If the rumors are true and Acer does show off Chrome OS hardware at Computex Taipei 2010, the largest computer exhibition in Asia that starts on June 1, it’ll be a world first. But it’s not known for sure if Acer will be running Chrome OS on a netbook. Maybe it will be a tablet. And, it might be just a tech demo, showing a beta version of Chrome OS.

Whenever Chrome OS hardware finally ships, the world is ready for a lightweight OS with a seven-second boot time, accessing its apps in the cloud with a simple, free interface. If it’s a success, for many users who just need an operating system that stays out of the way, the answer to the perennial question “Mac or PC?” will be “No.”

Can’t wait two weeks? Check out http://www.netbookpack.co.uk

Comments Welcome!

Google’s open source king Chris DiBona talks Chrome OS and Android-powered microwaves

During a visit to Google’s London HQ Dan Grabham grabbed some time with Chris DiBona.

He’s the Open Source Programs Manager for Google, overseeing everything the corporation does that’s open sourced and making sure it’s “correct and useful.”

He talked Google Chrome and, later, Android. Dan put to DiBona the issue that if users buy a netbook, they still tend to expect Windows on it, so will they take to Chrome OS?

“Yeah. Windows or Mac. Is this going to change? We’re going to find out. We’re willing to say, you know what, let’s give it a try, let’s see if it works.

“We think it can, obviously, otherwise we wouldn’t be doing it. For some people it will be for an auxiliary machine, for others it might be a primary machine. But we’ll see. And the only way to know is to try it.

“People haven’t really tried small, thin, practically disposable computers. There’s still this regret if a computer breaks. We want to make one where that’s not the case… so if you leave it on a plane… you’re not worried about your data. It’s a different approach. And if someone’s going to do it, it might as well be us.”

Encouraging open source projects

DiBona has a wide-ranging role, and is also responsible for Google Moderator, the polling locations API.

“My whole job is about making it easy for engineers to release software,” he explains. DiBona seems relaxed and is happy to talk candidly about Google’s work on Android and Chrome OS. “[My team] helps with the licence strategy from the very beginning. When you use as much open source as we do, you can screw up and we don’t want to do that.”

“We have been [encouraging open source] as much as possible. Then you have bigger projects where open source is a key part of the strategy, such as Android and Chrome OS where we feel making it open source helps drive the platform at a speed we haven’t seen before.”

“You can especially see this with Android – devices are coming out all the time that we know nothing about, and that’s pretty great. Sometimes we know about them and just don’t have the time to help.”

The Android strategy

So how does DiBona feel that Google can keep Android partners close? “We feel that if we continue to execute and make a very good mobile operating system then as those people create new devices [developers will]… stay close to what we’re doing because we’ll continue to move the platform forward. It will pull all the fragments and little forks with it.”

Some devices provoke amusement: “At CES we had a microwave running Android and it’s like ‘really?’ Obviously we’re not going to optimise the environment for popcorn! Ostensibly you could run an app on a microwave I guess.

“[Android is] a young operating system but I think we’re doing OK. ”

We asked DiBona what he felt about a potential conflict between Chrome OS and Android now that Android has started to appear on some netbook-type devices. Does he think it’s confusing?

“It is yes. See Android is really not targeted at netbooks. I don’t think you’ll see a lot of Android netbooks… that are commercially targeted. Chrome OS is very different… it’s optimised for that kind of experience.

“It’s a different approach towards getting online. A very stripped down approach. A very web approach. It gets out of your way and says ‘here’s the web’.”

Asked DiBona how Google seems to be able to release products such as Android so quickly in comparison to other companies: “Well there’s no reason for it to be slow. A lot of companies get wrapped up in how software is valuable and for Google software is valuable because of what it allows our users to do [as well as external developers].”

by Dan Grabham

Comments welcome.

The post is riddled with choice words and phrases like “concept UI,” “subject to change,” and how the device “might look,” which also came paired with the rumour igniting phrase “under development.” Those two magical words have our brains pondering the possibilities, but beyond our flights of fantasy, here is what Google’s official tablet experiments have entailed.

Have a look here:

According to the post, the Chromium team is testing a touchscreen user interface that includes these key points:

• Keyboard interaction with the screen: anchored, split, attached to focus.
• Launchers as an overlay, providing touch or search as means to access web sites.
• Contextual actions triggered via dwell.
• Zooming UI for multiple tabs
• Tabs presented along the side of the screen
• Creating multiple browsers on screen using a launcher

For those unfamiliar with Chrome OS, it is Google’s new web-centric mobile platform for laptops and netbooks. Chrome OS is unique in that unlike Windows or Mac operating systems, it is designed specifically for web applications, reducing the emphasis on localized software and replacing it with cloud-based programs. In other words, Chrome accesses programs and user data that reside on a web server, alleviating strains on internal processors and making accessing said information on a wider breadth of devices.

More important, there are more than 7 Mill netbooks out there, waiting to be upgraded. And the solution is around the corner. Netbook Pack – a slick version with the same functionality, available today. Maybe 2010 becomes a different OS race altogether. But – tablet PC or whatever you want to call it- Can you see any student reading a book without listening to music? So we are back to Chromes OS, the fast emerging market of the netbook and the software which makes best use of it. Like Netbook Pack, a Chrome OS version ready for your netbook today.

Comments welcome.

Are you planning on purchasing an iPad? Please comment below!

1.) The Name
Numerous names were being thrown around in the months/weeks leading up to the release (iTablet, iSlate, iPad) but which name was Apple going to choose? We had grown accustomed to referring to the device as the iTablet, could even see calling it the iSlate… but iPad never seemed quite right. Why would Apple want to name their new product something that sounds so familiar to the iPod? Some people are objecting to the name referring to it as the “iTampon“.

