Chrome users yesterday bombarded Google’s Gmail support forum with complaints about music suddenly playing in the background when they reached their inboxes.

Some feared that their machines had been infected with malware.

“Those sound effects are quite unnerving when you first hear it,” said a user identified as “goz3″ on the Gmail support board. “I really thought it was some sort of twisted virus.”

“I thought it was a virus, too,” echoed “bradleyctclarke” on the same thread.

The cause, said a Google representative on the support forum, was a video promoting the e-mail service’s new Priority Inbox feature.

Although the Google support rep said that the company was “working on fixing this” and apologized for the bug, Computerworld confirmed that the background video and its ragtime-style music was still affecting Chrome users on Tuesday.

Other browsers, such as Safari and Firefox, did not automatically fire up the video and its tune.

“I thought my account had been hacked — especially when I heard the scrunching of paper,” added goz3 in an earlier message Monday. “I thought, oh sh*t, my mail is being eaten up.”

The unwanted music played only on machines running Chrome, and then only for users who have had the Priority Inbox feature enabled by Google. The new tool, designed to automatically rearrange messages to put the most important at the top of the inbox, is being rolled out in stages by Google, which yesterday said that it would reach everyone within the next week.

The gaffe is reminiscent of one Google made last May when a JavaScript-based version of the 1980 video game Pac-Man freaked out Firefox users, who heard siren sounds and offbeat music in the background when they were at the search engine’s home page.

“MAKE IT STOP!” shouted someone tagged as “bleepo” on Monday. “If I get some annoying sound or ad every time I open Gmail on Chrome it will be enough to make me not use it.”

To quell the music, Chrome users should click on the Priority Inbox link in the upper right, then stop the video play in the pop-up window.

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The 3D architecture and design application AutoCAD, long missing from the Mac platform, is finally making its comeback. Autodesk plans to release a Mac OS X version in October, and versions for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch are in the works, too.

“The combination of this new version of AutoCAD and the extension of AutoCAD to iPad, iPhone and iPod touch is a big step in Autodesk’s efforts to accelerate design and make design more accessible for an ever-greater number of people,” commented Autodesk senior vice president, Amar Hanspal.

AutoCAD for Mac OS X will support multi-touch trackpad gestures and Cover Flow, along with cross-platform DWG file format sharing.

Autodesk will also release AutoCAD WS for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch for free. The mobile version will let users edit and share AutoCAD files, but won’t offer the same level of controls found in the Mac OS X version.

Rumors that Autodesk was working on a new version of AutoCAD for the Mac surfaced in May, but the company didn’t offer any confirmation at the time.

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by Ed Hansberry

For the early part of its life, Windows Mobile was one of the more powerful mobile platforms, yet it was never known as being the most spry. Microsoft set out to fix that with Windows Phone 7 and early indications are it has succeeded.

I’ve said it many times before, the iPhone turned the smartphone world upside down and set new standards for performance, navigation and web browsing when it launched in 2007. It showed how well a smartphone could perform and it also showed that web browsing didn’t have to be painful on a small screen. Microsoft tried to gain some ground with various iterations of Internet Explorer 6 on its 6.1 and 6.5 versions of Windows Mobile, but it never really came close to the iPhone.

Face it, terms like bloated and slow seemed justifiable on Windows Mobile phones when compared to an iPhone. Now though it looks like Windows Phone is catching up and even surpassing current market leaders Android and iOS. PocketNow has a quick video showing how fast Windows Phone 7 boots up. It takes around 25 seconds for it to go from being powered off to the home screen where it is usable. The iPhone and Nexus One running Android take twice as long at a minute and for comparison, they threw in the Windows Mobile 6.5 powered HTC HD2 and it took over a minute even with Sense disabled.

Now, the goal of course is not to have to boot up your machine all of the time, but the truth is, smartphone are computers and they do need to be rebooted occasionally. In our office we have Blackberrys, iPhones and a few Android devices and they all need to be reset on occasion, so don’t try and suggest that only Microsoft products need rebooting. It is a tired and false argument of the unimaginative.

It is nice to see Microsoft is putting so much effort into speed and responsiveness of their new platform. We’ve already seen where Windows Phone 7 puts the new Blackberry 6.0 browser to shame. PocketNow also did a comparison of how Windows Phone 7′s browser stacked up to the iPhone and Android platform. While there was no clear winner in this category, Windows Phone 7 did perform very well, winning some of the speed contests and showing smoothness in just about all tests where the competition showed some stuttering.

