As Don Draper would tell you, good advertising always seeks to connect consumer with product in an emotional way. And with Google’s first television commercial for its Chrome browser, the tech giant has gone straight for the heartstrings.
Rather than focus on Chrome’s superior speed, as its past Internet-only ads have done, Google centers this ad around the “It Gets Better Project,” which seeks to help gay young people who are struggling in the face of bigotry and societal adversity. The It Gets Better Project was first launched in September 2010 by author Dan Savage, who posted a video on Google-owned YouTube to help “inspire hope for young people facing harassment.”
By launching a traditional television ad campaign for its web browser, Google has taken the so-called “browser wars” to an unprecedented public level. Google is currently in a firefight with Microsoft, whose series of Internet Explorer browsers are currently used by 45 percent of all Internet surfers, The New York Times reports, more than any other browser line, but still less than the 53 percent market share IE held last year. Chrome, on the other hand, only has about 18 percent of the market, making it the third most-used broswer. Mozilla’s Firefox browser sits in the No. 2 spot with roughly 30 percent. Apple’s Safari holds only 5 percent of the market.
The reason Google — which rarely spends money on TV ads — has decided to promote Chrome in the mainstream (the ad first debuted during last night’s episode of “Glee”) is because those who use Chrome almost always use Google search and, therefore; see other ads, bought through Google’s wildly successful AdSense online advertising platform. This is because Chrome has only one place to type in information: the “omnibox,” which serves as both the address bar and the search bar, and automatically pumps queries through Google search, by default.
“Instead of looking for Google and looking for search, the omnibox gives them immediate access to Google search,” said Google chief financial officer Patrick Pichette during a conference call with analysts last month. “On a tactical basis, everybody that uses Chrome is a guaranteed locked-in user for us in terms of having access to Google.”
So, don’t be confused by the Google’s intentions in launching this ad. Yes, it is heartfelt and tastefully made. Yes, it takes a brave moral stance behind the LGBT community, which continues to face real and dangerous threats from homophobic forces that seethe throughout the US and the rest of the world. But it still has a lot to do with making money — not that there’s anything wrong with that…
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.