It’s an extra step, but it’s one that significantly improves the security of your Google Account because it requires the powerful combination of both something you know—your username and password—and something that only you should have—your phone. A hacker would need access to both of these factors to gain access to your account.

That important security enhancement is garnering a lot of attention. What I find interesting is the point that only got a sentence’s mention.

You can also set up one-time application-specific passwords to sign in to your account from non-browser based applications that are designed to only ask for a password, and cannot prompt for the code.

This sounds an awful lot like PAuth, which Don Park suggested as an alternative to OAuth over two years ago. I’ve always wondered why that didn’t get more attention.

Habits die hard with me, especially when a certain amount of nostalgia is involved, so I’m still using Firefox as my primary browser. However, I’m deeply impressed with Chrome, both as a user and as a developer, and have been meaning to make the switch for a while.

I’m feeling the a sense of urgency to do so now, if only to wrap my mind around what is occuring with Chrome OS and Chrome Web Store. Both of these projects raise a lot of questions, and cause a lot of confusion, because they represent some fundamental shifts in how we experience the web.

Chrome OS is the most nebulous of these projects. What does it mean for the browser blur the lines into OS and window manager? How does it relate to Android? Even Google seems a bit hazy with its answers to these questions, so I’m willing leaving them open until the air clears.

Chrome Web Store is a reality today, however, so I’ve been trying to understand what impact it may have. What I’m most struck by the tension between the web and apps.

As content has moved into the cloud, interaction has moved into the browser, and applications have become hosted remotely. Google is a primary beneficiary of this trend, and they’ve been leading the way in adopting Ajax technologies (combining HTML, CSS, and JavaScript), and encouraging others to do so as well.

Apple, with iOS and the App Store, offers a platform that reverses the trend in some ways. Content often remains in the cloud, but applications are installed locally and interaction moves to the device. Development, using Objective-C and Cocoa frameworks, follows a more traditional approach from the desktop era, but carried forward into the mobile future.

I think much of this tension is created by the use of technologies with such traditionally different uses. Desktop development has always been application-centric, whereas web development has historically been document-centric. HTML5, continuing the trend started by Ajax, brings a full-fledged application framework to the browser.

Yet, in many cases, we are still struggling cleanly categorize these technologies based on past notions. For example, read this explanation Google offers when defining the concept of apps in the Chrome Web Store documentation:

An installable web app can be a normal website with a bit of extra metadata; this type of app is called a hosted app. Alternatively, an installable web app can bundle all its content into an archive that users download when they install the app; this is a packaged app. Both hosted and packaged apps have icons in Chrome’s New Tab page, and most users shouldn’t be able to tell the difference between them without looking at the address bar.

Note the need to explicitly define the difference between a local (packaged) app and a remote (hosted) app.

The nature of the web is rapidly changing. Constant connectivity means we, as developers, get to shift content storage and data processing between the server and client in any number of ways. A broad continuum exists that will defy efforts at categorization. Instead, we should strive to understand the nuances of each approach and balance them according to application requirements.

This train of thought was sparked by an article on TechCrunch in which John Biggs points out the confusion between sites, apps, widgets, and whatnot. He closes with this advice:

What needs to happen is this: folks like Netflix need to build XBox and Roku-like apps for Chrome and Chrome OS. This will allow users to browse, select, and watch movies from their browsers.

Let’s remind ourselves that people don’t know what a browser is, and that specific technologies don’t matter. The web encompasses everything, and it is very much alive.

While I don’t claim to be particularly adept at web design, especially compared to the other two featured individuals (Tim Van Damme and Rogie King), my use of Ajax to display a status indicator was highlighted.

Since that time, I’ve had numerous people inquire as to how I added this functionality to my website. In response, I’m supplying the source code that I use. Download: web-presence.zip

Each of the instant messaging networks I have an account on (AIM, Google Talk, Windows Live, Skype, and Yahoo!) have some form of API or web-based badge which can be queried using HTTP. On my server, I am running PHP code which issues requests to the particular service and translates the response into a JSON object. When my page loads, Ajax requests are made to retrieve these JSON objects. Based on presence, the image is updated to reflect whether I am available or away.

For those interested in implementing similar functionality, this code should get you off the ground. Remember to use the required credentials or keys for your account. I’ve made notes where insertions are necessary. Good luck!

The initial focus and reaction around Google Wave centers, rightfully, on communication. In particular, the real-time aspects were highlighted and comparisons drawn to Twitter and FriendFeed. Some even tout it as the “one true” communication tool.

It’s important to note, though, that different people have different needs. For example, both Scott Rosenberg and Fred Wilson find the interface to be complicated. Fortunately, under the open development model Google is taking, others are free to design simpler interfaces.

Looking at things from a technical perspective, the communication-centric mindset is noticeably absent. The general architecture is nothing more than an instantly distributed version control system, complete with access control and an extensible content model.

True, that forms a solid foundation for Google Wave the communication tool. It also forms a solid foundation for myriad other applications, including those yet to be imagined. (I’m starting a timer; stop me when the first FUSE file system is released.)

While its interesting to explore the impact of Wave on existing ideas, I also think its important to step away from drawing comparisons. The “killer app” for Wave is likely something that doesn’t exist currently. The synthesis of features in the underlying technology will allow something new to germinate.

It’ll be interesting to see how this evolves. I fully expect to see many front-end interfaces to Wave designed. Some of those will certainly not be geared toward communication uses for the back-end.

A concise description of what Wave is, exactly, seems to be hard to formulate. You have to see it to understand it seems to be a growing consensus. That is a bit frustrating to those trying to conceptualize, but it may be appropriate if Wave truly is a leap forward for communication.

