Perhaps because Google revolutionized e-mail and Web searches, the company is getting the benefit of the doubt for its latest app, called Google Wave. Billed as a reinvention of e-mail, Google Wave lets users communicate through a form of instant messaging that can expand into group text editing, event planning, blogging and gaming. It all depends on what extensions developers bring to the table, and how users themselves decide what to do with them. One example at Google’s I/O conference had a robot translating in real time, while another included real time map manipulation between two users. In the end, all of these creations can be searched, collaborated on, tracked or published, if the user chooses. It’s the kind of creation that seems cool in theory, if only we could understand its reason for existence. There’s no word on when Google Wave will be available to the masses, but I/O attendees will get preview accounts later this week. [via PC Magazine]

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Nokia Ovi App Store – Nokia‘s mobile application store, dubbed the Ovi Store, may have launched with a bang, but not in ways the company hoped for. Users are reporting a lack of applications, slow access and trouble signing in. There’s an Ovi for that? The store is supposed to make a splash simply by virtue of its reach, being accessible by 50 million devices in multiple languages and countries. I guess things went better than the company thought, because it’s blaming the opening day jitters on “extraordinarily high spikes of traffic.” That’s the problem with online stores: When something sells out in a physical store, it makes the product seem cool, but when demand wrecks a virtual outlet, it’s just obnoxious. [via Information Week]

Your time is, apparently, important to Google. In upgrading its Chrome Web browser to 2.0, Google says it increased focus on speed and added a few other features in response to user feedback. Notably, users can now hide their most visited pages when opening a new tab, preventing potential embarrassment depending on what you do on the Internet. There’s also a new full screen mode and automatic filling out of forms. As for speed, well, naturally every browser claims it’s the fastest — we heard as much when Internet Explorer 8 was released a couple months back — but Google is challenging you to stack everything up with some benchmark software. If you’re not 100 percent satisfied, you’ll get your money back. Oh wait. [via Google Chrome Blog]

Faced with a Facebook message from a friend, prompting you to visit a mysterious Web site called Areps.at, what do you do? Hopefully you don’t click through, and if you do, hopefully your browser will display a warning like the one seen above. And if not, we hope you’ll have the presence of mind not to enter your login information. Like Fbstarter.com and Fbaction.net before it, Areps.at is just another phishing scam designed to steal your personal information, masquerading as a Facebook login page. If you goofed and didn’t realize that Areps.at is simply not a natural URL for anything legitimate, I’d recommend changing your Facebook password and any similar passwords on other Web sites, especially for e-mail and banking. Because someone’s got your information now, and it’s not a friend. [via TechCrunch]

If you live in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Australia, France or China, among other locales, you may have trouble with Google this morning and afternoon. The Internet giant is suffering packet losses, possibly related to routing issues with AT&T and other yet-unknown problems with NTT and Qwest. Patience, you’ll be fully-functional soon enough, but isn’t it freaky to think about how important Google has become. Safely tucked away in Los Angeles, I’m happily using Gmail and searching for stories with iGoogle. Less fortunate Web surfers might be sorely missing their Google Docs and Calendar, along with Picasa. Sure, there are other search engines, but these Apps can’t be replaced in a pinch, and that’s why even a few hours of Google outages is such big news. [via ZDNet, image from just ping]

FBStarter.com Facebook Phishing – Your friends may be trustworthy in the real world, but online, it’s a different story. A phishing scam has invaded Facebook, sending users to bogus links under the guise of a message from a friend. These were previously identifiable by the text “fbaction.net,” but has changed flavors to “fbstarter.com.” Facebook has blocked the former URL, only to be replaced by fbstarter.com, and we’ll probably see other URLs down the line Facebook tries to contain the threat. Clicking on the link sends you to a login page that looks like Facebook’s, but with a different URL, at a site that’s just trying to steal your login information. As a rule of thumb, don’t hand over any login data anywhere unless you’ve entered in the URL yourself. And be wary of shady messages from friends; they’re not always what they seem. [via Mashable and TechCrunch]

The Internet is great and all, but compared to the real world it’s a little flat. The race is on, then, to create a programming standard that will bring 3D graphics to the Web. Mozilla’s been working on its own, and now Google has entered the fray with an open source plug-in, allowing third parties to tinker with the programming interface as they see fit. Gaming would be an obvious use for the 3D standard, as would richer displays of data. For its part, Google wants to develop a browser-based version of Google Earth. The whole concept is in its early stages right now, but there are some samples if you want to get a glimpse of the future — which could very well consist entirely of 3d Pong. [via Ars Technica]

In the last few years, the blogosphere has made the concept of promoting new designs and ideas both easy and accessible. The people from ToldYa have devised a way to sell these ideas and designs in the very same channel through which we communicate. It’s a portable, embeddable online store that lets you buy and sell among friends on social networks, blogs and web sites with ease and security. Using a web-based software platform to create, host, and manage widget-based Portable Stores, ToldYa allows you to copy your products directly on your profiles on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, as well as to your own blog. Where services like Etsy.com have created a platform for selling your own ideas, Toldya opens up that platform and gives users the opportunity for placement in their own social channels. Add a video, some basic details, spread the word and accept payments through credit cards– this could prove to be a helpful tool for craftsmen and entrepreneurs alike. [toldya]

Admit it, your desktop gets cluttered, just like a real-life desk. Instead of sorting all the errant Word documents, JPGs and lingering install files, BumpTop has another solution: Download its free 3D desktop and organize everything into piles, right there on the desktop. Icons can be right-clicked into neat stacks or pinned to the surrounding walls. There are some other cool features as well, such as photo feeds and widgets for Facebook and Twitter. A Pro version is available for $29, and allows you to create sticky notes, scroll through piles with the mouse wheel and toss objects into print, e-mail and USB key icons. It also gradually increases the icon size of your most frequently used products, though you can manually do this on the free version. Sorry Mac-heads, this one’s PC only. [BumpTop via Dvice]