Google Chrome extensions officially launched

Google has launched the official gallery of Chrome extensions late Tuesday, putting one of the key missing pieces of the browsing puzzle into place. If you’re on a developer Chrome version, you can now take advantage of built-in extensibility to customize the browser with dozens of third-party extensions. Google claims Chrome extensions are as easy to create as webpages. Users can install and uninstall them quickly without restart, and they sport a great polished look that fits in with Chrome’s minimalist aesthetic, the search company said.

Note that extensions aren’t quite ready in beta, let alone stable Chrome versions. Nevertheless, it’s clear this will be a headline feature in the next Chrome update. Google’s product manager Brian Rakowski wrote in a blog post that extensions won’t tax the browser’s performance and jeopardize users’ security due to a clever design:

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How to deal with a cracked iPhone screen

Mark it down… another iPhone casualty. Since the first day of its release the iPhone has been cracking. The iPhone’s glass screen might be a beautiful window into one of the best smartphones ever made, but drop it the wrong way, just once, and it’s done for.

Once the screen is cracked the phone will probably still be usable. Of course you have to worry about it cracking further, plus there is the small detail of you having to hold it against your face. A new screen will run you $199 through Apple, a handsome sum thanks to the fact the capacitive touchscreen has to be replace along with the glass cover. Third part services will replace screens as well, generally for a little over $100.

This video goes over the details of a cracked iPhone 3GS (my cracked iPhone 3GS to be precise) and a stopgap fix that I’m using until I can convince myself to give Apple another $200.

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The Twoddler is a Twitter interface for toddlers

Let’s face it: for the most part, you don’t even really care “What’s happening?” on Twitter in the lives of your closest friends. 140 characters doesn’t really give a lot of room for strong opining, philosophical reverie or deep musing. It is, mostly, a perfect length to allow people to express their love for their cats, their annoyance with “haters,” their expression of annoyance at a stray sock, and other bovine and contentless utterances.

But you know who Twitter would be perfect for? A demographic that does nothing but make bovine and contentless utterances! So it’s worth noting, at least to laugh, that a team in Belgium has developed a new way for gummy, drooling neonates to use Twitter.

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Mindblowing Gaming Gadget 'snow goggles with built-in HUD'

Every gamer who has ever picked up a controller knows what a HUD is: that informational overlay on the game screen
that tells you information about your character. In Halo, it shows you your shield. In Doom, it shows your own face, bloodied and as pulpy as raw hamburger. In Super Mario Bros. how many lives you have left. And so on.

It must have been gaming that got Recon Instruments thinking: you know where you need to keep track of all of that information? Skiing. Wipe out on the expert’s slopes and you are going to want to know, very quickly, how damaged you are, what the state of your shields are, and how many spare lives you have left.

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