of sarcasm is proof-positive of Apple’s mega-successful Mac v. PC campaign in wooing the media’s favor while painting a horrendous picture of Vista (Microsoft is responding with their Mojave Experiment ad campaign to set the record straight, a move which Slate calls “strange” and “passive aggressive”).  The always-surly Michael Arrington over at Tech Crunch goes on a little tirade that flies right in the face of the same ACSI study that hyped up Google and Apple, going over a laundry list of malfunctions from his bevy of Apple products and services.  With a host of new product launches right around the corner, my money is on the Apple mystique prevailing once again.

The blogosphere is abuzz today with commentary on the above video, which is purported footage of what will be the first phone to market – via HTC and T-Mobile – to employ Google’s Android, the search giant’s software-rival to Apple iPhone.

The Technology section of the NY Times first reported on the phone and the YouTube video yesterday:

Google is eager to get the Android platform on phones quickly because it thinks that the mobile Web is vital to the long-term growth of its digital advertising business.

“We can make more money on mobile than we do on the desktop, eventually,” Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said in an interview on CNBC this week.

But carriers have their own reasons for wanting devices that are more Internet friendly. For one, they can charge more for data plans than typical voice plans. And some carriers, like AT&T, are creating their own mobile applications that they hope will also be revenue generators.

With the cost of regular voice plans driven to depths just above operating margins for most wireless carriers, data plans hold much promise as the next frontier where we’ll all get fleeced. It’s a testament to just how much of a game-changer the iPhone has been if Google – who has a storied partnership with Apple – is still desperate to get their own mobile web product to market in order to capitalize on the emerging mobile marketplace.

Unfortunately, those who have played with the lame-named “Dream” say that it pretty much sucks compared to the iPhone. Did Apple really get the jump on everyone else this badly?

How does Cuil look? Pretty cool. (Really, really trying hard not to overdo the puns today! Obv. not working.) The entry page is all black with a little search bar tilted just to the left of the center of the page. The results are indeed very visual. There are pictures and full paragraphs are extrapolated for a glance-through. However, as others have already noted, part of Google’s dominance is due to its been-around-the-block status. Searches get more accurate the more people use a search engine.

I took the two for a test-drive. First up, googling and cuiling (?) myself. (But, of course.)

I am not sure if this is just a result of the fact that Cuil is a day old, or if it’s just broken. Time will tell.

Second attempt. I typed in “Tim Kaine gay marriage” into both search engines. I was trying to locate the news that Kaine is actually not for gay marriage at all, even though he opposed an anti-gay marriage amendment on the basis that it was too broad and could also hurt innocent, straight people. In this, Cuil was a bit more useful. There was one entry high up on the page that clearly stated his opinion, whereas I searched Google through pages and pages to weed out this basic fact.

So far, the Internets are not very impressed.

Googling is going to be a hard habit to break: I realized after after I wrote the post, that I had used Google, not Cuil, to search for news articles on the start-up. Not cuil.

The Grassy Knol: Google is flipping the bird to Wikipedia this week by launching their own collaborative web encyclopedia, dubbed “Knol“.  They define a knol as a “unit of knowledge” but the real jab is how they describe individual articles: “an authoritative article about a specific topic.” [emhpasis added]  Rather than opening a topic up for creation and editing by all who please (a la Wikipedia), Knols are created and maintained by individuals who set the level of collaboration (default setting requires creator to approve suggested changes).  Users are encouraged to create a bio to display their credentials.  Google also encourages authors to employ Creative Commons licensing on their work.  By creating a more controlled environment, Google is trying to look like iTunes next to Wiki’s Napster.  How well Knol does will surely be a referendum on Wikipedia’s trustworthyness as a resource.  Knol’s transparency just might kill off the snickers from the fact-checking peanut gallery when someone cites an online encyclopeida as a source.

The Shield: Not the Michael Chiklis cop opera (final season…BRING IT), but a Washington Post article calling for the Senate to follow in the House’s footsteps on passing a shield law for reporters and their confidential sources, at the urging of “the Senate Judiciary Committee…the presumptive Republican and Democratic presidential nominees…the attorneys general[s] of 42 states,” and the already-adopted laws of  “49 states and the District.”  The states offer protection against reporters compelled to reveal confidential sources in criminal investigations, but “the absence of a federal statute undermines those protections, ‘producing inconsistency and uncertainty for reporters and the confidential sources,’ a letter from 41 of the attorneys general noted.”  Wherefore art thou, Scooter and Judith?  Valerie and Dick?  I’m sure you have an opinion here…

Gone Phishing: “I’m a Mac.”  “And I’m a PC.”  You’re both effed, according an AFP story detailing a critical internet flaw “an elite squad” of hackers has discovered that leaves every single computer vulnerable, regardless of OS, platform, cheap suit, or hipsterish irony.  Technobabble aside, the flaw basically exposes computers at the point they transfer data to and from the Net, pointing your browsers at whatever website you’re requesting to view.  “Attackers could use the vulnerability to route Internet users wherever the hackers wanted, no matter what website address is typed into a web browser.”  Yikes.  Dan Kaminsky, an internet security specialist who uncovered the DNS vulnerability and is working with anyone who will listen to patch things up, has setup a website you can visit to find out how at risk you and your tasty virtual nuggets of data are.

