Cross posted at the Google Code blog

This year at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) Online we have organized a Developer Day on Oct. 10th full of Google information for game developers. It will feature hardcore technical information on Google products and platforms delivered by Google engineers and developer advocates. We’ll discuss the latest projects we’re working on and how our online technologies can help you better create, distribute, and monetize games that reach a larger audience than ever before. We’ll present everything from how developers can build hardware accelerated 3D games for the browser with WebGL to the game framework used to bring Angry Birds to the Web.

In addition to the Developer Day, we will also have a booth on the Expo floor on Oct. 11th-12th where we’ll have representatives from the Chrome Web Store, Native Client, WebGL, App Engine, Google+, In-App Payments, Google TV, and AdSense/AdMob demoing technologies and platforms for game developers. Come by booth 503 to try out Google products and ask questions, or hang out in our Google TV lounge.

For more information on our presence at GDC Online, including session and speaker details, please visit http://www.google.com/events/gdc/2011. Hope to see you in Austin!

Not able to attend GDC? Check out Google Game Developer Central to get an overview of Google products and services that are particularly relevant to game developers.

Yesterday we made a small change in Chrome Web Store’s app upload flow: when you upload new apps and extensions to the Chrome Web Store, or edit one of your existing items, you'll be prompted to provide us with new promotional image assets. We are asking you for these assets so that we can highlight your apps and extensions in a brand new store layout that our team is working on.

What's new:

• (Required) You’ll need to provide us with a large rectangular image to identify your app, in addition to assets you already provide - your app icon and at least one screenshot.
• (Optional) You can provide us with an even larger rectangular image format as well.

What's different

• The screenshot dimensions have grown larger with a wider aspect ratio.
• The (optional) marquee image dimensions have also grown larger.

What's the same

• The specification and dimensions for the icon file

To make things easier, we only require screenshots in the new dimensions going forward -- we'll automatically scale them as needed to make them visible in the current store layout. You can read the details about the new requirements on our image guidelines page. If you have any questions on these changes, feel free to reach us at our discussion group.

When we talk Chromebooks with our developer friends, a common reaction we get is “I can see why my [insert-relative-here] would use it, but I need my PC for coding”. Over the last few years, browser-based coding has grown from a research topic to a viable practice. You can already find many development apps on the Chrome Web Store today. Some are conventional code editors and IDEs, built right into the browser. Others are oriented more around prototyping and design. There are also many tools for project management.

First up, IDEs. You can now code, debug, and deploy real programs from the browser. A popular example at Google IO was Cloud9, an IDE for JavaScript, Python, PHP, and Ruby. Cloud9 uses the HTML5 FileSystem capability and AppCache to sync files, so you can even code offline. There are many other IDEs in the web store too, such as Kodingen, Codey, Akshell, eXo Cloud IDE, and PHPAnywhere.

It’s not all about coding though. There are also apps focusing on web design, for people who want to make a web page without coding or perhaps experiment with a few concepts early on. Being able to edit and design web pages inside the tool that will display them is a very powerful concept. BuildorLite and BuildorPro let you construct a web page via a graphical user interface, and publish it straight on their servers. Handcraft and Mockingbird are two apps aimed at design and prototyping. And if you want a scratchpad to try a few coding experiments, check out JSFiddle.

Launching software isn’t just about designing and coding your apps; it’s also about managing the entire workflow, from planning release schedules to triaging bug reports. One example is GitHub Issues, providing a quick, app-like, way to track project issues. Another is Launchlist Pro, a checklist you can use to launch your website.

Chrome aims to bring simplicity, speed, and security to all users, and that includes developers. Being cloud-based means these tools are always up to date, and running inside the browser’s sandbox minimises the security risk to your machine. There’s no complicated install process and the only dependency is Chrome itself, which is automatically kept up to date. Just install the app and get coding.

We’re especially excited about what this means for new developers, as programming tools have never been more accessible to everyone. So whether you’re a seasoned veteran or just looking to get started, visit the Chrome Web Store today and build something awesome in your browser!

Advertisements are important to finance the free distribution of high-quality content on the internet. However, some websites are loaded with annoying banners and intrusive popups, so surfing the internet has become quite annoying on these sites. Adblocking extensions for Google Chrome therefore are becoming increasingly popular.