Tim O’Reilly has the best description I’ve come across:

Jens, Lars, and team re-imagined email and instant-messaging in a connected world, a world in which messages no longer need to be sent from one place to another, but could become a conversation in the cloud. Effectively, a message (a wave) is a shared communications space with elements drawn from email, instant messaging, social networking, and even wikis.

TechCrunch also has an extensive rundown of Wave and the capabilities that were demonstrated today.

Wave is the result of a two-year long effort led by Lars and Jens Rasmussen, the creators of what became Google Maps. Their success on that project gave them the opportunity to pursue this open-ended idea. While they have raised the hype meter to new levels, only time will tell if they have another hit on their hands.

Wave remains in the prototype stage at this juncture. It was announced at a developer conference for a reason: feedback is needed from the engineering community. For it to gain public acceptance, developers will need to embrace it and build capabilities around it.

My interest has certainly been piqued. I’ve spent the day reading articles, watching videos, and researching specifications. Expect follow-up posts with more detailed thoughts.

One of the more interesting articles I came across in the days preceding the release, was on Technologizer, which asked How Long Does Google Baby the iPhone?

I am, however, fascinated by one thing about it: The fact that it’s debuting on the iPhone. It’s the second interesting Google app to do so in recent weeks. (Google Earth made its mobile premiere on the iPhone back in late October.) The iPhone is a terrific platform for mobile apps, so there’d be nothing noteworthy about this except for one thing: Google has its own terrific platform for mobile apps, Android.

The answer to the question, in my opinion, is simple: as long as iPhone is a first-tier mobile platform (read: forever).

To Google, the only platform that matters is the web. That is one of the key aspects to their success, and it is ingrained deeply in their culture. So much so, that any software platform developed by Google is done so under the primary goal of advancing the web itself.

Android as a mobile operating system is, clearly, the most overt platform play from Google to date. However, if mere in-house control of a platform exerted influence on support for third-party platforms, Google’s web strategy would begin to decay.

I suspect Google realizes this tendency, which is one of the reasons why Android is completely open source. No company, not even Google, its primary creator, can claim complete control. The act of open sourcing the platform created a level playing field, perhaps most importantly within Google itself.

Contrast this to Microsoft, where support for any non-Microsoft technologies is met with overwhelming resistance. Through their subsidiary Tellme, Microsoft had the capability to beat Google to the iPhone with this technology, and gain ground in the mobile search arena. That didn’t happen.

Microsoft sees the web running on top of its platform. Google sees platforms running on top of the web. Advantage: Google.

I initially wondered why Google saw fit to define a binary serialization format, when both XML and JSON are suitable and human-friendly. But it didn’t take long to see the benefits, considering the scale at which Google operates, and the sheer amount of data it wrangles.

I’ve done a cursory read through of the documentation, and while there are some features I’m not sold on, it looks solid as a whole. I’ll be experimenting further, in order to add it to my toolchain, and see where I can apply it to my projects.

This release also solves one outstanding mystery for me, which originated a couple weeks ago when Chris Messina tweeted:

Apparently XML gives Google indigestion. They convert all XML to binary but the crap it all over the web.

Google’s massive data centers consume similarly massive amounts of energy. In constructing them, they’ve gained experience in designing efficient facilities. They are now looking to turn the tables, and apply their ideas to the generation of electricity.

It’s both exciting and inspiring to see technology companies focus attention on energy issues. Global warming is, obviously, one of the major challenges of our time. It requires forward thinking from across the spectrum of society, including governments, corporations, non-profits, and individuals.

Google clearly gets this, and has made their commitment clear. In classic Google fashion, they are also embracing openness while approaching the issue, as highlighted by Bubblegeneration Strategy Lab.

After all, as TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld muses:

Solving global warming is just a big engineering problem, right?

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, had the following statement regarding Gears:

“With Google Gears, we’re tackling the key limitation of the browser in order to make it a stronger platform for deploying all types of applications and enabling a better user experience.”

The web browser is becoming the dominant application platform, one on which Google is very comfortable. By actively working to extend the functionality of the browser, Google is making a profound impact, both for users and developers.

Web applications are very convenient, offering many improvements in ease of use and anywhere access. However, their biggest drawback has been non-existent functionality in the absence of a network connection.

Gears solves this problem, by providing access to a computer’s local resources when the remote server is not available. Gears consists of three primary components, a server, database, and worker pool for executing long running tasks. Web applications can utilize these resources in order to provide offline capabilities.

Google is seeking to evolve Gears into an open standard. Towards that end, they are working with Adobe, Mozilla, and Opera. They’ve also released the code under a BSD licence, and are encouraging developer feedback during the beta period.

Despite being the largest technology company in existence, Microsoft’s latest products fail to generate the enthusiasm or disruptive impact of competing offerings. Apple is consistently defining the cutting edge of user interface and experience, Google is conquering the Internet and distributed computing, and open source development is rewriting the rules of software engineering.

Two interesting articles, both from SeekingAlpha, highlight the change that is underway. The first, Vista: End of a Revolution by Carl Howe, recounts the dawn of the PC era, a revolution that Microsoft helped usher in. Since then, time has passed, Microsoft established its dominance, and a new power structure emerged:

What began as the democratization of computing … has now become a distraction from getting work done. Rather than freeing …, PCs now are the policemen …, ensuring that no one moves too fast or too far from what’s approved.

Today, a different revolution is underway:

It is time for another worker rebellion. But this time, the tools are different. … Today’s rebel is wearing a Google T-shirt, carrying an Apple laptop and promoting their company from a Linux infrastructure they don’t even own.

Dan Farber picks up with Google’s enterprise efforts. He quotes Kevin Gough, enterprise product manager at Google.

“At Google Enterprise we look at consumer technology and figure out what is relevant for business.”

A true revolution brings power to the people. This time it is the Internet and Google, not Microsoft, doing just that.