Paul Boutin

Google's Chrome browser has a market share that rounds down to zero. Yet Microsoft plans to argue to the European Commission that bundling Chrome into Windows -- an anti-trust decree the EC wants to impose -- will potentially give Google a monopoly hold on the Internet.

The claim seems laughable to anyone who hasn't used Chrome. But those who try the largely unknown application almost unanimously rave about its speed and ease of use. Never mind the arcane software benchmark charts all over the 'Net: Chrome is fast.

When it comes to e-readers, the hype machine has gotten ahead of the reality. Earlier this week, photos of the super-slim, sexy Plastic Logic Reader -- not available until next year -- circulated the 'Net and graced a New York Times article on the coming wave of big-screen readers meant to display newspaper, magazine and textbook content.

Amazon's Kindle DX, unveiled at a splashy media event in Manhattan last week, is a disappointment for anyone expecting something like Plastic Logic's prototypes. It is, basically, a Kindle 2 with a bigger screen. The 9.7-inch display has twice the surface area of the Kindle 2's six-incher. The DX includes a PDF reader, but that only raises the question of why the Kindle 2 doesn't have one. The screen is still black and white. Don't expect magazine publishers to get excited about shipping monochrome versions of their publications.

A few random Web servers have recently been treated to a test version of a new Yahoo home page. MediaPost blogger Mark Walsh scored a screenshot of the page, and describes what he saw:

The biggest change is the customizable left nav bar featuring Yahoo properties that now allows people to add or edit links to outside sites through an "application gallery" that opens up via tabs at the top and bottom of the section.

The PC vs. Mac marketing battle continues. The latest salvo is from Microsoft, with a new "You find it, you keep it" ad featuring a filmmaker who wants a laptop powerful enough for video editing.

"Sheila" has a US$2,000 budget. She wants a fast processor, a big screen, and she plans to edit lots of video on it. The MacBook Pro at that price point only has 2 GB of RAM, so she ends up choosing an HP HDX 16t.

TechCrunch writer Erick Schonfeld has run the numbers, and finds that the first quarter of 2009 finally brought Web advertising's first decline in recent history.

Ad buys have been slowing for months, but according to TechCrunch's chart, global Q1 revenue actually dropped two percent. Schonfeld says the bright spot, or perhaps the least dark, is Google:

In response to purse-tightening consumers and the popularity of cheap netbooks, Apple is "tailoring changes" that will "drive down prices" of the most popular Mac models. So goes a rumor from AppleInsider that rings true enough to bear repeating:

Consumers in the coming months can look forward to more affordable versions of both the 13-inch MacBook and iMac, according to people who've proven extremely reliable in predicting Apple's future business directions. The MacBook -- which currently starts at US$999 when fitted with a previous-generation polycarbonate enclosure and $1299 in an aluminum unibody casing -- is the bestselling Mac in terms of volume. The iMac is the most popular Mac desktop.

It's believed that the first batch of more affordable Macs could turn up as early as this spring.

Industry Standard editor Ian Lamont predicted in December that Apple would terminate the iMac desktop line, because of the mass market's move to low-cost, portable computers. I politely disagree: I use a 24" iMac to crank out articles for the Standard every day, and I can't imagine replacing my baby with anything other than another iMac. I don't want a MacBook connected to a Cinema Display -- $3,400 rather than $1,500 for the same specs.

But Apple-watchers have known for months that Apple couldn't possibly be ignoring the recession-driven shift in the PC market away from $1,000 notebooks to $300 netbooks. Acer chairman J.T. Wang has forecast that 1 in 4 laptops bought next year will be netbooks. Gartner's more conservative forecast says that'll be true in three years max.

Steve Jobs famously said, "We don't know how to build a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk." Since when does Jobs ever claim not to know how to do something? Former Apple engineer Andy Hertzfeld, in his book Revolution in the Valley, documented Jobs' drive to build a cheap, yet powerful personal computer. The price of the Mac was one of Jobs' biggest fallouts with new CEO John Sculley.

Cheaper Macs at this point are a given. What remains to be seen for fans is how Apple will redefine the idea of low-cost computer.

The Wall Street Journal reports as fact, not as "according to sources," that Microsoft has a multimedia touchscreen phone code-named Pink. Microsoft and Verizon, the Journal says, plan to launch the phone and an app store early next year specifically as an iPhone competitor.

The news comes after Verizon and Apple execs got into a press conference food fight over whether or not Verizon would offer the iPhone next year. The current iPhone models are not compatible with Verizon's CDMA network technology.

Microsoft has applied for a trademark for the name Sift for "operating system software for mobile phones; computer search engine software; computer programs for searching email, text messages, address and contact information."

The company's spokespeople have evaded questions from both me and from PaidContent writer Joseph Tartakoff. Nevertheless, the trademark application suggests that Windows phone users will soon be offered a Sift function.

iPhone apps such as Tweetie may or may not make their creators rich. It's safe to say most iPhone app sellers won't be able to quit their day jobs. But that hasn't stopped both geeks and non-geeks alike from pouring their enthusiasm into thinking up, designing, and building iPhone applications that they sell or give away in Apple's App Store.

"Coding newcomers are a minority and face a steep challenge in the iPhone's crowded marketplace," writes San Francisco Chronicle reporter Ryan Kim. But he notes that the challenge hasn't stopped newbies like 25-year-old Nordstrom jewelry manager Lauren Bensen from learning enough code skills to create their own applications.

If you've been waiting for the inevitable Twitter backlash, the fun starts now. Sure, CNN ran an "is there a Twitter backlash?" story last month. But for those of us who work in the media, we knew the question mark in the headline meant the answer was "No."

Today, as Oprah tweets on TV, the New York Observer made it official: "The backlash begins." You don't read the Observer, but every status-obsessed journalist in Manhattan does. It's now officially cool to do a Twitter Backlash story.

If you've ever wanted to update your Facebook status, or read other members' statuses, from somewhere other than Facebook, the next few weeks should be fun. Facebook has opened up its API -- the software functions through which other sites and desktop or phone applications can access Facebook data -- to allow reading and writing of status updates.

The AllFacebook blog has a software-engineer-centric writeup on the new access. What does it mean for you, the non-programming Facebook fan? For Twitterers, it means being able to selectively copy tweets from Twitter to their Facebook status by adding "#fb" to the tweet. All they need to is install the Selective Twitter Status application.

"A PC is no bargain when it doesn't do what you want," Apple spokesman Bill Evans told BusinessWeek journalist Arik Hesseldahl, who writes BW's Byte of the Apple column. "The one thing that both Apple and Microsoft can agree on is that everyone thinks the Mac is cool. With its great designs and advanced software, nothing matches it at any price."

It's not much of a comment, but it's a rare event for Apple to issue any sort of formal statement on anything having to do with a competitor. For those of us who try to figure out what's going on inside Apple from the iPod-slim body of information that leaks outside Apple, it's impossible not to wonder if Microsoft's latest ad campaign attacking Apple's pricing hasn't stung the maker of the world's inarguably prettiest computers.