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Google Reveals Chrome Hardware Partners
nk497 writes "Google has announced the hardware partners for the Chrome OS — so we can expect to see netbooks running the operating system next year from the likes of Asus, Acer, and HP, as well as Toshiba. Dell didn't seem to make the list, at least yet. Google also said it had teamed up with Adobe, which could mean Google is looking to include the Acrobat.com web-based software suite in some way."
Anything but Acrobat, king of the bloatware!
Google also said it had teamed up with Adobe, which could mean Google is looking to include the Acrobat.com web-based software suite in some way."
I am thinking more among the lines of Adobe AIR and seamlessly linking the Google OS platform with the AIR API.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Is this just smoke and mirrors. From what I have read this is Linux with a custom GUI on the front end. Depending on how they market it and which distro it is built from will probably dictate how far it goes. I use the *buntu and Suse variants of Linux on a daily basis. Unless this offers any real advantage I won't move to it even it I purchase a netbook with it I would probably format and load Ubuntu on it.
Just today, I gave a presentation created with Google Docs. WIth the right background and font colors, it was virtually indistinguisable from our usual company its PowerPoint template. Combining all the Google stuff together and you have a situation where you hardly need local storage. So, I'd give the Chrome OS a hearty welcome, even though it might offer too much limitations for others. I've given up my office suite, my IMAP and SMTP server and my webmail. For me personally, it's perfectly usable in business.
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Does that mean that Google OS will target ARM based architectures ? I would say so as they are befriending Qualcomm and Texas Instruments.
all the press coverage yesterday characterized google's OS ambitions as an attack on MicroSoft or a counter attack in light of Bing. But to me, an open source OS enhanced for web-top uses sounds mighty like an attack on Intel/Moblin. After all, ARM processors are to be supported too from the little I have read of google's plans.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
I guess there goes that bullet. Let users decide to support Acrobat.com, not have it bundled.
I'm tired of seeing Adobe propped up for anything other than Photoshop and the rest of the Creative Suite, minus Adobe Acrobat. PDF is a bad format and Acrobat makes it far worse.
Adobe makes software that can make very good pictures, but to say they're secure in anyway is a joke and just terrible for the system. I wouldn't doubt that their online offerings are similarly flawed.
So Google's doing their own OS and partnering with Adobe, the purveyors of the biggest, buggiest and least secure bloatware on your computer. Great. Given the business Google is in - advertising, and the more of it the better - they're likely to take steps to make sure that all those slippery users out there do their patriotic duty and view all ads sent their way, no matter how obnoxious. Is there even an Adblock for Chrome?
...as compared to this? If not then Google will have a hard time convincing me to switch.
The G$$GLE-borg wants to take away our freedom with their shitty corporate crapware. Thank goodness for Microsoft, I support the feisty Microsoft freedomware guerillas against the evil G$$GLE empire!
Seeing Dell Minis bundled with Ubuntu I thought they will be one of the prime partners.. What's up?
Dell's netbooks are overpriced anyway. Seriously, I went shopping for one recently and their netbooks seemed crazy expensive compared to asus, acer, et. al.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Umm, no. Flash.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
Would be nice to have a Linux desktop with a full set of features thats light on resources as it seem to be a thin client for cloud hosted apps and not so much into native apps. Adobe AIR / FLEX would be nice (inb4 Flash is teh sucks), maybe Google can push Adobe to release some CS apps ready for Linux or at least WINE optimized, THAT would be so fkskng AWESOME.
As the yesterday's article here noted, Google is doing a complete GUI from scratch, so, do it light Google, my Thinkpad A21 would be happy as many many old PC's. Yes, I know there are alternatives for Lite-Linux-Distros but the thin client is what I'm really looking for here.
http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/07/09/possible-chrome-os-shots-leak-out
For how many years will the Chrome OS stay in beta? Place your bets.
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One just has to look at the silly posts back when Android was announced and all the inane and irrelevant garbage spewed about the goddamn iPhone and if Android was an 'iPhone killer'.
With every major cellphone maker coming out with Android phones and demoing their custom interfaces and software built on top of Android and Windows Mobile virtually forgotten about, you would think people would wise up and grasp how huge this move by Google is into the netbook market.
Google also said it had teamed up with Adobe, which could mean Google is looking to include the Acrobat.com web-based software suite in some way.
