According to one of the hot crisis news I've stumbled upon recently, Trump Entertainment Resorts is going to file for bankruptcy protection, and I don't think the iPhone casino tricks did send Donald Trump's casino chain all the way down, but I think this is a very interesting subject, so let's take a look at one of the evil things you can do with your iPhone, shall we?

If you're going to a casino and count cards in your mind, nobody can say anything. In fact, it's not that hard, if you have a good memory and a bit of experience, although some Las Vegas casinos may throw you out or send you to a less skill-based arena once you got spotted. After all, some "luck-driven games" are really mind games, and if you're too smart, that's not good for business. Their business, of course.

The story about the iPhone goes like this - an iPhone-based card counting app for blackjack players was recently spotted in a California Indian casino. So far, so good, but the program is causing a lot of noise in the area, and - according to ArsTechnica, "The Indian casino that first discovered the iPhone-based counting system alerted the California Bureau of Gambling control, which in turn sent out alerts to Nevada and other commissions around the country. In response, Nevada gambling regulators today are warning casinos to be on the alert for iPhone-based card counting utilities."

Damn, that's nasty. I guess next step would be to play blackjack blindfolded, if you're too smart and they can't kick you out. After all, it's not fair to take the money of unskilled players, and throw out the successful ones, but casinos are not about being fair, after all...

When it comes to Internet search, we're used to laugh when somebody new gets in the game. After all, who can mess with Google? Not even Microsoft, at least not when it comes to Internet search, but if we're talking about Android, well... just think about the fact that most companies who embraced Google Android are small names, like VirtualLogix or Huawei, while the big ones - Samsung, HTC, and Sony Ericsson - despite their previous claims, are still keeping their Android phones away. Let's hope they won't do that forever, because Google has some interesting things in store for all of us...

...since they posted an article on the Android Developers Blog saying that "Android Market is now accepting priced applications from US and UK developers." That's exactly what Android was missing, a competitor to Apple's App Store. These being said and done, the Android Market vs Apple Store can finally begin!

"Developers from these countries can go to the publisher website at http://market.android.com/publish to upload their application(s) along with end user pricing for the apps. Initially, priced applications will be available to end users in the US starting mid next week. We will add end user support for additional countries in the coming months."

Even more, developers in Germany, Austria, Netherlands, France, and Spain will be able to sell their apps via the Android Market later this quarter, and - do I have to be surprised about it? - Google Checkout will be used as payment and billing mechanism.

I think we'll get to see the real Android Market vs App Store battle taking off this summer because, the way things are looking now, this is more of a "phoney war" than a real fight...

I love Japanese rock gardens. Unfortunately, I have none around the building I live in, and that's what makes today's iPhone Zen Garden app more interesting. Of course that the Japanese rock garden is also known as "Zen garden," and the rather long description says this is "an enclosed shallow sandpit containing sand, gravel, rocks, and occasionally grass and/or other natural elements. The main elements of karesansui are rocks and sand, with the sea symbolized not by water but by sand raked in patterns that suggest rippling water. Plants are much less important (and sometimes nonexistent) in many karesansui gardens." Good, now that we know all that, we can see the "portable Zen garden in your pocket," don't you agree?

Random Ideas had a great idea, and they worked to turn it into reality, so iZen Garden, the iPhone Zen garden, has been born. According to its producer, "iZen Garden brings this beautiful artform to your pocket on your iPhone or iPod Touch," and if the image above is no enough, look at this impressive feature list:

- Choose from over 100 different stones, seashells and fossils professionally photographed and beautifully rendered to place in your garden.
- Rotate, scale, and move the objects to place them.
- Four different colors of sand, from beach white, to volcanic black.
- Seven different soothing ambient soundtracks to help still your mind while you tend your garden. Relax to the gentle lapping of ocean waves at your feet, the quiet solitude of a forest, or the soft twinkling of bells and wind chimes.
- Completely customizable rake with variable width and depth settings.
"Daily Zen" a daily Zen saying or Koan is presented when you enter your garden.
- In honor of spring, now comes with plants and animated butterflies to place in your garden. The plants include bonsai trees, ivy, flowers, cactus and succulents!

Priced at only $2.99, iZen Garden has also a noble goal, since 5% of the pre-tax profits are going to charity, namely The Tibet Fund. When talking about requirements, things should be obvious by now - the mighty iPhone or iPod Touch will be fine, so click here and grab this piece of heaven for your gadget!

Oh, yeah! I really love Google's online services, although they aren't perfect. After all, I've seen less problems with the "Beta" Gmail than the "final" Windows Millennium, but the big problem with Gmail, for example, is that a lot of people still stay away from it due to obscure reasons. One of these days, a friend of mine asked me "what's so special about Gmail," since he's using Yahoo! Mail. Well... I won't answer to that one, because you only need to look at both Gmail and Yahoo! Mail side-to-side and you'll get your answer. Today, it's all about Google Docs spreadsheets!

To be more accurate, we're going to talk about Google's last addition to its (excellent, although support for a few more formats should be added asap to make it useful for more people) Google Docs services. These last few weeks, Google worked hard in bringing iPhone compatibility to its online apps, although they have also taken away iGoogle for iPhone, but now...

... we already had Google Docs services optimized for viewing various documents on the iPhone, as well as other mobile devices, and at the end of last week, The Official Google Docs Blog published the update on improved Google Docs spreadsheets operations.

"Today, I'm happy to announce that we've made mobile access even better by adding new capabilities with List View for spreadsheets. You can quickly view, edit, sort, and filter your spreadsheets on a variety of mobile devices including Android-powered devices like the T-Mobile G1, the iPhone and iPod touch, and the Nokia S60," says the post on Google Docs' official blog.

I think you should check the official page I mentioned earlier, because the new features are very nicely described there, but if you're one of those who hate reading stuff and would like to get down to business right away, all you have to do is point your mobile device's browser to m.google.com/docs, or docs.google.com/a/your-domain, if you're using Google Apps. Pretty cool, huh?

Finally, we're getting closer to the hot stuff! No, I am not talking about adult content on iTunes, although that wouldn't be such a bad idea, either. What I have in mind is Google Chrome for Macs, the browser a lot of people are waiting for to arrive on Apple's computers, and now we finally got some news about it! Unfortunately, it's not quite ready for the public, but...

...we now got the first official screenshot of Google Chrome for Macs, straight from Mike Pinkerton, who said "Over the last couple of months, the group working on Mac Chrome (myself included) has shifted gears from layout tests and WebKit compatibility to getting the application user interface up and limping. That also means getting the separate WebCore renderer processes to communicate over IPC to the browser.

Last week, while I was in Cali, the entire team made a tremendous amount of progress getting the cross-platform model and controller classes scaffolded, topped off with a Cocoa UI (with similar strides on Linux using Gtk). We were at the point where you could create new windows and tabs (and close them too) using the shared code, which would spawn/quit associated renderer processes. It was pretty exciting to watch them come and go in Activity Monitor, knowing how close we were to getting bits on the screen."

Unfortunately, he also admitted that "clicking doesn't work, and the renderers crash like nobody's business, but the other great thing is that the user interface stays running even if they do," so I guess we won't see any public version for at least another 2-3 months.

Just don't take my words for granted, because Mike says he can't dare to predict any date, so... Google Chrome for Macs is a bit closer, but still so far.