François Beaufort, newly hired by Google after months of publicly finding and sharing information on the company’s browser efforts, found the notification code in the latest Chromium stable channel. He notes that “we should start to see bubbling some of them (notifications) quite soon now.”

That means developers have yet to add support for these bits in their web apps but can do so now. So far, I’ve only seen a few notifications on the Chromebook Pixel and all of them have been from Google services. Google Voicemails, missed Google Voice calls, incoming Gmail messages and Google+ Hangout invitations have all appeared for me recently.

Why are the notifications important? They bring the Chrome browser closer to a one-stop shop for online needs; more like a true operating system. These notifications are actionable — you can click them to jump into the appropriate web app, for example — but not obtrusive since they’ll disappear in a few seconds on their own if no action is taken. Think of them like notifications on your smartphone. They provide relevant, real-time information but you can choose to ignore any further action until later.

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Coming into force in the UK on Saturday, Article 5(3) of the E-Privacy Directive (happy reading) says EU countries have to make sure consumers are “offered the right to refuse” cookies being downloaded onto their computers by web services, in all but essential cases. They also have to give “clear and comprehensive information” about what the cookies are for.

The deadline for all this was late May 2011. A year on, eight member states – Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, Italy, Malta, Poland, Romania and Slovenia – have yet to even transpose the directive into their national laws, let alone start enforcing it.

And in the other 19 countries, there’s a pretty big variation in how national laws interpret the directive. It should also be pointed out that the UK is something of a special case here, in that its data protection authority gave businesses an extra 12 months to comply (ending on Saturday). The rest are already enforcing their updated laws.

But before looking at what they’re enforcing, let’s go back to the rationale behind all this, from the perspective of digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes:

If you log in to a web service, the cookie that remembers that you are logged in is fine – and indeed this makes our lives a whole lot easier online. But a cookie that is used to build a profile of what you are doing online is less OK: it might mean that your web surfing over time (searches, web pages visited, the content viewed, etc.) is tracked, for example in order to match ads against your interests as determined from the profile. The use of such cookies requires your consent,” Kroes blogged earlier this year.

“Consent” is the key word here, and it can be interpreted in several ways.

In countries such as Latvia, a strict opt-in principle is in play. That means the user has to agree to almost every cookie being installed on their machines, and browser settings that give the all-clear to cookies are not enough to imply informed consent.

If you’re operating in Spain or Luxembourg, the law demands that users opt into cookies, but accepts that browser settings are satisfactory. In Finland or Bulgaria, the users don’t even have to opt in – they just have to be given an opportunity to opt out – and browser settings are again an accepted way of communicating cookie preferences.

Austria demands opt-in, but browser settings may be OK (the law is open to interpretation). France is fine with opt-out and also with browser settings, as long they’re not over-general. The UK doesn’t demand strict opt-in but it also doesn’t see browser settings as a satisfactory solution.

Portugal’s implementation doesn’t even mention cookies, so it’s hard to say what the rules are there.

Confused yet? You’re not the only one, and Kroes knows it. She’s a savvy operator and she’s also not the one who came up with the E-Privacy Directive – that was her predecessor Viviane Reding, now the justice commissioner.

Which is probably why Kroes has been pushing like mad to get a consistent solution implemented within the technology itself. That would be the ‘Do Not Track’ (DNT) browser feature, which, as the name suggests, gives users a way to set their cookie preferences within the browser rather than for every specific site – preferences that website providers are supposed to respect.

Google, Yahoo, AOL, Mozilla, Microsoft, Apple and Twitter have all signed up to implement and/or respect DNT preferences. Facebook, you will be astonished to hear, has not.

As explained above, DNT will not in itself be an answer to the cookie problem in some countries. However, there are countries such as the Netherlands and Lithuania where legislators have decided that it’s only current browsers that don’t offer satisfactory cookie settings. In those cases, a proper implementation of DNT may pass muster, bringing those countries in line with the relaxed majority.

