Do you recall the Native Client technology revealed last fall by Google? Well, today Google released a developer preview of the Native Client SDK.

Native Client is an open-source technology for running native code in web applications, with the goal of maintaining the browser neutrality, OS portability, and safety that people expect from web apps.

With the Native Client SDK -which is available under Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux- you can build web apps that seamlessly use native C/C++ code to perform high-performance computation, render 2D/3D graphics, play audio, and respond to mouse and keyboard events. If you are interested in building Native Client apps, visit code.google.com/p/nativeclient-sdk.

Check out the Getting Started guide for more instructions for building and running the examples.

Apparently, Android is trying out this new Feedback Experiment inside the Developer Console. Until now this feedback widget is periodically not showing up and the links shown there are not fully functional. According to this, Android developers will be able to view feedback for any app by typing its package name. That sounds pretty interesting, huh?

The links there -which obviously don’t work for now- look like this

http://market.android.com/publish/Home#SHOW_FEEDBACK:PACKAGE_OVERVIEW:com.android.browser

Update: I just saw that the search box in this Feedback Experiment is an autocomplete/autosuggest text field. Awesome!

Google believes that developers should have their choice of tools and technologies to create applications.

Andy Rubin, Google VP of Engineering, Android

In a blog post today, Andy Rubin announced that Google is partnering with Adobe to bring the full web, great applications, and developer choice to the Android platform.

xAuth is an open platform for extending authenticated user services across the web.

Meaning that toolbar vendors, like Meebo, can now take advantage of this new open platform in order to provide a better user experience to the users. Specifically, users will be able to see social elements only from the social networks that they are actually on. This could lead to fewer HTTP requests that are usually necessary to recognize every potential online service. In addition, xAuth gives the users the option to decide which services pass data to sites through xAuth using the HTML5 methods window.postMessage and localStorage. In other words, the user has complete control of this exchange of data that takes place between the service and the site. This one strongly reminds me of a talk by Aza Raskin titled “You-Centric: The Future of Browsing” which I strongly suggest you see it. The whole idea of complete control of your data hovers around most of Mozilla’s projects like the latest Contacts.

As for the social toolbars, I personally am not very fond of, probably because I do not like the current implementation of these toolbars. Though I have used them one or two times -and they seemed quite handy- I never liked them. I don’t like the way they show up and I don’t like the way the look like.

However, xAuth seems that it grabbed my attention. I am wondering, now that developers can actually grab that information about your social networks how this could help make experiencing the web even better. I mean, why do I have to be bombarded with all these sharing/like buttons if I haven’t even joined each particular social network? And the same goes for all these commenting systems like Disqus.

Moreover, this would be very-very-very interesting for all the mobile platforms out there. Providing a faster and a better mobile experience happens to be one big fcuking reason to support xAuth.

More information on xAuth here and here.

Update: Don’t forget to watch Meebo’s CEO talk with Robert Scoble about xAuth here.

Hola Android fans. Like last year, this year too Google announced a series of Android developer labs taking place all around the globe during February and March. (Unfortunately Greece is not included)

Our Android Advocates are going on a world tour, traveling to locations all around the globe! Hear about the state of the Android platform, get hands-on with the latest version of the SDK, meet like-minded Android engineers, play with the latest Android devices, test your apps, and ask your questions directly to Android team members.
Space is limited, so please wait for an email confirmation after you’ve been registered before making any travel plans. If you’re interested, click on one of the links below to request your seat.
Registration deadline for currently open sessions is February 1st.

Upcoming Sessions

North America

• Austin, Texas, USA – Feb. 4, 2010
• Seattle, Washington, USA – Feb. 8, 2010
• Waterloo, Ontario, Canada – Feb. 8, 2010
• Washington D.C., USA – Feb. 9, 2010
• Mountain View, California, USA – Feb. 10, 2010
• Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA – Feb. 11, 2010
• New York, New York, USA – Feb. 12, 2010

Europe

• London, UK – Feb. 2, 2010
• Paris, France – Feb. 8, 2010
• Berlin, Germany – Feb. 10, 2010
• Zurich, Switzerland – Feb. 12, 2010
• Madrid, Spain – Feb. 13, 2010

Asia

• Singapore – Feb. 28, 2010
• Taipei, Taiwan – March 3, 2010
• Hong Kong – March 4, 2010

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Google announced the next Google I/O taking place at the Moscone Center,  in San Francisco during May 19 – 20, 2010. Early discounted registration is now open through April 16, 2010. If I lived in San Francisco I ‘d definitely register right away. Last year’s Google I/O sold out before the start of the conference, so all those lucky guys and girls who live nearby San Francisco sign up as soon as possible. Maybe I ‘ll see you at the Moscone Center at Google’s largest developer event of the year. :)

Sessions include overviews, basics and advanced content featuring:

• Android
• App Engine
• Chrome
• Enterprise
• Geo
• Google APIs
• GWT
• Social Web
• Wave
• Tech Talks

Google I/O features 80 sessions, more than 3,000 developers, and over 100 demonstrations from developers showcasing their technologies. Talk shop with engineers building the next generation of web, mobile, and enterprise applications.

Follow @googleio for the latest updates on I/O. (official hashtag: #io2010)

[ photo via oemebamo ]