Talk about foresight, this Mad TV iPad skit aired several years ago… and easily became 10x funnier.

2.) No Multitasking
Are you serious…? Who thought this was a good idea? How can the iPad even compete with Netbooks if you can’t multitask? This means that if you’re writing a document you can’t listen to music, you can’t have TweetDeck open if you want to check your email, you can only do one thing at a time, which has always been a complaint with the iPhone.

3.) No Camera
Why is there no camera on the iPad, front or back? It’s got a microphone… but no camera. Look at the size of the case that surrounds the screen, there is ample space for a camera. The iPad should’ve at least came with a 3-megapixel camera built in. As it stands, this means no iChat/Skype chat for you. Good move Apple, good move.

4.) Huge Ridiculous Adapters
Want to access your camera or plug in something USB… well there’s an adapter for that, actually 2 separate adapters both excessively huge.

5.) Same Touch Keyboard
The iPad needed to re-revolutionize the keypad for touchscreen devices, make it easier to use. So what did we get… just a larger version of what we already had. It’ll be incredibly hard to type on, unless you’re lying flat with your knees holding the device up, or you buy the iPad Case (essentially a book cover).

BONUS: No Flash (We just couldn’t stop at 5)
Most of us are probably accustomed to Apple devices not being Flash compatible, but if Apple is truly wanting to compete with other Netbooks they need to remedy this. With a larger screen comes more responsibilities, i.e. you can’t just leave gigantic holes in the middle of webpages if you claim it to be “the best web experience you’ve ever had“.

The iPad is still in its infancy, so we’re sure that it’ll get better with time. Only time will tell if Apple’s iPad will be a success or an iFlop.

Now read on… BBC’s ‘clicks’ made a good comment, too. It’s the netbook, the smartbook, people don’t want to buy a keyboard as an accessory. Can you see any student reading a book without listening to music? So we are back to Chromes OS, the fast emerging market of the netbook and the software which makes best use of it. Like Netbook Pack, a Chrome OS version ready for your Netbook today.

Comments welcome!

Follow us here @why_tweat

Basically, this transforms Google Docs into a file storage system. Actually, I already store a lot of my files through Google services. Most of them are online as Google Docs-format documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. I’ve also found that it’s convenient to store many of my non-Google Docs files as attachments in Gmail, especially if they’re documents that I’m working on with other people. But of course email isn’t really built for that purpose, and there can be a lot of hunting for the right attachment. Now you can use Docs to store and share files in any format, such as a Microsoft Word document or a PDF. Files can be up to 250 megabytes in size, and you get up to 1 gigabyte total storage for free. Now Chrome OS or systems like Netbook Pack can store any file, which was a previously impossible.

This should also make Google a more effective competitor against collaboration tools from companies large (Microsoft Sharepoint) and small (Box.net). Microsoft Office is really the standard format for business documents, so the fact that you had to change the format in order to use those documents in Google was probably a dealbreaker for many companies.

But even though Google now allows you store these new formats, it hasn’t built much collaboration functionality around them. Google Docs really is just a file repository — there’s no system for multiple team members to work on a Word document, the way you can with a Google Docs-format document. There’s no a file checkout system, either, which would at least ensure that only one person is working on a document at once.

Bangaru added that his team discussed the possibility of a checkout system, and would definitely consider adding one if it’s a big user request. Google is also working with partners who want to build on top of its storage services. For now, you can use Google Docs as the backend storage while you synchronize and collaborate on files using Memeo Connect or Syncplicity, or share tasks and documents with Manymoon. Google wants to build “a nice ecosystem” of other services building on top of its APIs, Bangaru said.

Get your Netbook Pack here.

Comments welcome @why_tweat

In today’s computing world, 12 months is a ‘light year’. We have seen various versions of Chromium, Cherry’s and lately our own Netbook Pack. Qualcomm to support Google’s Chrome OS means it ’supports’ the idea.

Quote: “Qualcomm plans to support Chrome, Google Inc’s upcoming operating system for small computers known as netbooks, the company’s chief executive, Paul Jacobs, said on Friday“. But wait, is there more to the story? The executive, a first-time keynote speaker at the annual gadget festival, also said 15 different device makers are designing about 40 products that will use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip for smartphones and mobile computing devices. Very good. What about the rest?

With Google and its device partners gearing up to drop the first Chrome OS netbooks on us by year’s end, 2010 may well be called the ‘Year of theNetbook’; it might already be an ‘old hat’. Whilst the market predictions believe there will be a significant increase of netbook sales in 2010, what happens to all the existing netbooks? Upgrade (downgrade), Windows platform, or..? There are 7 Mill university students ready to upgrade… Behind the scenes, companies like whytwitter have not been asleep either; having sold more than 12,000 copies in the first 3 days of launch, it seems they’ve got it right. Check here: Netbook Pack.

The pitch is easy: What’s not to like about a $300 (or less) netbook, lighter than a pound, travelling with us everywhere we go, booting up in 7 seconds and running much faster than the current Windows version, laptops or Mac computers? Since Chrome OS runs all its software on a cloud I won’t need to buy, install or update any software – sounds good. (whytwitter commented)

Remember, Google succeeded with organic and paid search because it understands what people want – and that’s the whole pitch for Chrome OS – a different model of computing, lean and mean, running web applications really, really fast and costing next to nothing. So what stops the market to develop all sorts of “Chromish” versions prior and along side? Nothing. And consumers have the choice, well before Chrome OS hits the market.

Twitter: @why_tweat