So for all those online publishers and marketers grousing about the UK’s implementation of the cookie law, consider these points:

• Some other EU countries have stricter rules.
• Sooner or later, you’re going to come up against the consent issue from a technical as well as legislative standpoint anyway.
• The UK Information Commissioner’s Office seems keen to play fair, hence the 12-month extension. But consider this quote: “We will allow for a greater focus on wilful non-compliance by letting those who are making genuine attempts to comply get on with the job without unnecessary interference from the regulator.” In other words, do make some attempt to play along.

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Here’s a short promo video on the new Sonar feature that’s clearly taking a fun shot at Apple’s Siri functionality, which launched with the iPhone 4S last October.

As a regular user of the Dolphin Browser — here are eight reasons why — I like the concept of integrated voice actions to use the web. Dolphin has long supported gestures to help navigate the Internet, and the new Sonar feature extends the usefulness of the browser. I’ve been using Sonar for the past day and generally like where the Dolphin team is headed.

You can tap your keyboard microphone button to use Sonar, but I’m a fan of the keyboard-less option: simply shake your handset, and Dolphin Sonar is ready to listen. Obviously, you have to have the browser open when shaking the phone; this functionality isn’t integrated into the operating system.

Most of the time, Sonar simply searches Google for what you need. However, if you want to open a specific website, you can do so through speech. And that’s handy for certain web apps. For example, using Sonar, I could say, “Open weather dot com,” and the mobile site opens immediately, complete with my local forecast. Note that I had previously used the website, so it knew my location. If not, the browser wouldn’t know where I was. Saying “eBay iPad 2″ took me right to the eBay mobile site-results for iPad 2.

I wasn’t able to test the link sharing in Facebook feature as it’s not quite live yet. The concept is great, and I hope the Dolphin folks can extend that functionality to other web services such as Twitter and Google+. All in all, I like what I see in Dolphin Sonar. Some may find it limited, but it’s the type of service that can scale to allow for more functionality in the future as our phones become intelligent assistants.

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The report shows that Google inserted code into display ads shown by its DoubleClick subsidiary that got around the default setting in Safari that prevents cookies–the basic building block of web advertising–from being installed on computers and letting ad companies track your movements across the Internet in order to show you ads they believe are relevant to your interests. Safari makes an exception for websites that ask you to submit a form, allowing them to install cookies. Google simply added code to certain ads that mimicked a form submission in order to determine whether Safari browsers were also logged into Google+ so that those users could “+1″ ads and share them with their Google+ contacts.

Google acknowledged using the code (which Facebook actually considers a “best practice” for its developers, according to the WSJ) and has stopped using it, but claims it did nothing wrong. “The Journal mischaracterizes what happened and why,” Google said in a statement accompanying the report. “We used known Safari functionality to provide features that signed-in Google users had enabled. It’s important to stress that these advertising cookies do not collect personal information.”

So what really happened here? Once again, you, the user, are a pawn in the fight for data among giant computer companies.

Google (and a large part of the web advertising economy, points out Federated Media’s John Batelle) depends on these types of cookies to sell relevant display advertising, allowing it and other web publishers to provide many services for free. Safari ships with cookie-blocking technology enabled by default, which Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) believes is a privacy protection but is not necessarily something that iPhone users have agreed is in their best interest. And since it is a default setting, it’s safe to assume a fair proportion of iPhone users never even checked those settings.

But bypassing those privacy controls–willingly enabled or not–is a sneaky move that again shows how willing Google is to compromise some of its core principles in order to get Google+ off the ground. Is there really a huge percentage of Safari users who are desperate to “+1″ web advertising in order to share those ads with their friends but just can’t figure out why that function isn’t available? I find that hard to believe.

For Apple’s part, it can contend that the Safari settings offer greater protection to its users, but as Batelle also points out, it reinforces the notion that Apple users belong to Apple and no one else. If traditional web advertising methods are not an effective way of reaching iOS users, then those advertisers might just have to go to Apple and its iAd in-app advertising system to promote their interests. And denying Google that data makes Google a less effective advertising machine, slowing its growth and its ability to invest in other mobile products, like Android, that threaten Apple.

