Apparently Google considers Microsoft’s browser to be modern enough now so that there is no longer a need for Chrome Frame.

In a post on Google’s Chromium blog, Chrome engineer Robert Shield writes:

The main goal of the Chromium project has always been to help unlock the potential of the open web. We work closely with the industry to standardize, implement and evangelize web technologies that help enable completely new types of experiences, and push the leading edge of the web platform forward.

But in 2009, many people were using browsers that lagged behind the leading edge. In order to reach the broadest base of users, developers often had to either build multiple versions of their applications or not use the new capabilities at all. We created Chrome Frame — a secure plug-in that brings a modern engine to old versions of Internet Explorer — to allow developers to bring better experiences to more users, even those who were unable to move to a more capable browser.

Google says that today most people are using modern browsers that support the latest web technologies, hence, the need for Chrome Frame has essentially evaporated.

Google will stop supporting and updating the product in January.

“In the fast growing field of Information Technology, professional certifications such as Microsoft and CompTIA help IT professionals gain more knowledge and equip them with the appropriate tools required in their day-to-day work,” says VMEdu. “These certifications prove to employers that these workers have the skills to do the job, regardless of the vendor, hardware or software product. They really are the starting point for any IT career. Still there is a lack of IT training providers who can provide a comprehensive and effective program to meet the needs of professionals.”

So, the company thinks it can “fill the gap” with MyITstudy.

“Having built a specialized platform for IT certification training, VMEdu aims to focus on IT certification trainings with MyITstudy,” the company says. “There will be a dedicated team within the company that will manage only IT trainings to ensure the focus required to offer consistently high quality IT trainings.”

“We believe that the best way to learn IT concepts is to actually do it yourself,” says Andy Barkl, VP of IT Trainings T MyITstudy. “Therefore, all our courses have a comprehensive lab experience built-in. We ship a free laptop to all our delegates which is pre-configured for their course and ensures a high quality, hassle-free lab experience. The faculty first explains all the concepts to delegates in detail, clarifies all their questions and then guides them through hands-on lab sessions. The lab sessions enable delegates to put into practice all that they have learned and ensure that they not only pass the examination, but are able to apply their newly learned skills on the job from day one.”

VMEdu is also offering free exam retake guarantee through the program.

The update also adds window functions, like the ability to take advantage of Rank and Partition to create statistical analyses with simpler SQL. Additionally, recent queries that are re-run return a cached result when the underlying table is unchanged. Google says this provides more cost-effective analysis.

Also included are some new user interface changes, such as the ability to validate a query and estimate its cost before running it, as well as the ability to save frequently used queries. Google has also doubled existing query quotas.

The changes build on other recent features like the ability to connect tools like Tableau, BIME and Excel.

There area also new pricing options, effective in July. Data storage is going from $0.12/GB/month to $0.08/GB/month.

“Furthermore, in addition to the existing on-demand rate for interactive queries, customers with higher-volume usage will soon be able to opt in for tiered query pricing,” says product manager Ju-kay Kwek. “This provides more economical and predictable cost for interactive queries. Customers who are interested are encouraged to contact a sales representative.”

More on the new stuff at Google’s Developers blog.

See how Interactions used BigQuery and Tableau to measure the effects of weather events on retail sales with some research being presented in London today.

Today, Facebook announced that it’s launching the local currency payments API for all game developers, and that on September 12, it will no longer support Facebook Credits. They’re giving developers 90 days to migrate to local currency payments.

Facebook will also be deprecating Payer Promotions for Facebook Credits in favor of support for Payer Promotions for local currency. This will take place in the coming months. They’ll also deprecate Facebook-sponsored support for TrialPay offers, but TrialPay will continue to support these for Facebook its developers by offering a direct integration solution.

With the new local currency payments API, developers can set prices for in-game items by market, cache static prices with Facebook, and “realize additional reduced latency as a result of fewer server requests for payment completion, like the second server request to confirm order fulfillment and real-time updates to confirm the transaction.”

“We strongly encourage you to start the process now to ensure you have adequate time to integrate local currency pricing and to optimize your app’s payment experience, performance, and pricing,” says Facebook’s Yongyan Liú.

The company encourages developers to consider international pricing, in-game currency, mobile specific stores, and A/B testing.

Documentation is available here.

Last year, Google relaunched Google Earth Builder as Google Maps Engine.

“Maps Engine lets organizations use Google’s fast and reliable cloud infrastructure to layer their data on top of a Google Map and share their custom-made Google Maps with employees, customers or the public-at-large,” a Google spokesperson said in an email. “The API provides direct access to Maps Engine for reading and editing spatial data hosted in the cloud and now organizations can use the API to develop on any platform and build applications like store locators, crowdsourced maps or crisis-response maps.”

