Favicon Displays Unread Mail - Fresh from Gmail Labs

Gmail is always making new Labs, and this one might be one of the better ones. That icon thing with the Gmail logo on your tab can now show the unread mail count, so you can see it with a glance! I have Gmail Checker Plus for Chrome, so I already see my unread mail. But, if you don't want that extension for some reason, this will be great for you! Tried it? Comment!

Android Honeycomb News Conference Wednsday? UPDATE: TechCrunch too!

Mashable claims it got invited to a Honeycomb event on Wednesday. Mashable says that the email invites them “for an in-depth look at Honeycomb, Android ecosystem news and hands-on demos.” Well, this is just like the Chrome event on December 7th. I hope they have a live report of what happens, because this should be interesting. It's the 1st version of Android especially for Tablets, and it will open up the way to iPad competitors. I'll try to blog about it as soon as I can. What do you think about Honeycomb? Comment!

LG Optimus Black on Amazon: About $680

The LG Optimus Black. You know, one of the thinnest phones around? Well, it's been found on  Amazon and priced at about $680 (499 euros). Well, that seems pretty expensive, but I hope that when bought with a contract, it will lower the price. The iPhone is pretty thin, and it's not that expensive. We need an Android phone that can fully match up with the iPhone without completely cloning it, and this might be the one. As long as the price is kept down, though...

Chromium hits version 11

Well, Google releases a new version of Chrome every 6 weeks, so it's no surprise. But, it's nice to know that Chromium is in version 11, which means Chrome 9 is on the way, since Chromium is usually 2 versions ahead of Chrome. (Chrome 8 came out on December 3rd, Google is behind). Let's hope Chrome 9 comes out soon!

Apps on New Tab Page Rearrangable ... on some dev or canary build

Somewhere over the rainbow, apps are rearrangeable on the Chrome New Tab page. It's not on stable version yet, but it is on some dev or canary build. This is one of the most annoying problems with Chrome for me, because some of my most important apps need to be scrolled to. It's good to know that at last, someone at Google is working on this feature.

Imo.im New Look Out of Alpha

Horay! Imo.im, my favorite chat client has had a new look for a while, but it wasn't on by default, and it was in alpha. Now, it looses its alpha label, and it's on by default! Here's some more about imo.im. It's a site that lets you combine your different sites (MSN, Skype, Yahoo, Google Talk (Gmail), AIM, Jabber, Myspace, Facebook) so that you can see all of your contacts from all your services and chat with them. I use the extension for Chrome because it lets me chat without opening Gmail, and it lists me as online so that people can chat with me whenever my browser is open. Try it, it''s free, and you don't need to sign up; all you need is an account that imo supports. Click here to try it!

Android Honeycomb SDK

Finally, you can try "non-final" Android Honeycomb! In case you missed honeycomb is supposed to be the tablet-only OS for Android (probably iPad OS rival). It looks completely different than the regular Android UI. At last, you're allowed to play with it instead of watching videos of it! To download the Honeycomb SDK, click here and download whatever's right for your OS. It's pretty self-explanatory.

Bad News for Nokia

Nokia isn't doing much better than LG. It too reported it's Q4 2010 results, and it's market share is 31% and that's down from previous months. It looks like more and more people are turning to Android, which is getting more growth than the iPhone. Here's an image from Mashable mid-2010:

LG not doing to well

Poor LG. It recently reported its 2010 Q4 results, and cell phone sales are down 15%, and it's profit down 93%! Yikes! I think that the reason for this is probably because they don't make very many good Android phones, and that's what people are looking for. Yes, there are people looking for nice, simple, and few-featured cell phones out there, but if you want to make cell phones, you need lots of Android! HTC and Motorola are popular right now, and many of their phones are Android. So, I know that LG has to potential to make great phones, like it's LG Optimus Black, which may be the thinnest Android phone ever, but it just needs more selection, since selection is key. Come on LG, we want Android!

Nearly 10 Billion App Downloads from Apple App Store UPDATE: Apple Hit the number

In my emails, I like to say "read subject" because there is nothing more to be said. Unfortunately, that is not something I can do in blogging as that would make this the most boring blog ever blogged on. So, as the subject says, the Apple App store is nearing 10 billion App downloads. That's a lot more apps than the Android market downloaded, so better catch up. Also, if you're an iPhone user and you download the 10 billionth app, you'll get a 10,000 dollar iTunes gift card. Good, unless you're an Android user. I'll definitely be doing a blog post about Android's 10 billionth download. Just to give you an idea, Android is at a little over 2 and a half billion downloads. We need to do some serious catching up. Want more stats? Head over this way.

Quick Math: At the rate apps are being downloaded, we'll likely hit that 10,000,000,000mark in about 2 years.