But you have to wonder exactly what was slipped into the water in Mountain View over the 2011 holiday break, with Google how having managed to shoot itself in the foot multiple times during 2012 with clumsy and ill-advised attempts to promote its services.

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Google announced the new browser in a blog post Tuesday. It’s available only for Android devices running Android 4.0, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich.

Ever since Android was released Google has used a different code base for the browser at the heart of Android, although both Android’s browser and Chrome are based on the Webkit open-source platform that powers almost all mobile browsers these days. But Android’s browser was not considered as agile or stable as others in the Webkit family, while Google’s Chrome browser has been steadily winning converts on the PC.

It will probably take a while before Chrome on Android turns into the default browser, however, given the beta nature of the product and the fact that virtually everyone using Android is running an older version of the operating system. In an interview with AllThingsD, Chrome leader Sundar Pichai confirmed that Chrome will take over as the default browser on Android eventually.

That could mean trouble for companies like MoboTap, which develops the Dolphin browser as an Android browsing alternative. The majority of Dolphin users are on Android, and they’re the type of users that want a more powerful and stable browser: something that Chrome for Android might provide.

So what now becomes of Chrome OS, Google’s bid to redefine the computer as existing entirely within the browser? Google didn’t comment on that project in a few of the interviews it granted to discuss Chrome for Android, but Chrome OS has been a clear disappointment ever since it was announced, with very few people adopting Chromebooks as interest in the netbook concept has plummeted alongside rising interest in tablets.

Here’s a video explaining the features of the new browser:

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Under the terms of the deal, GetJar will be distributing QQ browser, which is available for iOS, Android, Symbian and Java devices, as part of Tencent’s strategy to take its products to a more global audience. The move comes as we are seeing more activity from Western companies to expand their business in China, too. Most recently, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) finally started to accept payments in Yuan on its Chinese App Store.

The deal is not exclusive as such: Tencent already offers its QQ browser through the Apple App Store, for example, although it is in Chinese so fairly unapproachable for those who don’t speak the language.

Tencent claims that its QQ browser is one of the fastest on the market. Because it is run as a cloud service, on Tencent’s XCloud architeture, users can also use the browser to securely store software, pictures and other files as part of the offering. Mobile QQ browser is built for mobile through cloud services.

In China, QQ browser is the second most-popular mobile web browser, according to November figures from Ai Media Consulting (via China News). It has a 27 percent share of the market, with the UC Web browser at 65 percent. (Opera is in third with six percent, and the browsers that are dominant in the West such as Safari on iOS, or Android’s web browser, don’t even seem to register.)

That share in China alone gives QQ significant penetration. As of last month, China had 1 billion mobile users, with 102 million on smartphones, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

That means that if the market share estimates are accurate, QQ has potentially 270 million users, since the browser is also available for feature phones on networks slower than 3G.

It will be interesting to see if the QQ browser will be able to get much traction in Western markets, where people largely default to using mobile web browsers that are pre-loaded on to devices: meaning iOS users use Safari, Android users use Android, WP7 users take Internet Explorer and so on.

Possibly because China is one of those places where mobile internet growth is outpacing that of fixed growth (fixed lines are actually in decline; and there are currently 150 million broadband lines), we’ve seen a lot of innovation — probably more than you get in the West — from tech companies in the country to target mobile users.

It’s not unusual for an internet portal like Tencent to make and distribute mobile phones, app stores, games, payment systems, messaging apps and mobile browsers. Others that have also followed this route include Baidu (NSDQ: BIDU) and Alibaba. On the Android platform alone, there are dozens of companies operating app storefronts distributing apps for the OS.

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The news was first reported by ZDNet, which copied what it says will be the official statement that Adobe plans to release — probably today, now that the cat’s been let out of the bag:

Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations. Some of our source code licensees may opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations. We will continue to support the current Android and PlayBook configurations with critical bug fixes and security updates.

ZDNet also included a summary of what the company plans to send to its partners further explaining the move to stop development on Flash Player for mobile browsers. It says that Adobe will now focus development efforts on apps, “expressive content” for the mobile desktop, and HTML5.

