Chrome to Phone

7/description.html">Google Chrome extension that sends any URL you're currently visiting to your Android device. First install the extension on your PC. Then on your Android device, install the free Chrome to Phone app. Then when you're browsing the Web and want to send a URL to your Android phone, simply click the Chrome to Phone link. It's immediately sendtto your Android phone, and if the phone is on, the link opens in the Android's browser. If the phone is turned off, the link will open in the Android browser the next time you turn it on.

The Chrome to Phone app also keeps a list of all links sent, so that you can later on view the links as well.

You can do more than just send links to Web pages. If you're viewing a map in Google Maps, click the Chrome to Phone icon, and that map to that location will open in your Android Browser. Select a phone number on a Web page and send it, and that phone number opens in the Android dialer app. Select text on a Web page and send it, and that text gets placed onto the Android clipboard.

Chrome to Phone is a great workaround--but it's a workaround, not the ultimate solution. A tool to synchronize bookmarks between Chrome and the Android browser would be better. Until then, though, the free Chrome to Phone is well worth the download.

Note that you'll need Android 2.2 or better on your Android device in order for the Android app to work.

Reprinted with permission from PCWorld.com. Story copyright 2010 PC World Communications. All rights reserved.

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Analyst: Windows Phone 7 Needs to Win Over Smartphone Makers as Well as Buyers [Digital Daily]

, HTC, Samsung and LG accounted for 67 percent of Windows Mobile shipments. In the third quarter of 2010, those same companies accounted for 44 percent of Android handset shipments. Motorola and Sony Ericsson, also longtime Windows Mobile licensees, accounted for an additional 30 percent.

With Android commanding that kind of OEM attention, Microsoft is going to have to work harder than ever to rewrite the weak mobile story it’s written for itself over the past few years.

“To ensure Window Phone 7’s success, Microsoft must sign up virtually all of the name brand smartphone vendors who deserted Windows Mobile for Android when Microsoft failed to modernize the operating system for three years,” says Needham analyst Charlie Wolf. “Microsoft has signed up three of them and has two to go. Google would argue that it has the upper hand in this tussle because it licenses Android for free while Microsoft charges a licensing fee (albeit a small one compared to its PC licensing fees). But Microsoft simply has more at stake.”

And it knows it. Which is why it’s putting so many marketing dollars into Windows Phone 7.

Says Wolf, “We suspect the company will devote a material portion of [its marketing budget] to buy the support of the leading smartphone manufacturers.”

Tagged: Digital Daily, Google, John Paczkowski, Microsoft, hardware, innovation, mobile, Android, Charlie Wolf, consumers, HTC, LG, license, licensee, manufacturers, marketing, Motorola, Needham, PC, Samsung, smartphone, Sony Ericsson, vendors, Windows, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7 | permalink

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