Galluping Ahead…Slightly: Obama-rama’s much ballyhooed trip across the Middle East and Afghanistan has won major kudos in the press for coming off as both humble and presidential (as well as drawing 200,000 people for a speech where the Berlin wall once stood).  But it’s having little impact on his standing versus Johnny Boy MCain, according to the latest Gallup Poll.  These numbers were gathered before the speech, however.  It’s shaping up to be his most dramatic moment as a candidate since his speech on race during the primaries.  Expect a bump as McCain continues to dig himself deeper into a hole as he redefines The Surge into a state of mind that reaches as far back as 2006 in defense of inaccurate statements he made regarding the influx of troops and its spurring of The Anbar Awakening.  Doh!

Slim Pickens: By now, you’ve likely seen the ads.  An old west relic, lookin like Daniel Plainview if he lived another century, stares into to the camera and frankly tells us all that we can’t drill our way out of this one.  A recent NY Times Op-Ed breaks down the ads, Pickens’s street-cred (he’s a former geologist), and the Republican furor over a long-time supporter finding morals in his old age and hammering all of his prior cohorts on their plans to tear up the ANBAR and both coastlines.  Yeehaw!

SYTYCWTF:  Anyone see Will get kicked off So You Think You Can Dance last night?  If not, shame on you for not watching the best show on TV during the summer.  If so, join me in saying WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.  America, I disown you.

This week, much to the glee of tech bloggers around the world, Google unveiled its long-awaited and over-speculated Linux-based mobile phone—wait for it—OS platform! Or in the immortal words of Dark Helmut: “foooooooled you!”

Again, there’s no phone yet, just the platform. Ain’t just any platform, though.

Dubbed “Android” after the Silicon Valley startup acquired by the G-Men three years ago, the platform points to a much broader strategy than the simple introduction of a “GPhone.”

“Today’s announcement is [about something] more ambitious than any single Google Phone,” CEO Eric Schmidt said. “Our vision is that the platform we’re unveiling will power thousands of different phone models.”

Rather than placing proprietary hardware restrictions on their in-house mobile operating system by confining its usage to their own device—a la Apple and the iPhone—Google has instead enlisted the support of thirty-three major mobile technology players as co-developers and first-gen adopters of Android.

What does it all mean? Google is essentially offering its own phone software to seamlessly integrate all of the web-based applications Google has been churning out over the past few years. And this is being done without their spending a dime on hardware development. They will instead license their new product to, for example, T-Mobile or Motorola, as one of the thirty three companies in on the Android project. The licensee can then enrich its hardware with an open-source software that is guaranteed to at least shake up current offerings from Symbian, Microsoft, RIM, and Palm, which are being run on all the smartphones out there without a lowercase “i” at the front of its name.

Android will include a robust web-browser to compete with Safari on the iPhone. Because it’s open source, anyone and everyone can develop software for it, creating the potential for an add-on community much like the one that makes Mozilla’s Firefox browser the best one on the market.

From AppleInsider:

Built on the open source Linux Kernel, Android was conceived from the ground-up to be “truly open” and allow developers to create mobile applications that take full advantage of all a handset has to offer. For example, an application could call upon any of the phone’s core functionality such as making calls, sending text messages, or using the camera, allowing for richer and more cohesive experiences for users.

This means that individual companies can develop applications for their own Android based phones that still represent their unique niche in the marketplace, forgoing the need to sacrifice their own corporate identity in order to ride Google’s coat-tails. It’s a model Sony and Microsoft would have been wise to incorporate into their own grand design as it allows survival without disdain for those who choose not to align with Google in every facet of its vision.

Sounds like a match made in heaven for any of the companies who took the plunge. Almost.

The one dark-horse is the upcoming auction of the 700 MHz wireless spectrum by the FCC. Google has already expressed interest—$5 billion in auction cash—in acquiring some of this coveted territory. Should they secure a sizable chunk, they will be able to offer mobile phone service just as Verizon or AT&T does, without all of the strings attached.