Which is the best adblocker?

The two most popular extensions in the Chrome Webstore currently are “AdBlock” and “Adblock Plus”. Both extensions promise to do the same thing: Block all ads on every website. But what is the difference between the two, and which one is the better adblocker?

AdBlock was originally created for Google Chrome. It is the older one of the two and still has more users. Adblock Plus was only recently ported to Google Chrome, but the numbers of users are growing quickly. In no time, it has become the second most popular of all Chrome extensions. It is the equivalent to Adblock Plus for Firefox, with more than 120 million downloads, and is the most popular browser addon in the world. Chrome Adblock Plus is based on the same code as the Firefox version which has been developed for years as an open-source project by an international community of voluntary helpers.

When comparing the two extensions, it is noticeable that Adblock Plus has a much more sophisticated code base. While both adblockers have the same effectiveness in blocking ads, Adblock Plus is more stable and doesn’t cause the browser to slow down. Also, on video websites such as youtube.com, the normal blocking mechanism doesn’t work for ads embedded in the video. Adblock Plus has implemented a workaround so that blocking those ads becomes possible. So while both extensions do a great job, Adblock Plus works a bit faster and more reliably.

Setting up Adblock Plus

You can download Adblock Plus from the Chrome Webstore or the official Chrome Adblock Plus website. Setup takes only a few seconds, once installed, all ads are gone automatically. During setup you will receive a warning that extensions can access private data, such as your browsing history – this is a standard warning in Chrome for all extensions that modify webpages. Adblock Plus does not actually infringe on the user’s privacy.

After the installation, Adblock Plus does its job quietly in the background and no actions from the user are required. However, if you want to support a website such as techie-buzz.com you can easily disable Adblock Plus from blocking ads on this particular domain. Just click on the ABP logo in the right corner of the address bar and uncheck the “Enabled for this site” tickbox. This way, creators of great content don’t miss out on advertising revenues, while all ads on other websites are still blocked.

Add additional filter lists

Adblock Plus itself doesn’t block anything – the elements that are blocked are determined by filter rules. Advanced users can add filters themselves. Users without the time or knowledge to create filter rules can subscribe to one or more of many free filter lists. In the default setting, the “EasyList” is enabled, which blocks all ads on websites. If a user wants to block additional elements, such as malware domains, advertiser tracking or social bookmark buttons, the respective filter list needs to be added manually. Many free filter subscriptions can be found here.

To add a filter lists, it’s URL needs to be inserted into the Adblock Plus interface using copy & paste. After having copied a filter list’s URL, the user needs to right-click on the ABP icon and choose “Options” and the “Filter lists” tab. There you will find a field to add the filter list’s URL. By pasting the URL and clicking the “Add URL” button, the user has subscribed to the filter list.

For example, if you want to get rid of all Facebook like-buttons, you just need to add the Antisocial list by adding the following URL to your filter lists:

The next time you visit a website such as techie-buzz.com, all social bookmarking buttons will be gone. This is especially useful for users who never bookmark anything or are concerned about their privacy, because Facebook is well known to track and store user data from visits to websites which have the like-button implemented.

Chrome: If you wake in the morning and tune in the news as you start the day, the BBC News Alarm web app for Chrome lets you wake up and listen to the headlines from the BBC World Service, downloaded while you sleep. More »

Since we launched the Chrome Web Store, we’ve been working on several new improvements. Today, we’re happy to share our progress towards making the Chrome Web Store available to all Chrome users worldwide and the availability of Google In-App Payments for web app developers.

First, as we announced at Google I/O, the In-App Payments API is now available for app developers. We demo-ed the way Graphicly uses this API and Angry Birds announced that they will use it to offer users the Mighty Eagle for in-app purchase on the web. Integrating the API into your app is as simple as adding a single line of code and provides a frictionless user experience for making purchases within the app. We hope to gather feedback on the API before making it fully available this summer.

Second, the Chrome Web Store is now available in 41 languages. This is our second step towards launching Chrome Web Store in 15 additional countries. Developers interested in targeting international users can now go to the Chrome Web Store and publish free apps in these countries in preparation for launch. We will also support publishing paid apps in selected countries later this year.

