Here we were thinking we had to wait until at least November for the first hardware running the Google Chrome OS. But look who could be the first out of the gate with the netbook-friendly operating system: It’s Acer.
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
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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
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That is the big question today after Google introduced its much rumoured social networking features to Gmail. Here’s the pitch:
“Google Buzz is a new way to start conversations about the things you find interesting,” announced Google Gmail and Buzz product manager Todd Jackson. “It’s built right into Gmail, so you don’t have to peck out an entirely new set of friends from scratch — it just works. If you think about it, there’s always been a big social network underlying Gmail. Buzz brings this network to the surface by automatically setting you up to follow the people you email and chat with the most.”
“We focused on building an easy-to-use sharing experience that richly integrates photos, videos and links, and makes it easy to share publicly or privately (so you don’t have to use different tools to share with different audiences),” he continued “Plus, Buzz integrates tightly with your existing Gmail inbox, so you’re sure to see the stuff that matters most as it happens in real time.”
Are you convinced? I suspect, like me, you’re reaction is along the lines of kinda, sorta, not really.
Making matters a little better are Buzz’s open API and the fact it post updates to Twitter though not call in tweets from those you follow), while there’s support for Flickr along with Google products Picasa, Reader, Blogger and YouTube. Vitally, however, dominant forces Facebook and Wordpress are ignored completely as is – rather strangely – its own social network Orkut (wildly popular in Brazil, ignored virtually everywhere else). Furthermore, it is extremely presumptuous on Google’s part to assume I want to automatically follow people I email regularly from Gmail. After all, these days email is often more reserved for work than play given the dominance of Twitter and Facebook – so hold your horses Google.
Lastly, and this is a biggie: isn’t all this functionality and much, much more meant to be performed by Google Wave?! Wave is founded around real time sharing, collaboration and exchange, so why not simply merge Wave functionality into Gmail. This makes even more sense given that the general reaction to Wave so far has praised the theory, but questioned the logic of having yet another inbox to check and no friends to collaborate with. Merging with Gmail fixes both those flaws.
Ultimately, my first reaction to Buzz is this is Google’s iPad: fairly interesting on the surface, but I’m not sure there’s a market or a demand for it…
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While the iPad may be sweeping the news, it isn’t the only hot topic in the techie universe, as Google may now be developing a tablet solution of their own. Google tablet chatter started this week when the company’s development staff posted concept hardware and user interface renders of a tablet device running their Chrome operating system. The images were posted to Chromium.org, Google’s official development page for the Chrome platform, and quickly caught the eye of tablet-hungry technophiles.
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.
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to be answered, is there a need for a device to bridge the gap in between the two technologies? We’re not sure yet, but there is one thing we know, the iPad has some issues… below are 5 of the most glaring.
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.
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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.
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