Google Voice is still restricted to its long waiting period, but if you're registered for Google's forwarding system the update to the Google Voice Notifier makes it a must-have. It brings both Google Voice features and some smartphone-style one-click powers to the Chrome browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

The features themselves are not remarkable, but do bring Voice some parity with similar Skype features and add-ons. The extension makes phone numbers on Web sites callable via Google Voice by just clicking on them. You can place calls and send free text messages by typing any number or contact name, and you can view the most recent messages you've received. The toolbar button displays the number of unread messages you've gotten and offers fairly quick access to recent messages and their transcripts.

Most phone numbers are clickable, but not all of them. For those that aren't, which includes numbers in Google Calendar, highlighting a phone number will open the click-to-call pop-up. In the extension's Options menu, you can toggle the clickable numbers option and set which tab the toolbar button defaults to, or deactivate it entirely.

Voicemail playback isn't supported in the current version, although Google says that it's being worked on.

CNET Download's Seth Rosenblatt just dug himself out of the avalanche of software that his team reviews every year. And in his hand was a list of the worst downloads of the year.

And he's willing to share. By worst this year, Seth means the biggest failures, so the coding, presentation, and features of these apps might be decent, but they let us and their customers down in a big way.

Go watch the video, listen to the trivia question, then come back here and post your comments and answer below. We'll draw a random name from the first 10 folks to get the answer right as the winner of the prize.

Last week's Answer: Chicago Music Show. Congrats wbandoy.

Originally posted at CNET TV

Google has released its "stable" version of Chrome 4.0, an incarnation under development for months that brings extensions to customize Chrome features and a host of technologies for more powerful Web programming.

However, the new version is available only for Windows. The Mac OS X and Linux versions of Chrome arrived in beta more than a year after the Windows version, and there's still catching up to do.

Though this release is called version 4.0, Google de-emphasizes browser such numbers, calling them mere "milestones" on the way to a better browser. The software updates itself by default, keeping people on the latest version.

Chrome is the first browser from a Web powerhouse. It hasn't dethroned Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Mozilla's Firefox, but Chrome has passed Apple's Safari in usage by one measure.

Extensions are a major browser feature, letting people add new abilities without burdening all users who might not be interested. Extensions are a major competitive advantage of Mozilla's Firefox, which calls them add-ons and has thousands available for download.

Mozilla is moving to a new extensions foundation called Jetpack that, like Chrome's technology, uses Web standards such as HTML and CSS. Mozilla will support the current XUL system but hopes Jetpack will offer advantages of easier development, installation, and updates.

Programmers have been working on various extensions, and Google on Monday launched its extensions gallery with more than 1,500 available.

Extensions are on the way for non-Windows users.

"To those using Google Chrome on Linux, extensions are enabled on the beta channel," said Chrome Product Manager Nick Baum in a blog post. "And for those using Google Chrome for Mac, hang tight--we're working on bringing extensions, bookmark sync, and more to the beta soon."

Also in the new version is bookmark sync, which means a bookmark added once by Google account holders will see that bookmark in all instances of Chrome they use. Unlike Mozilla's Weave extension, though, it doesn't synchronize passwords or extensions.

He also continued to bang the browser performance drum, citing a 42 percent increase in Mozilla's Dromeao DOM Core Tests that measure, among other things, how fast a browser processes a Web document.

Under the covers is Chrome support for several HTML5 technologies: including the LocalStorage and Database interfaces for letting browser applications or Web sites store data on a computer, the WebSockets interface for more advanced communications between a computer and a server, and the notifications interface for status bar alerts--think Web-based instant-messaging notes.

For details on the interfaces, check the Chromium blog.

Originally posted at Deep Tech

A disagreement between Google and Mozilla is making a once-obscure debate into a real issue for those who watch Web video or host it on their own sites.

Last week, Google's YouTube announced early support for HTML5 video, which can be built directly into Web pages and viewed with browsers without relying on a plug-in such as Adobe Systems' Flash, Microsoft's Silverlight, or Apple's QuickTime. Another Web video site, Vimeo, followed suit.