Localizing your apps will expose them to many more users and allow them to be featured in the local Chrome Web Store homepages. We hope this expanded functionality will allow you to create brand new international apps or to localize your existing apps.

They are coming. They are angry. Protect your pigs.

Angry Birds, the most popular game for mobile devices, has arrived in the Chrome Web Store. Built using the latest technologies, Angry Birds is as much fun on the web as on your phone. In addition, you can try beating the new web-only, Chrome-inspired levels.

While firing up that slingshot, you may also want to try out some of the other apps that were recently added to the store. To keep up with the world of finance, you can install the Reuters and Fortune 500 apps. ESPN Cricinfo brings the latest cricket news straight to your new tab page. For the photo enthusiasts among you, LiveShare helps aggregate your friends’ photos from events you attended together.

In addition to the new apps added today, popular apps such as Springpad and Graphicly have been updated to work offline. This makes them even more useful, especially to those of you who snap up one of our new Chromebooks.

Finally, for those of you who prefer to surf the web in a different language, we’ve made the Chrome Web Store available in 41 languages. This is just a first step towards launching the store in 15 more countries with locally relevant applications. Some, like SKY for the UK and EXAME for Brazil, have already appeared in the store.

To play with all of these goodies and the more than 19,000 other items in the Chrome Web Store, you can start by downloading Google Chrome at google.com/chrome.

Many users rely on apps to provide timely notifications for things like calendar events and incoming chat messages, but find it cumbersome to always keep a Chrome window open. Extensions and packaged apps can already display notifications and maintain state without any visible windows, using background pages. This functionality is now available to hosted apps - the most common form of apps in the Chrome Web Store - via a new background window mechanism.

Apps and extensions that use the new “background” feature can continue to run in the background—even if the user closes down all of Chrome’s windows. “Background apps” will continue to run until Chrome exits. The next time Chrome starts up, any background windows that were previously running will also be re-launched. These windows are not going to be visible but they will be able to perform tasks like checking for server-side changes and pre-emptively loading content into local storage.

One way you can use background windows is to preload content and data so that they are immediately available when the user opens your app. You could also issue HTML5 notifications to alert the user when important events occur—for example, a friend wants to initiate a chat session. There are plenty of possibilities here, and we look forward to seeing what you’ll do.

To protect our users’ privacy, we’ve made this functionality available only to apps and extensions; regular websites will not be able to open background windows. Developers will also need to declare the “background” capability on their apps.

Users can easily see which background apps (and extensions) are running in their system through the “Background Apps” menu of the Chrome icon in the system tray (Windows/Linux) or dock (Mac). Chrome will automatically load background components when the user logs in, and the Chrome icon will remain in the system tray or dock as long as background apps are running- even if all Chrome windows are closed. To close all background components, a user just needs to exit Chrome.

The feature is already available in Chrome’s Dev channel. For details on the API, check out our developer’s guide, which also includes sample apps to try out.

After months of anticipation, Google finally unveiled the Chrome Web Store this past December. But a lot of users were disappointed with the launch for one very big reason: it was U.S.-only. Starting today, Google is finally taking the initial steps to change that, as they’ve opened a developer preview of the Web Store for 15 more countries.

Note that this doesn’t mean the store is ready quite yet for international users. Google says that a full launch will happen “later this year”. “We are releasing this developer preview ahead of the consumer release so you have enough time to prepare your apps for international users,” Google notes. This is the same thing Google did for U.S. developers back in August of last year. If that timetable holds, international users should get access in about four months.

So which countries are getting access to this developer preview? Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

And, significantly, there will be localized payment options in place for each of those countries. Notes Google:

If you are using Chrome Web Store Payments to charge for your app, you will also be able to set the app price for each country although if you’re not based in the United States you will not be able to complete your merchant account sign up just yet (this will be enabled soon).

The early talk about the store has been that web apps weren’t selling too well. But others have said their apps are doing fine. Regardless, opening up beyond the U.S. can only help.

Google has promoted three major Chrome features from the beta channel to the stable build. With the latest version of Chrome, all users can take advantage of WebGL, Chrome Instant and the Chrome Web Store.