First off, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if anyone is teaming up with Adobe to include Adobe web stuff that it's not going to focus on Acrobat but on Adobe Flash, Adobe AIR, and that whole ecosystem.
That out of the way, what the Flippety Friggery, Google?
You're building a new OS based on the Linux kernel + Chrome Browser, which is cool because these are both high-quality Free Software projects. But then you wander off and sidle up to Adobe instead of working with Free Software such as Gnash.
This seems like a repeat of the situation with the ARM folks. Gnash has had ARM support for several years, but instead of the ARM people collaborating with Gnash to get full Flash support on their processors, the ARM people worked with Adobe to make a whole new port to ARM, instead.
Now Google is working on a slick new OS and has an amazing opportunity to have the whole thing be Free Software. Gnash is getting very mature, and with support from a organization like Google it could easily become the best Flash player on Free OSes, if not on all OSes.
C'mon Google: Team up with Gnash and other Free Software projects and make Chrome OS one for the history books.
coding is life
Maybe if Google partners with Adobe we will finally get decent flash support on Linux, especially since Google owns Youtube. The current flash plugin is horribly inefficient for Linux.
on the browser.
iPod: "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."
What technology or product has Slashdot ever NOT failed to grasp?
Hardware partners smacks too much of our (US) current cell phone situation. If you want the coolest hardware you have to go with this carrier. If you want the best service you have to go with substandard phones on another carrier.
Fortunately the open nature of this OS will lead to custom GUIs because using traditional Google primary colors for an OS is just butt-ugly. It reminds me of how cheesy Windows XP looks. Maybe I'm just spoiled with the suave look of OS X. I won't use Chrome as a main OS, but I'm going to familiarize myself with it so I can push it on all my anti-Mac friends. It's funny, they use Windows because they don't like Apple (price) but they all use Google for something. I doubt the ugly GUI would bother them, they use Windows ;)
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
From the perspective of the user, what is worse than being dependent on non-free software such as Flash?
Answer - being dependent on non-free software that only runs on someone else's machine as a remote service. The goal of Chrome is to replace customer lock-in to Windows and Office with lock-in to Google's "software as a service". Since customer data will be held hostage by Google, along with the only applications that can read it, no "Openoffice" or "Linux" will be coming to rescue the user from this lock-in. But hey, it's Google, they won't "be evil", right? (hollow laughter).
I am unsure why other free software advocates are supporting this idea, unless the enemy of Microsoft is automatically our friend.
The tao of democracy: the government you can vote for is not the real government.
Don't worry - in a year or two, Apple will finally release a netbook, and then we can hear people branding Google OS as being "An Apple nEtbOok [or whatever it'll be called] killer".
The chrome OS is all well and good but I'm not even gonna bother with it unless there is an easy way to get playback for all media formats. Since its a product from google that is targeting the mainstream I doubt they are gonna leave the codecs in the repository.. Hopefully it comes with media playback capability as standard. This probably will be a very crucial factor in determining if users stick with it or not.
I look forward to acer machines shipping a web based os, whenever i move mine it loses its harddrive and needs a reset.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
All Google is doing is making a new windowing environment for Linux, sounds like just another distro to me. But I guess with all the distros out there it would not generate much hype if they just said "oh we are building our own distro".
It's all about the FUD and you guys are eating it up, I would have thought that the Linux fanbois would have figured that out by now.
Why does everybody act like Chrome OS will somehow be locked down to just running Chrome and using webapps into it? Just because the original blog post emphasised on the webapps part doesn't mean it will be any less functional than your favourite distro. They're not stupid, they'll do what the market wants to eat Microsoft's yummy marketshare, they won't give you a half-assed OS, they'll give you a fully featured OS that has the advantage of having an OS designed around performance, security, usability and more importantly (according to them) designed around the use of web apps in mind. That means you can beat your ass you'll have all the offline apps you want and have an OS just as functional as your favourite distro.
As for partnering with Adobe, what do you know, maybe they're out to get Adobe Photoshop on Chrome OS ;-).
You just got troll'd!
There is _no_ news here about who the partners will be. It's just a day-late write-up of the original Google Chrome announcement. This should never have been published as 'news' this late in the game much less Slashdotted.
Steven
when Joe the consumer goes to the local big box store and wants to buy software... its going to magically work on Chrome?
