9to5 Staff

This is pretty cool.  If you are using the latest builds of the Chrome browser for Mac with the ability to install Chrome extensions, you can now install Google Voice into your browser.  It adds a little icon to the right of the URL/Search bar which lets you make calls/SMS/Check your messages.  

Perhaps the best feature though, is that you can make calls directly from the browser – just like you can on your iPhone.  Chrome will create a hyperlink on phone numbers it finds in the browser.  The calls go through whichever phone (including Skype) you have set up with Google Voice.  Eventually, once Gizmo5 is properly integrated with Google, you’ll be able to make the full transaction without leaving your browser.

This morning we

Apple is seeding a new maintenance and security pre-release beta to developers, Mac OS X 10.6.3 Build 10D538.

As reported by AppleInsider, this build features,

Amazon in the UK and US appears to be offering MacBook Pro models at fairly good discounts (for a Mac).

Two examples:

UK deal: The MacBook Pro 13inch model with a 2.26GHz processor, 2GB memory and a 160GB drive usually costs

At the introduction of the iPhone, Steve Jobs touted that new device as a “Widescreen iPod”, “Revolutionary Mobile Phone” and “Breakthrough Internet Communications Device”. 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASkis57blsc&w=600&h=385]

I believe the same type of convergence thinking is going into the tablet.  It can’t just be a “Kindle-killer” eBook reader.  It can’t just be a “Media Pad”.  It can’t be only a Nintendo DS or PSP competitor.   It can’t just be a small NetBook-sized MacBook either.  It has to be all of these things.  At the same time.  Say it together:

  “The best eBook reader.  The best Netbook.  And the best portable media player and gaming device”

Repeat.

We know Apple.  The device will be impossibly thin

From BusinessInsider, Gene Munster gets us ready for the earnings forecast next week:

• Apple has been consistent in beating its guidance (VERY consistent)
• Gene Munster thinks they’ll do so again 
• As always, the whisper numbers are much higher than the printed estimates 
• iPhone sales were only “okay” because Google’s Android stole some thunder 
• Munster: The iPhone ultimately is going to become the biggest selling phone in the market 
• Note: Since this taping, Munster has raised his iPhone estimates. He now thinks Apple could report 9.3 million iPhone shipments for the Dec. quarter, above the Street’s 9.1 million consensus.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwzklHZqkbE&w=560&h=340]

We kind of like Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer for showing he has a pretty good sense of humour in this clip, in which he signs a student’s Macbook during his visit to Trevecca Nazarene University earlier this week. Closeups of the signature can be found at uselessuniverse.com.

Via: Softpedia

Vodafone has already sold 100,000 units of the Apple iPhone 3G and 3GS since launch in the UK – that

Since the day the iPhone was introduced critics have slammed the Apple device for its lack of a QWERTY keyboard – but the iPhone

Somewhere on the Apple product matrix future roadmap sits a MacBook Air upgrade – but the MacBook and MacBook Pro machines may see themselves upgraded before the Air gets beefed-up, speculates Hardmac this morning.

The website notes that

We

A fresh report once again confirms Apple to be in talks with key educational publishers with a view to inking content deals for the soon-to-ship Apple tablet.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=5719819&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1

Yesterday YouTube introduced an experimental version of an HTML5-supported player. HTML5 is the new web standard that adds many new features to your web browser, notably support for video and audio playback within the browser itself. Now Vimeo has launched its own HTML5 experiment.

This means that users with an HTML5 compatible browser (right now: Safari or Chrome), and support for the proper audio and video codecs can watch a video without needing to download a browser plugin. However, the HTML5 player only works on Vimeo.com right now, embed code (as above) remains Flash.

Vimeo

FoxNews is saying that AT&T and Verizon both will be carrying separate versions of the tablet but neither has finalized the deal with Apple yet

iLounge today posts some new tablet details:

The first tidbit is that the tablet will have dual 30-pin dock connectors to allow docking in portrait and landscape mode.  Good for watching video!

Next, iLounge says that the back is aluminum and has a long black stripe of plastic so the antenna signal isn’t blocked.  Sound familiar?  

They go on to talk prices and subsidies offered by carries since it will likely have a 3G radio. The thought of another carrier plan is just too depressing to talk about.

Is this thing really going to be a big iPhone?

Advertised as faster than Apple’s and “sealed in the box”, someone is selling some pretty speedy Mac Pros on eBay.  They’ve likely bought the Intel 8 core 3.33GHz Nehalem chips and transplanted those chips into a base model Mac Pro.  Then “sealed” them in the box.  

Still.  If you need the fastest Mac around

For those paranoid Android iPhone users out there, there is the worst-named iPhone app ever: iTrust ($.99)  (via)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOks28CwJI4&w=600&h=385]

This one looks a bit shaky.  AppleInsider is saying that the tablet, which will be revealed next week, resembles a first generation iPhone.  Reuters reported previously that the shell of the tablet would be made of aluminum.  AppleInsider expands on this saying that the buttons and I/O on the device are the same as the iPhone.

 …tablet reportedly sports all of the same buttons found on the handset, right down to the iconic home button…its 10-inch display is framed by a black border that bleeds into its wrap-around aluminum enclosure.

Could that mean that MacObserver‘s ‘giant iPhone’ glass parts were the real deal?  Color us skeptical.

The latest Apple-related U.S. Patent and Trademark Office publishing reveals a design for a solar powered portable device (i.e. an iPod or iPhone), an improvement on a previous 2008 patent filing.

As described, such a device would host built-in rigid solar panels on its front and back with which to collect power. In the filing the entire front and rear of the device would be covered with the cells.

The system includes circuits to monitor the battery’s state, choosing whether to recharge using external solar power or to store solar energy for later use.

The Apple tablet really has Amazon doing some interesting things.  In the two days, Amazon has renegotiated its deals with publishers to 70/30, it has released an SDK and now it is reportedly offering free Kindles to heavy book buyers in the form of a guaranteed money back/keep the Kindle promotion.  the offer ends the day before the tablet presentation. 

Amazon really needs to work on its poker face.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6lLdFxiZPc&w=600&h=365]

Digitimes today informs us that Simplo Technology and Dynapack International Technology will be making the Apple tablet battery.  That’s a pretty good indication that Apple isn’t using ‘off the shelf’ technology because those are the same two suppliers that supply the specially designed batteries for Apple’s MacBook.

Taiwan-based notebook battery makers Simplo Technology and Dynapack International Technology are expected to share orders from Apple for its tablet PC, according to a Chinese-language Commercial Times report. The two companies are also battery suppliers for Apple’s MacBooks, the paper noted.