“With the API, organizations can develop on any platform – web, Android, iOS and server-to-server – and build applications like store locators, crowdsourced maps or crisis-response maps,” says Google Maps for Business product manager Jen Kovnats. “For example, FedEx.com uses the API to query its more than 50,000 retail locations and IRIS creates applications for utilities to track underground pipelines.”

“Using Google Maps, and more specifically Google Maps Engine, allowed us to completely re-imagine FedEx.com,” says FedEx IT Manager Pat Doyle. “We turned to Maps Engine because it gave us a powerful platform to build and share our own FedEx maps. By integrating features that so many people use everyday, like Google Street View and driving directions, FedEx.com visitors can easily find the nearest FedEx.”

A developer’s guide for the API is available here.

“By utilizing our multi-armed bandit approach, you can maximize results by efficiently determining which assets on your site perform best to offer an improved experience for users,” says Russell Ketchum from Google’s Analytics team. “Multi-armed bandit experiments are powerful and efficient tools and with the new Content Experiments API, you can get even more from them.”

“The Content Experiments API allows you to pick and choose from all the testing functionality Google Analytics has to offer and to combine it into powerful solutions that best fit your particular needs,” adds Ketchum.

This includes testing changes to content without redirects, testing items sever-side (like the result set of a database query), testing with your own variation selection logic and using Google Analytics for reporting, and testing in non-web environments using measurement protocol.

You can find documentation for the API here.

Google launched Content Experiments in Google Analytics about a year ago, replacing Google Website Optimizer.

“The build and release process used to be a pain point at Mozilla, but now makes the company and community more productive as a whole,” the video description says. “John will describe details on how the team added support for concurrent development, rethought continuous integration and increased capacity by moving to a hybrid-cloud build infrastructure. These changes improved several aspects of the business, including switching to a rapid release model and reducing turnaround time on a release from weeks to hours. As a result, Mozilla improved its abilities against much bigger and better funded competitors in the marketplace while also allowing them to enter new markets and help ensure its long-term success.”

The talk, from ICSE 2013, was hosted by Boris Debic, and took place on May 28th.

Mobile Backend Starter was shown in the session “From Nothing to Nirvana in Minutes: Cloud Backend for Your Android Application”:

The product provides businesses with a “ready-to-deploy” general purpose backend and client-side framework for Android.

Product manager Brad Abrams explains, “Mobile Backend Starter gives you everything you need to rapidly set up a backend for your app, without needing to write any backend code. It includes a server that stores your data with App Engine and a client library and sample app for Android that make it easy to access that data. You can also add support for Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) and continuous queries that notify your app of events you are interested in. To keep users data secure, Mobile Backend Starter also includes built-in support for Google Authentication.”

Mobile Backend Starter includes: cloud data storage, pub/sub messaging, push notifications, continuous queries, and Google authentication and authorization. It’s also free.

Google provides steps for getting started here.

For all registered Apple developers, the new WWDC app will provide free streaming session videos. They will also be available on the web.

Here’s what Apple’s offering attendees with the new app:

• Browse times, locations, and descriptions for sessions, labs, and special events
• Mark schedule items as favorites with a simple double-tap
• Watch session videos, available daily
• Start watching on one iOS device, and pick up where you left off on another
• Keep up with the latest news, get important notifications, and see daily snapshots
• View maps to find your way around Moscone West
• Provide feedback on session content and speakers within the session details view
• Add your attendee information to Passbook for speedier on-site registration

WWDC begins on June 10th and will run through June 14th. Apple is set to reveal “the future of iOS and OS X” and possibly a new internet radio service.

“We look forward to gathering at WWDC 2013 with the incredible community of iOS and OS X developers,” said Apple’s SVP of Worldwide Marketing Philip Schiller. “Our developers have had the most prolific and profitable year ever, and we’re excited to show them the latest advances in software technologies and developer tools to help them create innovative new apps. We can’t wait to get new versions of iOS and OS X into their hands at WWDC.”

You can download the WWDC app over at the App Store today.

Adobe announced this month that all Flash users must upgrade to version 11.7 if they wish to continue receiving extended support. You have until July 9 to upgrade.

Here’s why Adobe figures you’ll want to upgrade to the latest version of Flash:

Flash Player 11.7 provides exciting new features, including Actionscript concurrency, webcam support for StageVideo and more. It also enables Protected Mode for FireFox on Windows, a sophisticated security-in-depth feature. With Protected Mode, Flash Player runs as restricted process, making it more difficult for attackers to build working exploits. Flash Player 11.7 leverages hardware acceleration for audio, video and rendering to increase performance and lower CPU usage.

It’s important that you update to the latest version of Flash Player. Without it, your organization will miss out on the frequent security updates that Adobe pushes to patch security holes in its software. Flash, alongside Java, are some of the easiest Web plugins to exploit.

To grab the latest version of Flash, hit up the official Adobe support site. From there, you can also grab a variety of tools, including debuggers.