Racking up another point for mobile management, Starbucks released its free Starbucks Card Mobile App for BlackBerry on Thursday. Once you log into the account associated with your Starbucks card, or register a new card to the app, you'll be able to keep tabs on your lattes.

Starbucks Card Mobile App can display your card balance and even better, let you reload value from $10 to $100 (in $5 increments) by paying with your credit card. Auto-reloading is another option for when your balance falls below a certain threshold when you need your coffee kick.

The store-locator feature is handy, but the best feature--paying with the app--is only available in select Starbucks stores (in Seattle and Northern California) and in some trial Target stores. When you do find a participating location, the app will produce a barcode for the cashier to scan.

We successfully loaded credit onto our empty Starbucks card and produced a barcode, and we're looking forward to Starbucks expanding its trial to other stores. While remotely increasing the prepaid balance is a nice perk, the app's real value is in obviating the need for that plastic card in your wallet.

When it came down to the way this simple app did its business, we did have a minor nit to pick--our wish that all number fields were smart enough to translate letter submissions into numbers when pressing the shared number/letter keys on BlackBerrys with physical keyboards.

Other than that, turning those physical cards digital for all regions should be the company's mobile goal.

Download Starbucks Card Mobile App for BlackBerry by pointing the browser to http://mobilecard.starbucks.com/wap/home. The app is compatible on BlackBerry Bold, Curve, Storm and Tour handsets.

Originally posted at Dialed In

If you ever wished for a way to view your iPhone snapshots on a bigger screen (without first copying them to your PC), here's your answer. WiiPhoto transmits photos to your HDTV by way of your Wii game console.

It's a terrific idea, but one marred by a couple of gotchas and the limitations of the console itself.

The app works with any iOS device that's connected to your home Wi-Fi network: iPhone, iPod, iPad, and so on. You'll also need the Wii Internet Channel on your console if you don't already have it.

When you fire up WiiPhoto, it displays your device's IP address, which you type into the Wii's browser. Once that connection is made, all that remains is to choose a source for the photos you want to view: Facebook, Flickr, SmugMug, your Mac, or your on-device photo library.

I started with my iPhone's Camera Roll. I tapped a photo, and sure enough, after a couple of seconds, it appeared on my TV. Neat!

However, I quickly discovered that there's no slideshow option--you have to select pictures manually by tapping on thumbnails. (You can't even swipe to cycle between them.)

Then I tried Facebook. Although I had no trouble signing into my account, WiiPhoto displayed none of my personal albums, and all my friends' albums were labeled "photos not available to you." I'm not sure if this was the result of some oddball FB privacy setting or a bug in the app. According to the developer (who responded very quickly to my support needs), I'm the only one who's reported the problem.

Things fared better with Flickr, and I liked the app's option to show not just my photos, but also "interesting photos," "photos nearby," and "popular places." Here, as in Facebook and SmugMug, you can indeed watch a slideshow (though you can't adjust the default 10-second interval).

Two other issues cropped up during my testing. First, because the best display resolution the Wii can muster is 480p, photos just don't look that great--especially on larger TVs (I tried it with a 46-inch LCD). They look washed-out and grainy.

Also, because of how the Wii browser refreshes itself, you hear a beep every two seconds or so--even if you're still looking at the same photo. That gets annoying mighty quick, but the only real fix is to mute your TV.

Much as I was hoping to love WiiPhoto, I came away just liking it. At $2.99 it's a worthwhile purchase, if only to show off your photos on a big screen--but be prepared for a few disappointments along the way.

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

It's been two years since the first public version of Chrome appeared, but in some ways, Google's browser remains a novelty.

On Thursday, Google released the sixth stable version of Chrome, though only the second for Mac OS and Linux users.

In others' hands, it would be called Chrome 6, but Google sees things differently.

To the company, a version number is a passing milestone on an indefinitely long road to improvement. By default, the browser is updated behind the scenes and automatically, downloading new versions and installing them after a browser restart. It sees the practice as similar to how Web applications are updated constantly, usually without the user being involved and often without even being told.

This update philosophy is one of several differences that has set Chrome apart since Google inadvertently scooped its own announcement by prematurely issuing comic books describing Chrome just before its launch.