One thing to keep in mind too in all of these tests is Windows Phone 7 isn’t done. It is a near final build, but Microsoft continues to make tweaks. The hardware also a prototype and likely has some rough edges. Worst case scenario though is nothing improves and Microsoft is merely very competitive. Best case scenario is once all of the hardware and software is done, Microsoft ekes out a bit more horsepower and becomes the best all around performing platform to date.

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Online retailers have started selling netbooks with Intel’s new dual-core Atom processor, ahead of official product announcementsfrom PC makers.

Intel announced the dual-core Atom N550 netbook chip on Monday. The chip maker said netbooks with the new chip would become available immediately, but major PC makers have not announced products yet.

Intel has said the dual-core processor is faster than its single-core predecessors, which go into most netbooks today. Netbooks will run applications faster and play 720p video, an improvement over earlier models that struggled with high-definition video. Netbooks will remain as thin and light as existing models, and offer similar battery life.

The chip runs at a speed of 1.5GHz and has 1MB of cache. It draws up to 8.5 watts of power.

An Acer Aspire netbook with a 10.1-inch screen is being offered for US$399 on HSN’s website. The netbook offers battery life of up to eight hours, according to the website, which is almost similar to the battery life of many single-core Atom netbooks.

The netbook comes with a 250GB hard drive, 1GB of memory, Wi-Fi capabilities and an integrated webcam. It comes with the Windows 7 Starter Edition OS.

An online retailer in Australia, Penta, is selling Gigabyte’s GA-T1005M multitouch tablet PC for $905, a high price to pay for a netbook — they are usually priced between $200 and $400. The tablet-style netbook comes with a 10.1-inch multitouch screen. It has a 320GB hard drive, 2GB of RAM, webcam and Wi-Fi capabilities. The device weighs 1.48 kilograms (3.26 pounds) with a six-cell battery, and comes with the Windows 7 Home Premium OS.

A Chinese company, Timespad, is offering a netbook with an optional Atom N550 processor for bulk purchase on Alibaba.com. The netbook, priced between $285 and $305, comes with an 11.6-inch screen and an Nvidia graphics controller. The hard drive storage and memory capabilities are not specified.

PC makers are expected to announce products soon, with many possibly coming at the IFA show, which starts next week in Berlin.

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A firm owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has filed a lawsuit against Google, Apple, Facebook, and other companies alleging that they have violated patents related to search, multimedia, screen pop-ups and database management.

Interval Licensing filed the patent lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court of the Western District of Washington. The companies named in the lawsuit are Aol, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo and YouTube.

The four patents cover several technologies related to search, multimedia, databases and screen activity, said David Postman, a spokesman for Allen. Details about how the 11 defendants are allegedly infringing Interval’s patents will come out as the lawsuit progresses, he said.

Interval Licensing holds patents of Interval Research, the now-defunct company founded by Allen and David Liddle in 1992 to research information systems, communications and computer science. The patents in the lawsuit cover fundamental Web technologies first developed at Interval Research in the 1990s, Interval said in a press release.

The patents covered by the lawsuit are:

– U.S. Patent No. 6,263,507, for “Browser for Use in Navigating a Body of Information, With Particular Application to Browsing Information Represented By Audiovisual Data.”

– U.S. Patent No. 6,034,652, for “Attention Manager for Occupying the Peripheral Attention of a Person in the Vicinity of a Display Device.”

– U.S. Patent No. 6,788,314, for “Attention Manager for Occupying the Peripheral Attention of a Person in the Vicinity of a Display Device.”

– U.S. Patent No. 6,757,682, for “Alerting Users to Items of Current Interest.”

Postman called Interval Research a “groundbreaking contributor” to the development of the commercial Internet. The patents are fundamental to the ways leading e-commerce and search companies continue to operate, he said.

Some of the named companies slammed the lawsuit.

“This lawsuit against some of America’s most innovative companies reflects an unfortunate trend of people trying to compete in the courtroom instead of the marketplace. Innovation — not litigation — is the way to bring to market the kinds of products and services that benefit millions of people around the world,” a Google representative said.

Just how fair is the competition in the wireless market? If you are a smaller player, you may find it to be extremely skewed.

According to a recent government report – featured in an  article – the consolidation in this space over the last 20 years has allowed dominance in 90 percent of the market. The study was completed by the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress.

