Effervescent Refractions

Interesting tidbit from one of the Genius Grant recipients, neurobiologist Rachel Wilson:

Something that is interesting about olfaction is it seems to have a very intimate connection with the sense of emotion and memory. We’re interested in why it is that it seems to be such a visceral and emotional sensory modality.

As I’ve started living in California, the scent of the evening air has evoked the great memories of my childhood visits. Smell is without a doubt the sense I am most acutely aware of. It’s interesting to learn that there’s scientific evidence behind the vivid memories smells can conjure for me.

Thoughts on Google Chrome

• If you’re on OSX, Linux, or otherwise unable to try Chrome, Joen has some very nice screenshots at Noscope that will give you some idea of the browser. That said, the fluidity of Chrome is something to be experienced or at least seen in motion. Everything from moving tabs to scrolling is particularly smooth.
• The minimal interface is what all browsers should look like and nearly an exact replica of my own Firefox setup which I achieve through Tiny Menu, small icons, and consolidating the navigation toolbar with the URL bar. Surprisingly, Chrome distances the reload button from the stop button which appears in place of the “Go” arrow button. I much prefer Safari’s approach, available to us Firefox users through Stop-or-Reload.
• Under XP, Chrome’s window uses a non-standard theme, a huge no-no in some way justified by the greater minimalism it allows when maximized. I stand conflicted. Chrome’s light blue icons and tab design are some of Google’s most beautiful interface work (shocking!) but the bright blue window borders don’t sit well.
• Chrome’s take on the AwesomeBar is better than the original. Cleaner, simpler and better integrated with keyword searches than Firefox.
• Even the status bar gets the zen treatment disappearing and reappearing when needed. Beautiful.
• Chrome’s speed-dial equivalent is fast, very fast. Far more usable than any of the Firefox add-ons and a perfect replacement for about:blank.
• Spell-checking is already a feature — didn’t expect that much.
• The Incognito character definitely has charm, but I have a feeling he won’t last in his current implementation.
• Browsing without mouse gestures has become incredibly frustrating, but barring that, I would seriously consider using Chrome. It’s simple, dreadfully fast, and surprisingly polished for a debuting Google product (I suppose you wouldn’t want to ship unpolished chrome, amirite?).

Google is developing a browser called Chrome, due to launch tomorrow.

All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends — all using a browser. Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build.

A fun comic drawn by Scott McCloud accompanies the launch detailing Chrome’s innovations, the core of which is a multi-threaded process manager. Screenshots of the browser appear, showing off Google’s take on the “speed-dial” feature of Opera.

Mozilla’s revenue has long been dependent on Firefox’s integrated Google search. Is Chrome setting out to save Google some money or is this the first piece of a fully-fledged Google OS?