OStatic

The Google Open Source Team team reviewed more than 365 applications before choosing the final 150 accepted mentoring organizations for this year's Google Summer of Code. Some names on the list are a holdover from previous years, while others are new after Google [bid a] fond farewell to some past participants in favor of bringing new projects into the program. You can check out the whole list on the project's Web site. As part of the mentoring application process, organizations were required to submit an Ideas List of suggested student projects. Check out the link next to each organization's profile to get an idea of what kinds of things student participants will be working on.

The role of a mentoring organization is to provide a list of projects for students to choose from, and shepherd a student through the Summer of Code process. The organization is also expected to provide feedback and a written evaluation of the student's work, as well as make sure work is down well and turned in on time.

Registration for this year's Google I/O Conference has scarcely been open two months and it's already sold out. Google announced today that it is formally closing registration for the event, slated to be held on May 19-20 at Moscone West in San Francisco.

Google representatives say this is the first time the event has sold out this quickly, and well over 4,000 people are expected to attend. The event brings more than 4,000 developers together for a two-day sprint through sessions about some of Google's most popular products and tools, including App Engine, Google Web Toolkit, Android, and Chrome.

Keep May 19 - 20, 2010 open if you plan to attend the next Google I/O Developer Conference. It's slated to be held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA and registration opens in January. The event brings thousands of developers together for a two-day sprint through session about some of Google's most popular products and tools, including App Engine, Google Web Toolkit, Android, and Chrome.

The dust has settled and all of the Google Summer of Code 2009 (GSoC) students are getting back into the swing of school and jobs, but the experience they gained from participating in the project will last a lifetime. It's a great opportunity for aspiring developers to pair up with a mentor in the community to help them learn the ropes and understand what FOSS development is all about.

All told, when the three-month long project ended, more than 85% of the students passed their final evaluations. I caught up with one of this year's student participants, Johan Hilding, to learn what his experience was like and what he thinks about this popular program offered by Google.

Software developers in Russia and the Czech Republic will soon get the chance to learn more about Google's API and developer tools right from the source at two new Google Developer Days events announced this week. The seminars will be held November 6, 2009 in Prague and November 10, 2009 in Moscow.

Expect this to be pretty much the only technology news you hear all day: Google is building an open source operating system. Bearing the same name as Google's browser, Chrome is a lightweight OS aimed squarely at netbooks and expected to be available by mid-2010.

Google is quick to point out that Chrome OS is a completely seperate undertaking from its operating system for mobile devices, Android. Chrome OS is designed for people who live on the Web and rely mainly on Web-based applications, whether they use netbooks or full-size desktop PCs.

Though the Opera browser isn't open source, it's free and its new server-in-a-browser feature, Unite, is really making significant inroads toward online collaboration. If Chrome and Firefox are to keep their edge over Opera, their development teams had better sit up and take notice.

Opera's Unite technology lets users run chat rooms, host Web sites, and share files that even people not using Opera can access. The interaction is all done via a central Opera Unite server ? Opera Unite uses a proxy between the server and its clients (found at operaunite.com) to avoid the need for any special firewall configuration, writes the development team. Unite launched today with six features but is calling on the Opera community to design and create any new services they'd like to see available.

Read on to have a look at what Opera unite can already do and why Google and Mozilla haven't cornered the market on browsers just yet.

There's little question that donating your time and talent to local volunteer organizations is a worthy cause but finding a place that needs your help isn't always easy. All for Good, a new open source project backed by big names like Google, Craigslist, AARP, and Habitat for Humanity, hopes to make it easier to pair people with the projects that need them.

After months of waiting, Linux (and Mac) users woke to the happy news this morning that Google is inching ever closer to a usable version of its Chrome Web browser for Linux. Usable is the keyword here because the new developer version Google released last night is anything but. At least it gives us a peek, though, at what to expect when the much-anticipated browser is finally ready for prime time.?

To make sure Web pages load quickly and perform as expected, Google uses a Firefox add-on called Page Speed. It's integrated with Web development toolkit Firebug and provides immediate feedback on ways to improve sites that are sluggish to load. Google has announced a decision to open source Page Speed and share it with the Web-building community.