WebGL brings hardware-accelerated 3D rendering to Chrome, making for some amazing graphics that could have gaming implications in the future. Right now, you can see it in action in several impressive demos. Chrome Instant will have a bigger immediate impact on users' day-to-day browsing. It loads your frequently-visited pages as you type into the address bar. No enter key required!

For folks who love extensions, themes and Web apps, the Chrome Web Store is the most important new feature. Now that the Web Store is open to all U.S. customers, Google has added a Web Store link and a couple of demo apps to the new tab page in the latest version of Chrome. They've also assured international users that the Web Store will be expanding to other countries soon.

As always, if you run Chrome, it will download the update automatically -- but you'll need to close and re-open it for the update to be applied.

Chrome: If you like some of Chrome's new webapps but don't want to change your tab page, extension App Launcher will let you launch apps from the address bar. More »

Google publicly unveiled the Chrome Web Store a week ago. Looking at the most popular apps in the U.S. by weekly install numbers, it looks like TweetDeck has fast risen to the most prominent spot on the list, as relayed by the startup’s founder Iain Dodsworth earlier today.

With about 102,500 weekly installs at the time of writing, TweetDeck thus beats NYTimes, whose app has seen approximately 87,700 weekly installs to date, roughly seven days in.

So where are the Google services? Right behind the TweetDeck and the NY Times, it appears.

The list of top 10 most popular apps on the Chrome Web Store includes Google Calendar, Google Books, Google Docs, Google Reader, Gmail, Google Maps and YouTube.

Granted, most of Google’s ‘apps’ are mere links to the respective Web-based services, whereas ‘ChromeDeck’ is an actual app, but still.

Springpad rounds out the list of the ten most popular apps on the store as the third non-Google service to make the list after TweetDeck and NY Times, with about 35,000 weekly installs (almost a third of TweetDeck’s install numbers).

Obviously, it’s far too soon to draw any conclusions, but it’s certainly a testament to TweetDeck’s huge popularity to see it leading the most popular Chrome apps list, considering the company is primarily regarded as a desktop and mobile client software developer.

For your information, rivals HootSuite (16,000 weekly installs), eBuddy Web Messenger (13,9200 weekly installs) and Seesmic (5,442 weekly installs) are trailing far behind.

Since the Chrome Web Store opened a few days ago, I have gone ahead and installed tons of new extensions and Chrome apps in Google Chrome. However, having lots of extensions and apps can be a bad experience since it makes finding them a bit more difficult.

AppJump Launcher is a Google Chrome extension which allows you to quickly find and launch apps you have installed in Chrome. The extension provides you with a quick view of all the installed apps and extensions through an icon. Using that you can find and launch any app quickly.

In addition to the quick access to apps, AppJump also provides a full page view of all the installed apps and extensions where it allows you to launch apps, disable them or uninstall them. You can reach this full page view by clicking on the + button in the icon listing. The AppJump full page option is actually replacement for Google’s in-built extension manager.

Well I am not done yet, another useful feature in AppJump is that it allows you to create groups and add applications to it. Using this feature you can easily browse apps or extensions based on the groups you create.

AppJump is definitely a great extension for Chrome and it makes managing all your extensions and apps a breeze while providing a beautiful interface for it. One thing I would like to see in a future update of AppJump is the ability to search apps and launch them, something similar to what Launchy does, but just for Chrome. Having that feature would definitely be awesome and was already on my wish list for Chrome.

The Chrome Web Store is finally here, and many of you probably have a handful of apps installed -- if for no other reason than a little eye candy on your new tab page. If you'd prefer a way to launch your apps that offers a bit more convenience and customization, check out the AppJump Launcher extension.

In addition to adding a handy drop-down panel from which you can launch your Chrome Apps, AppJump also allows you to create groups, which lets you categorize things for quick drill-down access -- which will be very useful once you've accumulated a few dozen apps.

One feature which is missing from AppJump is drag-to-reorder (which is also missing from the Chrome new tab page). I'd love to be able to move my apps around and sort them however I choose, but for right now you're stuck with whatever layout AppJump displays.

We love some of the new apps in the Chrome web store, but a few are without obvious URLs and are seemingly only available from Chrome's new tab page. To get an app's special URL, though, just add it as a bookmark. More »