Google working on 1Password-like feature for Chrome. Google is working on a possible password-managing tool for future versions of its Chrome browser.
ArsTechnica found details of the interesting project on the Chromium Project site. Much like the popular 1Password software from AgileBits, the Chrome feature would generate, suggest, and remember strong passwords for you. The tool would save you from having to remember multiple passwords and cut down on the highly unsafe practice of using one password across multiple sites. The Chrome-created passwords would be random and different for each of the sites where you have a login.
You wouldn’t have to use the tool while using Chrome, but the built-in option would come up each time you created a new account. The suggestion would only come up for new passwords, leaving old passwords, for better or worse, alone. An even more interesting potential feature would be a sort of self-destruct button.
Combination lock image via Shutterstock. Google Will Make $10 Per Android User In 2012: Report. A number of reports out underscore how strategic mobile is now for Google’s business.
The first, from IDC, says that there were more smartphones shipped in Q4 than PCs. Think about that. And earlier analyst reports found that tablets (read: iPad) have cut into PC sales. The PC era is now officially over. PCs will continue to sell but the center of gravity has shifted to mobile devices. Google CEO Eric Schmidt previously speculated that Android would become a $10 billion revenue stream if a billion users generated $10 per year for Google. Today Google’s mobile ad business is worth roughly $1 billion on an annualized basis. According to a discussion of the forecast in eWeek: Using Google’s self-stated figure that its mobile ad business was operating at a $1 billion run rate through 2010, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said Google generated $850 million in mobile ads for the year.
Just as Darth Vader surpassed his old master Obi Wan, so too Android has now surpassed the iPhone. Anti-Spam Search Engine Blekko Averaging 1 Million Queries Per Day. Blekko's alternative, human-curated search engine now averages 1 million queries a day and between 10 to 15 queries per second just three months after launch, according to January figures the startup released Monday.
Blekko's secret sauce is its slashtags — topic tags auto-fired or appended by users to queries to limit search results to those from curated sets of websites. Blekko is reporting that there are now more than 110,000 human-curated slashtags. Blekko CEO Rich Skrenta sees the figure as proof that the slashtag approach is resonating with users. "We’re happy at how quickly users have adopted the idea of a new search engine and have created so many quality slashtags just three months since launch," he says. With 66.6% market share in the U.S., search is Google's domain to lose.
In previous conversations, both Skrenta and Blekko founder Mike Markson appeared grounded in the reality that Blekko would not be making a dent in Google's search share anytime soon.