Google has attracted millions of allies. It's grown steadily to account for 7.5 percent of global browser usage, according to Net Applications' most recent statistics.

Besides numberless versions, another departure from prevailing custom was Google's idea that the browser should be as minimal a frame as possible around the content or application it's delivering. Chrome's minimal menu buttons--shrunk from two to one by the new version--its top-mounted tabs, and its lack of real estate for a status bar or search box reflect that philosophy. Programmers working on Mozilla's Firefox 4 and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9, the new versions of the world's most-used browsers, have adopted similar goals.

Another departure was Chrome's focus on performance in processing Web-based JavaScript programs, loading pages, and other matters. Performance was important to other browsers, but Chrome's initial near-instant launch and notable JavaScript speed that concept at the top of every browser's agenda and raised Web developers' expectations of what they could tackle.

Chrome also led the way with a new approach to extensions. Those who write the add-ons use a combination of Web technologies including JavaScript, HTML, and CSS for formatting--the same as in Firefox's upcoming Jetpack framework under development now and just introduced to Apple's Safari 5. The technology is designed to be easier to program as well as less disruptive for users to install or update.

Under the covers, Google broke with custom by isolating browser processes into separate memory compartments, too. That consumed more memory but added security and performance. And from a development perspective, Google aims for high velocity: a new "Canary" version changes even faster than the Chrome developer release, and Google plans to update the stable version of Chrome about every six weeks.

Finally, Google had an ambition to be different by transforming the browser into a full-fledged operating system called Chrome OS. Competitors agree that browsers should become a foundation for applications, but not quite to Chrome OS's extent. Google plans to release Chrome OS, which hides Linux under the covers for purposes of communicating with hardware, later this year for Netbooks, but it expects broader usage eventually.

Even without Chrome OS, Google's browser embodies the company's philosophy that the Web is the applications foundation of the future. That's because Google is building in not just faster JavaScript but also other potentially more powerful computing technology.

First is WebGL, a 3D graphics interface that mirrors the OpenGL standard for accelerated hardware graphics. Second is Native Client, which Google hopes will let downloaded code run natively and therefore fast on a PC or smartphone processor. It's got safety mechanisms built in to counteract the risks associated with running arbitrary software downloaded over the Net, and Google has made progress convincing at least some that it's safe to use.

To those who were baffled by Google's announcement of a browser two years ago, this type of work perhaps shows best the advantage Google gets out of Chrome. By largely controlling the development, Google can develop new technology and build it into a widely used if not dominant browser for testing and promotion. It also gives Google new clout in shaping new Web standards.

Google, of course, also has servers at the other end of the browser's Net connection. That lets the two work harmoniously. For example, Google is trying to develop a technology called SPDY that seeks to speed up the basic protocol used to request and send Web pages. It requires browsers and servers to cooperate, and Google's got both under its control. It's trying to standardize SPDY, but in the meantime Chrome can give a fast track to Google services.

When Chrome launched, it was a bare-bones browser missing all kinds of basic and advanced features other browsers possessed--anything to do with bookmark management, for example. Google has fleshed that out, though some relatively basic features such as print preview are still absent. At the same time, Google has added some useful basic features still missing in rival browsers.

One is tab-to-search, which lets keyboard-oriented folk quickly launch site-specific searches at Amazon, Google, Yahoo, Bing, Wikipedia, CNET, and other sites by typing the site address, then tab, then the search term. Another is automatic translation using Google's multilanguage services.

Google has several challenges. One big one is convincing skeptics that Google, with its ever-wider sprawl of services on the Net, is a safe place for personal data. Chrome's address box, called the omnibox, sends data as it's typed to Google servers that suggest search results straight from the box. That's convenient but raises some hackles.

These user interface features, though, are secondary to the broader Chrome ambition. Google is fundamentally a company about Web services, and Chrome is a vehicle to make those services work better.

The more activity there is on the Web--be it search and search advertising, Gmail and Gmail advertising, Google Docs and Google Apps subscriptions, Google Maps and locally targeted advertising--the more Google stands to profit. Even if Chrome never catches on widely, it still serves as competitive leverage to ensure Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple, and any other browser makers don't get complacent.

How convenient for consumers that a better browser aligns so well with Google's commercial interests.

Originally posted at Deep Tech

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