Slashdot Mirror
Google's Amazing Browser Experiments
Barence writes "On the day that Microsoft launches Internet Explorer 8, Google has unveiled a new site that showcases the Javascript performance of its Chrome browser. Called Chrome Experiments, the site includes 19 extraordinary animated games and widgets that push the browser to its limits. One experiment, called Browser Ball allows you to 'throw' a bouncing ball from one browser window to the next. Google Gravity, on the other hand, collapses the normal Google homepage into a pile at the bottom of the screen. However, you can still enter search terms into the box and watch the results drop from the top of the browser window."
it is a "corporate policy" because most of the HR software works only in IE6, and the reason most of the HR software works only in IE6 is because the HR departments demand IE6 compatibility... get where this one is going?
Where is the "Ignorant" mod tag?
I know we're all supposed to hate Microsoft, but come on.
Here's a story: On the day Microsoft releases IE 8 -- the most popular web browser in the world -- Slashdot doesn't mention it, but posts a trivial article about Google Chrome benchmarks.
That's what it's all about in the demoscene, right? People are in awe when they see what you can do in 64kB on a PC and what a 6502 can do with cycle-exact programming. Yet anyone interested more in results than in technical experiments will simply expand the platform and make these demos look like child's play, because that's what they are: An exercise in testing the limits of a very limited platform. HTML and the javascript browser API should never have become the basis of a UI standard. The privacy problems, performance deficiencies and the baroque API will haunt us for decades. Look ma, I'm using a 2GHz dual-core processor to simulate a couple of 2D balls bouncing around in almost fluid motion.
You don't need Chrome to make these experiments work. This is more of a demonstration of what web standards compliance can do than what Chrome can do. The coolest part is that it pretty much makes most Flash related content obsolete.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Seriously though, what exactly is accomplished here?
First and foremost it's a marketing stunt. If you launch an "experiment" in any other browser than Google Chrome they warn you that it might not work (but allow you to "Roll the dice" and try.
Second, it shows that it's possible to do pretty things using the common web standards alone, without proprietary plugins like flash or silverlight.
I'd rather see that time spent getting a proper version for Linux, and extension support.
That's really close minded. The teams working on Chromium/Google Chrome are not the people behind these demos and the lack of Linux and extension support is being worked on - I'd rather wait a little longer than them becoming a major clusterfuck. Besides, these demos are really just a fun prove of concept.