All this will make the eventual Google phone irresistible—a ingeniously orchestrated market boomerang, bringing back the business in spades that it seems to be giving away with its generous open-source Android platform. CNET has an interesting take on the matter.

In any case, Google is broadening its ownership of the information-acquisition market in ways that not even the most keen tech-bloggers and Wall Street analysts have been able to predict. We are witnessing the next phase of market dominance in the computer and technology field, something that may well dwarf Microsoft’s epic stranglehold on the eighties and nineties.

Stay tuned.

News is that two major tech-sector players are contemplating a Thompson-esque entrance into the telecommunications field, an entrance that may leave the telcom stalwarts looking like Larry Craig cuffed to a urinal.

Developments turn on the major FCC bandwidth auction to be held in January. The auction will put the cyberspace equivalent of the entire Malibu coastline on the block— a fact not lost on the FCC, which is calling the wireless real estate “beachfront property.”

In late August, it was widely reported in business and technology media outlets (read The Register article here) that, according to CEO Eric Schmidt, Google would “probably” enter a $4.6 billion bid for the 700 MHz frequency of the wireless spectrum. The 700 MHz frequency is up for grabs because it will be completely vacant of any other wireless traffic once the deadline arrives for the implementation of an FCC mandate that all TV broadcasts be 100 percent digital by 2009.

Earlier this week, Business Week reported that Apple is now considering a bid as well. Analysts have written a lot about why this move doesn’t seem to fit with Apple’s business model, but more intriguing are the implications of such a move for Joe Consumer.

In a nutshell, the 700 MHz represents (forgive the hackneyed metaphor) an(other) information highway. That highway is currently traveled solely by big network TV signals. Once the TV broadcasts go digital, however, the highway will be empty, opened up to all variety of “travelers,” including TV, internet, or mobile phone signals.

Google first grabbed the attention of the AT&Ts and Verizons of the world by telling the FCC it would offer a substantial starting bid if, among other things, any device could access this frequency without requiring some affiliation to the owner of the frequency.

In other words, you could buy your LG enV or iPhone or whatever and it would not be carrier-specific. You could theoretically buy a phone made by AT&T and get your plan from Verizon because there would no longer be any stipulations that you had to get your signal and plan from AT&T. Couple that with the idea that Google, Apple, and all the other major players would have their own networks as well… meaning everyone will be competing for business on all three fronts, because each company can bid for and buy its own stake in the 700 MHz spectrum.

The way it is now and has been for long time is sort of like Dell saying you have to buy a Dell computer and pay Dell a monthly fee to access Dell’s internet; your only alternative being to buy a Hewlett-Packard computer and an Hewlett-Packard internet plan that gets you onto Hewlett-Packard’s internet (which looks pretty much just like Dell’s)— Dell and HP meeting once a year to determine what the best service costs should be so they don’t step on each other’s toes as they laugh their way to the bank. Talk about a vice-grip.

In the brave new world that 700 MHz represents, Google or Apple could also function as internet service providers. The frequency allows for faster speeds than current 3G or WiFi networks and moves through buildings and bad weather with ease. Apple could create an entire network designed specifically for its products. An update to your iPhone calendar simultaneously updates your .Mac email account, your iPod Touch in your car, and your iMac at home, as well as your significant other’s iPhone and iMac, which can view your calendar. All instantaneously. All wirelessly.

The possibilities are endless. Established 2nd-tier providers like Earthlink would no longer have to rent bandwidth from AT&T. Other big names, like Ebay, Yahoo, and DirecTV, are also setting themselves up as potential bidders— either independently or as partners.

Did someone say innovation by way of true free market competition in the telecommunications arena? Almost unbelievable.

Considering that Verizon and AT&T have plunked billions into the development of their current networks, and that this 700 MHz bandwidth is the last swath of publicly available frequencies to be up for grabs (the rest belong to the defense department and HD broadcasts), I’m sure those two would love to squash this uprising, effectively securing their profit-sharing oligopoly for the foreseeable future.

Write the FCC and let the government know you support opening up the 700 MHz frequency in order to create real consumer-benefiting market competition. Write Google. Write Apple. Write your local congressman and senator. Tell your friends. Drum up support for the bidding.

And then keep your fingers crossed that you never have to decipher another mess of nondescript, miscellaneous AT&T charges on your cell phone bill again.

That’s the thinking of Google and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC. They have worked together to create an interactive map on Google Earth in which you can see where the genocide is happening, which villages have been destroyed and what has happened to the victims.

Sara Bloomfield, the director of the Holocaust Memorial Museum, said on their website: “When it comes to responding to genocide, the world’s record is terrible. We hope this important initiative with Google will make it that much harder for the world to ignore those who need us the most.”

Check it out here.