Google’s Web browser is about to make the leap from upstart to leader of the pack.

Google Chrome’s market share numbers are skyrocketing, blowing past Safari and Opera to become the number three most-widely-used Web browser. That’s pretty impressive, and I don’t think it’s going to stop there. I fully expect it to overtake Firefox and challenge, if not beat, Microsoft Internet Explorer sometime in the next 5 years.

It took Firefox most of this decade to achieve its solid number two status, but the one-and-a-half-year-old Chrome is growing faster and, in some ways, developing more quickly than Firefox ever did. The question, though, is not whether or not Chrome will beat other browsers, but why it is rising while Firefox seems to have stalled or is falling.

Over the years, most tech-savvy users I’ve talked to have said they run Firefox. It’s faster—I agree—and it has amazing features, which is true. The Awesome bar, also known as Firefox’s address bar, works better than virtually any other address bar in the business. When I start to type in a URL, its best guesses are almost always on target. Those same tech-savvy users have always touted Firefox’s extensive add-on library. I use a handful of them, but I’m not an extension nut like some people I know. I find it fascinating how, say, a “27 Best Firefox Extensions” story can kill on Digg and drive thousands of page views. What, exactly, is the attraction to stuff you can add to your browser? Does everything we use need to be customized?

Firefox has also, traditionally, been faster than the competition. It usually loaded pages lickety split, and it did so with an admirable level of precision. The pages looked the way they should and everything worked most of the time.

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MSI had showed it’s miraculous innovation that obeys the touch of a human finger with it’s all in one PC range. Now, the company is all set to hit the markets with it’s new system. MSI Computer has released the sleek and eco-friendly Wind Top AE1900 All-In-One touchscreen PC that boasts to be a complete home computing solution.

The touch sensitive PC has a 18.5-inch screen with 16:9 aspect ratio, SRS premium sound, built in webcam and microphone for audio and video recording experience. Powered by the Intel Atom 230 processor, it runs on Windows XP Home operating system and features a spacious 160 GB SATA 2.5 inch hard drive, 4 USB ports and a 4-1 card reader. Other than that, it also flaunts an outfitted state of the art cooling system that reduces the cooling fan noise and at the same time keeps the sound level at up to 26 decibels.

Featuring MSI Wind Touch, the latest MSI Wind Top product ensures a simple user interface for accessing and navigating through all PC functions. MSI Easy Viewer helps to augment the picture viewing experience by quickly browsing, enlarging, rotating and scanning through all the images with a finger.

Lastly, the computing device also allows data entry by using natural handwriting or the touch on screen keyboard and the SoftStylus program for users to take operations to the next level of advancement. In case this function doesn’t entice you, the the PC comes with stylish matching mouse and keyboard to continue the conventional way of typing and navigation.

Mozilla late Friday blocked the Microsoft-made software that put Firefox users at risk from attack.

The two-part Microsoft component — an add-on dubbed “.NET Framework Assistant” and a plug-in named “Windows Presentation Foundation” — have been blocked by Mozilla as a precautionary measure, said Mike Shaver, the company’s head of engineering.

“Because of the difficulties some users have had entirely removing the add-on, and because of the severity of the risk it represents if not disabled, we contacted Microsoft today to indicate that we were looking to disable the extension and plug-in for all users via our blocklisting mechanism,” Shaver said in an announcement posted Friday night to the company’s security blog. Read more at http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9139518/Mozilla_blocks_Microsoft_s_sneaky_Firefox_plug_in

Now you can biometrically authenticate your password!!!

Microsoft has had distinct problems in branding itself, especially to a consumer audience. (For the most recent example, see the company’s weird HostingYourParty video on how to hold a Windows 7 launch party, which has all the believability of a 1950s instructional film.)

Microsoft’s most recent attempt may be a bit more successful. Today, the company announced a new line of Windows phones — mobile phones that use the latest version of what is technically Windows Mobile 6.5. The line consists of a range of different types of handsets from a variety of manufacturers and for most of the major services — to begin with, in the U.S., the company announced two AT&T phones (the HTC Pure and HTC Tilt 2), the HTC Imagio from Verizon Wireless and the Samsung Intrepid from Sprint.

It’s an interesting approach. I got a quick glimpse of the new mobile OS today, and it looked, on first glance, like a strong contender. New features include an easily navigable Today screen that uses Flash to let the user scroll quickly (via the touch display) to e-mail, text messages, the day’s schedule, and other “need to know now” data. There’s also a Windows Marketplace for Mobile, which will allow consumers to purchase Microsoft-approved applications with a 24-hour return policy attached. And a new free service called My Phone will allow you to back up all your data to the cloud; for $4.99, you can also find a lost phone via GPS mapping, remotely lock it or even wipe it.

Obviously, Microsoft is going lock, stock and barrel after Apple’s iPhone and Google’s new Android platform. Microsoft certainly has got its work cut out for it; Apple’s iPhone has a strong and loyal customer base — it’s only weakness being it’s attachment to AT&T — and Android has the attraction of being new, interesting, associated with Google and, not least, open source.

I don’t think we’ll really know how well Microsoft — or Google — will succeed in their attempts to unseat Apple’s iPhone until after this coming holiday season, when consumers will be choosing between them (those consumers that still have an income to purchase new mobile devices, of course).

At least, Microsoft didn’t call it the mPhone.

This “Mechanical Tumor” plugs into your computer, looking very fleshy and realistic. As your computer runs, it quivers and pulses, growing as your computer works harder.

The brainchild of Japanese interactive media artist Mio I-zawa, this thing is flat-out disgusting. I mean, it’s certainly well-made, as I guess the whole point is to look like a real, biological entity, but damn. It looks like something out of a Cronenberg film. I’ll stick to using iStat Pro to monitor my CPU, thanks.

Computer boot time is a concern to many but not all users. Some do not seem to care if their PC boots up in a minute or more while others leave their computers on to avoid booting it again. One of the things that is making the boot time of modern computer systems that long is the computer bios. It can take up to ten seconds for the Bios to load the hardware devices (like hard drives, computer memory or disk drives) before the operating system can start loading the files needed to boot the operating system.

Phoenix have developed a new technology that they call Phoenix Instant Boot. The new technology cuts down the time it takes for the Bios to initialize everything to one second. This is achieved by loading devices and processes that are needed to load the operating system simultaneously. Take a look at the following video that has been posted to Youtube that showcases the boot time.

The notebook used in the demonstration video was powered by a high-performance solid state disk. It took about ten seconds to boot into Windows 7. While boot time is definitely not the only thing that counts it is nice to see some progress in this area. It is even possible, according to Phoenix, that some hardware manufacturers will offer Bios upgrades that incorporate the technology.