Native video on a Web page sounds nice, and many Web companies support the effort broadly. But there's one big devil in its detail: the HTML5 specification, still under development, doesn't say which "codec" technology should be used to encode and decode video, and different browsers and Web sites support different standards.

YouTube, which delivers vastly more video streams over the Web than any competitor, has come down on one side of the divide, supporting the H.264 codec for HTML5 video on its TestTube site. But after Google made the move, several involved in developing Mozilla's Firefox browser began preaching a royalty-free alternative called Ogg Theora.

Mozilla grew to its present status of second-place browser in large measure by the power of word of mouth, and there's evidence the Mozilla community has begun making itself heard. After an Ogg Theora petition request on a Mozilla mailing list, requests for Ogg Theora support are on both on the YouTube product top ideas and hot ideas list.

Google wouldn't comment on whether it plans to add Ogg Theora support or what it would take to convince it to do so. However, it did leave the door open.

"Support for HTML5 is just a TestTube experiment at this time and a starting point. We can't comment specifically on what codecs we intend to support, but we're open to supporting more of them over time. At the very least we hope to help further this active and ongoing discussion," the company said in a statement.

$5 million licensing fee
Mozilla would have to pay $5 million to license the H.264 codec from MPEG-LA, the industry group that oversees the technology, said Mike Shaver, Mozilla's vice president of engineering in a blog post, and that doing so wouldn't grant rights of those such as Linux operating system companies who build products employing Mozilla's browser.

"These license fees affect not only browser developers and distributors, but also represent a toll booth on anyone who wishes to produce video content. And if H.264 becomes an accepted part of the standardized Web, those fees are a barrier to entry for developers of new browsers, those bringing the Web to new devices or platforms, and those who would build tools to help content and application development," Shaver said.

Nothing requires only one video technology to prevail. After all, different graphics formats including JPEG, GIF, and PNG are in wide use today on the Web, and today's widely used Flash technology for video will remain a fixture for years.

But supporting multiple standards takes developer time and makes Web sites more complicated. So, in the absence of a prevailing standard, Web site developers are more likely to sit on the sidelines.

A long-running issue
The difficulties have been brewing for months behind the scenes in the HTML5 standardization process. The standard's editor, Google employee Ian Hickson, decided last year against specifying a video codec in the HTML5 standard. "After an inordinate amount of discussions, both in public and privately, on the situation regarding codecs for video and audio in HTML5, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that there is no suitable codec that all vendors are willing to implement and ship," he said in a blog post.

HTML5 video support is just arriving in Web browsers. Firefox of course supports Ogg Theora, and Opera is working on it. Apple's Safari, though, supports H.264. Internet Explorer supports neither, and Google's Chrome supports both.

YouTube and Vimeo support H.264, but not all have gone that route. Dailymotion and Wikipedia embraced Ogg Theora

Most Web sites will have to protect users from this confusion by checking what browser they're using and delivering an appropriately formatted Web page. If a desired HTML5 video format isn't supported, the Web page can fall back to Flash.

But HTML5 video offers some mechanisms for tighter integration with the Web page than Flash. To take advantage of that, developers would have to offer substantially different versions of their Web pages--one with the integration and one without it.

'Something very dangerous'
Mozilla's reflex to steer clear of patent-encumbered technology isn't academic. Unisys started seeking licensing revenue for the GIF format based on compression patents it held, but didn't start until 1999, years after the format grew popular.

"Most people don't understand that something very dangerous is taking place behind the scenes," said Chris Blizzard, who leads developer relations for Mozilla. "Unisys was asking some Web site owners $5,000 to $7,500 to able to use GIFs on their sites...We're looking at the same situation with H.264, except at a far larger scale."

And YouTube's move is a big step toward cementing H.264's position in HTML5 video, he argued.

"Their choice for H.264 had an immediate effect. It's a signal to the market that it's OK to start using H.264 as the main codec for HTML5 video," Blizzard said.

The prevailing wisdom is that H.264 offers superior quality over Ogg Theora. But Blizzard argues that Mozilla has helped the Xiph project from which the Ogg Theora format came is better, and the Ogg Vorbis audio-only codec is superior to MP3: "On the quality side what we've been able to do at Mozilla, with the help of the rest of the Xiph community, is to show that even though Theora is based on older, royalty-free technology, it does at least as well as H.264 in practice (although not always in theory.)"