If this gets much acceptance beyond installed machines it will surprise me. Unless it can magically run software that J.T.C. finds in his local store who is going to want this?
I can see a new wave of internet appliances - as in email/surf only. Not a threat to Windows at all, maybe versus new applications where the game console is being used for internet/mail.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I have to wonder if the Chrome OS is going to turn out like Android has so far. When Android was first announced and also when it was first released, pundits claimed Android phones were going to take over the market, and everyone and their mother supposedly announced they were going to release piles of new Android-based phones.
And here we are now and in reality there are very few Android phones on the market, and Android phones seems to be largely absent from all the big cellphone shows.
So I have my doubts that Chrome is going to be the Next Big Thing.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
microsoft is the romulans
apple is the klingons
linux is the vulcans
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Which language is this? I would love to translate such seemingly insightful post to English and enrich my life with this knowledge.
Here it is:
The web allows binary plugins.
Binary plugins can be proprietary and closed source.
For example, one can make a new video format and a binary plugin to play it, and not provide versions for Konqueror.
The content provider supplies both the content and the closed source app to view it.
Linux and OSS becomes irrelevant. .exe file from anyone.
We are back to windows where users were downloading and running any
AMEN! Hopefully we'll all be able to use Gnash after this summer... :)
You're right. Google wants to control the data. The Hardware, the OS, and the applications are just tools to that end. This is a opportunity for them to push all of their "cloud" services such as Google Docs and GMail. I predict the hardare will have extremely small home partitions for user storage, because the user will be expected store all their docucments and data on the Google servers. There may not be enough disk space to install third-party applications and that that will be by design because the user will be expected to use the web-apps from Google. Heck, the entire local media might be read-only and user storage may be completely on Google's servers.
Once all of your data belongs to them, expect the pay subscription model to start.
I'm weary allready. First Android, then a completely differently branded second Linux knockoff. I know Google isn't dependant on making money with their software and OSes projects, but the last thing we need is further market confusion due to Google joining the fray of alternative OSes and distros. I beg that they manage to string Android and this Chrome OS thing into one OS ecosystem and that it will be well standardised and documented.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
What really excites me about the new Google Chrome OS is the security aspect. As Google said on their official blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html:
The Chrome web browser has been a complete revelation in terms of security with a track record of no security problems whatsoever. Since they are building Chrome OS on top of Linux then "completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS" presumably means redesigning the security architecture of Linux. Since Linux is GPL then clearly Linus will be able to accept all of Google's changes and redesigns and then Linux will have no security flaws ever again. I'm quite sure Linus will be delighted to do so.
It would be such a joy to have an OS that never needs a security update and I'm delighted that Google will implement one.
Google really are ever so kind and generous in doing this for the world.
This is the company that left VisualBasic background processes running from their install, looking for all the world like VB script viruses or trojans! Soaking up an appreciable amount of memory and CPU, just so their functionality would pop-up quickly. Any company where the marketdroids can have their way and do something that most geeks would know is inadvisable -- they are too infested to salvage.
Try Foxit or Sumatra readers for PDFs!
(Not associated with either company!)
It is my hope they will reproduce the aesthetic they put into their Google Chat client. Very clean iface, no extra clutter anywhere. No clownish rainbow logo. Not ugly at all.
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Never a mod point when you really need one.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
i love my little adobe.air pandora one app
How long will it be before one or more of the Asian manufacturers announces they're pulling out of the deal? Microsoft will be applying HEAVY pressure, just like they did with the original netbooks. Want to keep shipping your regular laptops with Vista on them? Stop shipping ChromeOS netbooks. It's really hard for these companies to stand up to that, when regular laptops are still both their best sellers and their best margin products.
I currently run Ubuntu Netbook Remix on an Acer Aspire One (8GB SSD version). I have been very happy with it.
The only reason I'm ever gonna move on to the Chrome OS is if I see a serious performance boost over my UNR-powered netbook.
Because "Dell recommends Windows Vista Professional". I know that to be true, because it's always printed on EVERY D*MN PAGE of every one of their catalogs.
I wonder how much they get paid for doing that?