There are some who believe the results could help strengthen the Federal Communications Commission’s argument for enhanced oversight of the wireless industry.One of the rules the FCC  is currently considering includes requiring wireless phone companies to alert consumers before they actually reach roaming or data usage limits on a wireless plan. The agency has also been examining common industry practices that may or may not be unfair to consumers.

One thing under closer examination is termination fees that occur when contracts are terminated before expiration. Although the smaller provider may find the industry more challenging, consumers are enjoying the benefits of better wireless coverage and prices that are proving to be roughly half of what they were in 1999.

The GOA report found that at the end of 2009, there were 285 million cell phone subscribers in the United States. In 1989, there were 3.5 million users. In addition, nearly 40 percent of U.S. households rely on a cell phone as their primary phone. As for why the market tends to favor larger providers, there are a number of factors referred to in the report, including early termination fees and handset exclusivity.

It doesn’t help that AT&T is the only provider that can offer the iPhone.

Although this could be challenged in the future as Android is rapidly gaining ground. Special access regulations also garnered some complaints as this element grants access to the vital back-haul lines that connect wireless towers to broader telecommunications networks.

Smaller carriers claim they pay excessive prices for such access due to the fact that most of this infrastructure is owned by companies such as  and Verizon Communications. As to what the FCC might do with the results of this report, time will tell. As to strengthening oversight of the wireless industry, this has proven to be a slow and rocky road. Will it improve in the future? Given the size of this market and the players involved, don’t look for drastic changes anytime soon.

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Imagine walking into your favorite cafe and instead of waiting in line to place your order for a large iced nonfat latte and handing over your debit card, you submitted your order and authorized payment from your bank account via an application on your phone.

You can’t do that now. But it’s very possible that some day you will. It will be a big leap forward getting banks, credit card companies, retailers, and cell phone makers–not to mention consumers–on board with this idea. But a few companies are beginning to provide digital stepping stones to what someday could be a wallet-less future.

On Thursday, Intuit and Mophie (maker of the JuicePack battery for iPhone) will introduce the Complete Credit Card Solution, which fits over the iPhone 3G and 3GS like the JuicePack and has a credit-card reader that uses Intuit’s 18-month-old GoPayment mobile payment software. It will be available as an iPhone accessory in Apple Stores.

The idea is to allow small businesses or anyone who needs to process payments that doesn’t have a permanent place to plug in a cash register to be able to accept something other than cash on a device many people already have. The hope is consumers would find this more convenient than keeping cash on hand when they want to make a purchase, even from a nontraditional retailer.

While plastic and cash are still the way the vast majority of retailers do business, that could change over the next few years as smartphone usage continues to skyrocket, and more personal finance details are being taken care of online and on the phone. Hardware makers, banks, and payment processors are at least dipping a toe into the water by participating in trials or offering new ways to pay people without using plastic or cash.

The rest of the field
Intuit is not the first to do a smartphone-attached card reader. Verifone developed a card swiper for the iPhone to enable small businesses to accept and process payments on the spot without need for a cash register. Then a smaller company called Square came up with a similar solution to allow everyone from food trucks to Craigslist sellers and other small businesses to offer a legitimate way of accepting payment without the need for large sums of cash to change hands.

Now in a sign that the trend is entering the mainstream, even the big companies are jumping on board. Intuit is the company behind Quicken, QuickBooks, and now Mint.com, and thinks mobile payments are going to be a booming business in the next few years. The numbers they’re looking at are $11 billion in mobile point-of-sale transactions by 2013.

Card readers are just one way of processing mobile payments though. Contactless payments is something that has been tried for years using cards or a clip for keychains and is now starting to be integrated into the smartphone.

DeviceFidelity recently released a case and microSD card for the iPhone that will make Visa charges by waving the phone near a contactless payment terminal.

PayPal, the company that brought online payments into the mainstream, is envisioning a fully digital “mobile wallet” someday, but it will begin with something more like the trial they began recently with BlingNation.

The BlingTag is a sticker that goes on your phone and uses NFC, or near field communication, a technology like USB that can transfer data over very small distances, up to 4 inches. An RFID chip in the sticker authenticates transactions made between the phone and a BlingNation payment console, which a retailer would have to agree to carry.

“NFC is considered the holy grail of getting the mobile phone to [be used in] point-of-sale” transactions, said Todd Ablowitz, president of Double Diamond Group, a payments consultation company in Denver. But it requires an infrastructure to be in place to gain any real traction.