Mozilla programmer Robert O'Callahan raised another issue: H.264 licensing fees could increase.

"Currently providing H.264 content on the Internet is zero-cost, but after 2010 that will almost certainly change," O'Callahan said. "We won't know much about the terms until the end of this month. The key issue is not exactly how much it will cost, but that if you want to publish H.264 you will probably have to hire lawyers and negotiate a license with the MPEG-LA.

Cutting the Gordian Knot
If this situation seems insufficiently complicated, there's another wrinkle that could come from Google.

But this one has the potential to simplify things.

That's because Google is trying to acquire On2 Technologies, the company whose earlier codec work underlies the Ogg formats. In Google's announcement of the planned acquisition, Sundar Picahai, Google's vice president of product management, had this tantalizing rationale to offer: "Today video is an essential part of the Web experience, and we believe high-quality video compression technology should be a part of the Web platform."

Of course, Google first must convince the On2 shareholders to agree, and it's had to sweeten the offer already. After that, it would have to convince browser companies and others involved in HTML standardization to go along with the idea--and it should be noted that browser makers Microsoft and Apple have patents covered by H.264.

But Apple has a growing media business through iTunes--and its Lala acquisition shows it has some interest in streaming media, too. Microsoft, meanwhile, has begun professing enthusiasm for Web standards.

So while the Web is guaranteed years of changes in Web video--if indeed it ever fully settles down--there is potential here for reconciliation.

Originally posted at Deep Tech

What's the only thing worse than paying that monthly AT&T bill? Paying an even higher AT&T bill, which happens when you blow through your allotted talk time and/or text messages.

That's why I'm a newfound fan of OverMyMinutes Alerter, a free app that alerts you via e-mail and/or SMS when you're getting close to your talk/text limits.

At first blush, this may seem unnecessary. After all, you can use AT&T's own MyWireless app to review your minutes and data usage, or just dial *646# to get a free text message showing your remaining minutes.

But those options require action on your part--you have to remember to do them. OverMyMinutes is a set-it-and-forget-it solution, one that can help prevent unwelcome surprises come the next billing cycle.

The app--which effectively serves as a front end to the OverMyMinutes Web service available to nearly any phone user--lets you sign up for a free account directly.

You also have to provide your AT&T user name and password, which some users will undoubtedly balk at. OverMyMinutes promises total security and privacy; the account info is necessary so the service can obtain your talk/text tallies.

The app itself is fairly straightforward, letting you specify when and how it should alert you when your minutes are running low. However, it doesn't currently mention anything about SMS monitoring, which is confusing. (The developer says you'll get alerts when you're down to five texts left and then down to one.)

I like getting OverMyMinutes' daily usage summary, and I like knowing that it'll notify me before I blow past my SMS limit (which has been known to happen). If that sounds good to you as well, I'd say signing up for OverMyMinutes is a no-brainer.

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

If you're the experimental sort of computer user who feels comfortable trying out beta software and development versions, you may have been playing around with extensions to Google's Chrome browser for a while now. However, if you're not an early adopter--and no shame if you're not--the latest stable version, Chrome 4.0, is now available. That means those browser add-ons are yours to explore, without the warning notifications of assumed risk that came with earlier releases. Don't forget, it's the add-ons like AdBlock Plus and FoxyTunes that gave Firefox the fuel to challenge Internet Explorer's hegemony. CNET reporter Stephen Shankland has the full story on Chrome's update.

(Chrome 4.0 also rolls in bookmark sync, boosts performance, and adds HTML5 features.)

Back in December, we did present you with some of the best extensions on tap for the then-beta and development versions of Chrome. Check out what to expect before you extend Chrome's browser capabilities.

If news of Google's advancement in the browser space doesn't put a smile on your face, you'll be able to at least enjoy the schadenfreude of Download.com Editor Seth Rosenblatt's picks of the five "worst" downloads of 2009 (video). We're not going to give them away here, but we will say that some of these programs are pretty well known--and may even surprise you.