Google delivered its vision of a Web-centric future Wednesday in front of around 5,000 software developers at its annual Google I/O conference. The presentation was unapologetically geeky, steeped in the language and minutiae of the technical standards that will drive the next wave of innovation on the Internet. For the Google faithful, at least, the meal was hearty. Google's vision of the future is starkly different from those laid out by its rivals Apple and Microsoft, and calls for rich multimedia applications that operate within the browser — without the separate applications that people now download to their PC desktops or mobile phones. “The Web is the most important platform of our generation,” said Vic Gundotra, Google's vice president of engineering, who introduced the session on the first morning of the two-day conference. “Because it's a platform controlled by none of us, it's the only platform truly controlled by all of us. It's our duty to move that platform forward.” Among Google's announcements: Setting Wave free Google Wednesday opened to the world an innovative Wave communications platform that liberates people from the constraints of traditional email. “We are going to open up Wave to everyone today,” Google Wave team chief Lars Rasmussen said as the California-based Internet giant's annual developers conference got underway in San Francisco. Google has been testing Wave in an invitation-only beta mode for about eight months and has heralded its potential to turn email into a powerful tool for collaborative exchanges that ramp up productivity. People can sign up for Wave online at wave.google.com. Google Wave product manager Gregory D'Alesandre made his case late last year that Wave will help “liberate” workers from constraints of old-fashioned ways at firms. In September, Google began inviting people to test Wave, which merges email, online chat, social networking and “wiki” style group access to Web pages or documents. With the Wave, email or instant messages blossom into shared online arenas where anyone in the exchange can edit documents, add digital content, or comment at any time. “You can have 12 people interacting in a Wave at the same time without people talking over each other or stepping on each others' toes,” D'Alesandre said. “We really believe this is a better way to communicate; where technology is going.” Chrome gets polished with Web apps store Google will open a Web applications store later this year in an attempt to make it easier to find and set up programs within the Internet search leader's Chrome browser. The online store appears to be ideally suited for the lightweight laptops called “netbooks” that will rely on an operating system revolving around the Chrome browser. The Chrome OS netbooks won't have hard drives and will need Internet access to run applications. Google didn't specify a precise date for the opening of its new applications, or “apps,” store, saying only that it will be accessible to the more than 70 million users of the Chrome browser before the end of the year. The company already operates an apps store for its Andriod software that powers a wide variety of smart phones. Google's Web apps store also could provide fodder for a tablet computer to compete with Apple's iPad. Like the Apple store, Google will offer free applications while other programs may charge a fee. Gmail users alerted to suspicious logins Google has introduced a new security feature that alerts Gmail users whose e-mail accounts may have been broken into by a malicious intruder and helps them regain full control. In a blog post Wednesday, Google said that if it sees unusual account activity, like an uncharacteristic login from a computer with a suspicious I.P. address in Poland, it will show a warning in a red bar at the top of the page. Users will be able to click to get more information, or hit “Ignore” if they were, indeed, in Poland and nothing is wrong. Users who click for more details will see a list of their recent account activity, including the numerical I.P. addresses of computers that have used the account and the number of devices logged in at the same time – for instance, you at home in New York and a mysterious someone in Nigeria. A warning in a red bar asks users to change their password immediately if they see activity that was not theirs. The alert will appear when they log in from a location that is typical for them, so the alert is seen by the real account owner and not the intruder. The new feature is not yet available for businesses, schools and other organizations that get Gmail service through Google Apps, though Google said it intends to provide the feature to these users after gathering their feedback.