The news is a belated victory for the late Steve Jobs, who as CEO of Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) was unequivocal in his criticism of Flash and why it was not supported on Apple’s iOS mobile devices like the iPhone, iPad and iPod.

“Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven — they say we want to protect our App Store — but in reality it is based on technology issues,” Jobs wrote in an open letter on Apple’s site that gave a line-by-line explanation of why it is that Apple hated Flash so.

Those reasons included performance issues — Flash is one of the main reasons for crashes on Mac computers, he noted — but also criticism of Adobe owning a closed platform would not be optimized for Apple products.

Adobe had long argued that Flash needed to be on all mobile devices, including Apple’s, because of its ubiquity on the web. But the weight of content that has either been optimized for iOS, Android and the rest in the form of apps, or through other web technologies like HTML5, has made Adobe’s claims sound hollow.

It wasn’t all about Apple versus Adobe, of course: Flash currently works on Android devices and RIM’s PlayBook — devices that Adobe says it will continue to support.

We have contacted Adobe for comment and confirmation, but there is actually already some indirect admission of what is to come on the site already.

Yesterday the company posted two documents, giving a business update with some top-line guidance for Q4, which ends December 2, as well as an outline of its growth strategy.

Central to this will be the cutting of 750 jobs in North America And Europe as part of a restructuring that is expected to result in a charge of $87 million to $94 million for Adobe.

From the looks of it, neither mention mobile Flash by name, and shift the focus elsewhere. The two goals in mobile will be as follows:

» Shifting resources to support even greater investment in HTML5, through tools like Adobe® Dreamweaver, Adobe Edge and PhoneGap, recently added through the acquisition of Nitobi
» Focusing Flash resources on delivering the most advanced PC web experiences, including gaming and premium video, as well as mobile apps

Adobe will be having a call later today to discuss this in more detail — Flash required to participate, of course. We’ll be on that call later to hear what more Adobe has to say.

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The story, first reported in the FT, cites unnamed sources that say Joaquin Almunia, the competition commissioner in Brussels, is expected to approve the deal without any remedies, or riders that Microsoft would have to satisfy to prove that it will not be too dominant in the market.

Regulators in the U.S. already approved the deal in June, also without imposing any remedies.

A quick approval in the EU signifies a shift in how Microsoft is viewed by regulators in the region, and perhaps how its dominance (or at least the perception of it) has significantly altered in the new technology landscape.

It was only in 2008 that the EU regulators imposed a record-breaking fine of €899 million ($1.18 billion) on Microsoft, for failure to pay a 2004 penalty of €497 million for antitrust behavior.

At the time, Microsoft had been ordered to make its products more interoperable with those of competitors when it was accused of bundling services like Internet Explorer too closely with its widely-used Windows OS, making it hard for other browsers to get a look in on those users. That fine is still being contested by Microsoft, which presented its most recent appeals in the case back in May.

Ironically, it seems that interoperability is one of the main bones of contention with European companies contesting the deal between Microsoft and Skype. This time around, there are competitors in the area of Internet telephony who are claiming that Skype is too dominant already in the market for these services, does not let them interoperate with its system. Further Microsoft would make it too difficult for Windows users to elect to use other internet telephony services if it bundled Skype into the OS.

Microsoft’s defense has been that Skype is a voluntary service, and it has built up its business by offering the service on multiple platforms — including those powering PCs, Apple’s iOS platform for the iPhone and iPad, and Google’s Android — and will continue to do so. Skype currently has 145 million active monthly users.

Several days ago, the blogger Phil Wolff, on Skype Journal, went through a series of hypothetical remedies that the courts could have required of Microsoft, covering areas like interoperability but also other areas of consumer rights, such as the fact that Skype in its terms of service apparently doesn’t allow users to file class action lawsuits against the company. It also mentions the Skype/Microsoft/Nokia (NYSE: NOK) connection, although Nokia’s diminished power, and the relative paucity of WP7 devices among users, surely make that less of a domination threat.

In any case, the list mostly seems like fairly reasonable run-through of areas where intervention could have been useful, so it will be interesting to see if the regulators pick up on any of them after all.

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