“It takes handset makers, financial institutions, retailers to be on board, with a reader that can read it. The chicken and the egg is…how do you issue payment if no one can accept it?”

There have been baby steps on the part of wireless carriers in this department. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile have reportedly teamed up with Discover and Barclays for a pilot program in some U.S. cities where people can use their phones in place of a credit card. If it were to happen, such a partnership could pose a major challenge to Visa and MasterCard.

Forrester mobile analyst Julie Ask says trials like PayPal-Bling Tag and the Discover-carrier partnership are just that and have a long way to go before they become anything more permanent.

“Banks, carriers, handset manufacturers, and retailers with point-of-sale terminals need updated hardware and software,” she said. “A lot of pieces have to come together for that to happen…I don’t see it yet where we get to a point where I leave my wallet at home instead of my phone.”

But, she says, anything could happen if someone came out of left field.

Say, for instance, the maker of one of the most popular mobile devices in the world. Apple recently hired Benjamin Vigier from mFoundry as mobile payments product manager, and there was also word that Apple had outfitted an iPhone with near-field communications chips for testing last week.

If true, Apple’s entry into mobile payments–perhaps opening up iTunes as a way of paying for things besides music, videos, books, and mobile apps–would quickly push the idea of using a mobile device for payments into the mainstream since what Apple does in the mobile world (see iPhone, iOS, iPad), competitors tend to bend over backward to follow.

But the bigger question to all of this is why. Why would retailers or banks, for whom credit or debit card purchases are working well, want to introduce this?

“You’ve got people doing more things with their mobile phones and you’ve got payment schemes which are looking to capture nonelectric types of commerce,” said Ablowitz of Double Diamond Group. “If you can convert cash to electronic (payments) you’re gaining a lot of share.”

Hurdles
Besides infrastructure and convenience, security is a major concern–especially when companies you’ve never heard of–Bling Tag, for instance–are suddenly dealing with your money. And when seemingly random people–Craigslist sellers, food-truck cashiers, etc.–are suddenly equipped to swipe your credit card.

The Consumers Union, the nonprofit group that publishes Consumer Reports, says it’s concerned about this new wave of payment options and that consumers may not be fully protected. Earlier this week, the group issued a statement that urged mobile payment providers and facilitators to “make sure that they are at least as safe for consumers to use as traditional credit card and debit card payments.”

Hardware manufacturers, like Mophie, say that they’ve tried to be extra “paranoid” about security. The Intuit and Mophie system ensures that credit cards swiped on the device are safe by using hardware encryption that does not store credit card numbers on the device or the phone. Once the card is swiped, the iPhone sees only the last four numbers of the card, and the encrypted packed of data is sent to the bank for authorization, according to Ross Howe, vice president of marketing at Mophie.

But even being extra careful isn’t the only concern. Managing for fraud and having the resources to compensate people when it happens (an invariably it’s going to) is tough, as Square discovered and explained to customers earlier this year.

But besides an unknown company trying to get into payment processing, turning phones into credit card readers is likely not the future of mobile payments anyway.

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Google could be ready to turn Gmail into a communications hub by adding the ability to make phone calls from the Google Chat interface.

CNET has learned that Google is testing a Web-based service within Gmail that will allow users to place phone calls from their in-boxes. It’s launched from the Google Chat window on the lower left-hand side of a Gmail page and allows users to place and receive calls from within their contacts through a user interface that strongly resembles the one used in Google Voice.

Google has been edging in this direction for some time. Google Talk was released years ago as a VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) desktop client, and it has also spent a lot of time and money evangelizing Google Voice, a service that transcribes voice mails and allows users to have one phone number that rings multiple phones.

But a Web-based VOIP client–which is what the new service appears to be–is another matter entirely. This is the likely culmination of Google’s work to integrate Gizmo5′s similar product, which it acquired late last year, into its arsenal. Hints that such a service was coming first surfaced in June on the Google Operating System blog, which is not affiliated with Google.

It’s not clear if Google Voice will be changing, or whether this new service is a completely separate offering. The user interfaces appear the same–for example, the same icons are used to label missed calls or placed calls–but Google Voice is not a VoIP service. Users of the new chat/phone call service aren’t required to have a Google Voice account, and calls placed to U.S. or Canadian numbers will be free, with discounts on international calls as compared to standard rates.

Skype is the obvious target of such an application, but there are lots of companies that make both desktop-based and Web-based VoIP clients.

“Google is always testing new features and products, but we have nothing specific to announce right now,” a Google representative said.

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