#DeleteChrome
It looks like the new gOS is coming sooner than we think: http://www.thinkgos.com/cloud/index.html
Your business strategy, customer information (which you are most times legally bound to keep private), etc are not the same as your money (earnings) which is you are a public company is public information anyway.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
That was surprising to see Asus listed since they pretty much signed a multi-year contract with Microsoft to stay away from Linux. I can only guess that this deal will give the Microsoft employees now working inside of Asus a chance to dig deep and dig early into what the Google Chrome OS is and how they can market against it.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Any 'web book' is gonna need Flash. It's too ubiquitous to ignore, but at least it's more cross-platform than Silverlight. If Google were to buy it and 'make it free' (one way or another), that might be good for us all. Maybe that's why they're hedging about supporting Ogg video in HTML5.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Y'know not all off the netbook retreat to XP was driven by Microsoft's pressure (though I'm sure there was plenty of that too).
The various netbook Linux'es were not great. Just read Slashdot, etc. Everyone was happy, happy, happy that Linux netbooks were being sold... and then they went on to say that the distros on the netbooks were crap - you should replace them with distro X. Is it any wonder that once the price advantage was gone, the netbook OEM's went with XP? Linux may well have worked better on their netbooks... but which Linux?
(pauses to dodge incoming bombs)
Anyway, notice that now that Google's in the mix, Asus, etc are coming back. It's not because Google's a sure thing. It's not even because it'll be better than what they were using before (though Google's no slouch - their stuff's pretty great). It's because the OEM's want a single alternative OS, and Google's name recognition guarantees that people will have heard of it.
Linux distros are great. I use Mandriva, when I'm not using Fedora or Ubuntu. That's right. I'm part of the 'problem'. And if I don't like Chrome OS, I'll replace it with what I want. But I'm not Joe Consumer. And Asus is selling to good old Joe. I'm ready to stop blaming Asus for their timidity or their lack of software development savvy. It's not their job to be great OS developers (or even supporters). And if Google's willing to take on that job, that's great news.
The only problem I see with this is that Google's conceding the desktop application market to Microsoft. Making this a 'web-only' device is very limiting. Limiting to what Google is happy to have you limited to, but limiting nonetheless. If there were a 'standard' Linux distro that had enough mindshare (and was good enough) for the OEMs to annoint it the standard, that might have produced something we Linux fans would've liked better. ...and then we could have junked it and put on our distros of choice. That's CHOICE as in 'always good, no matter what, no matter where'. Except when it's not.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
If your package manager doesn't provide a build of Gnash for you, read the build instructions for your platform.
coding is life
Maybe you're forgetting that Google just did try to get into the netbook market - with Android - and failed.
Hopefully Chrome will be a bit less underwhelming.
My initial reaction to the Google announcement was deep skepticism. A "web" operating system? How silly. It didn't seem to me that what was being discussed was a real "operating system" at all—not like Unix or Windows. But later on in the day, it hit me: maybe Google really does have the smartest people on the planet working for them.
I've often remarked on how most people who now use computers actually shouldn't be let near one; anybody here who has been asked to help a relative with their fubared PC knows exactly what I am talking about. And I've fondly dreamed of being able to hand those migraine-inducing family members whose PCs are basically the computer equivalent of vacuum cleaners stuffed with viral dust bunnies a simple thin client box that you just plug in to the network, and can't possibly be screwed up because it's too limited to do anything dangerous. Dammit. And my esteemed spousal unit (now I've let the cat out of the bag) would be grateful for something like this: a box you plug in, use to surf the net, and read email, and that runs light applications (like Freecell!), and that doesn't get crudded up with all those nasty pop-ups and resource-sucking trojans.
Well, maybe this is it! The computer for the Facebook generation. Will it mean the death of Microsoft? Probably not—they're too big to die quick. But it will totally change the landscape. I wonder, will anybody but specialists and "enthusiasts" be using real general purpose computers 20 or 30 years from now?
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
I noticed that no one mentioned a concern with privacy and security, especially in less friendly places.
Google has been known, just as most online companies, to cave to government's requests for censorship. Take for example here in China. They have scrubbed search results and disabled features at government's request. At least this is what is openly known and public. A fully online presence (documents and all) is a wet-dream for most governments. Especially when they can pressure companies for the keys. I worry that in 5-10 years time we will look at this as the end of privacy. Just because the company behind this is good it does not mean that the idea is good. Nor that it is safe from abuse. We underestimate the power and pressure that governments place on companies. And pay no interest until it identifies or affects us personally.
I guess time will tell if/how the OS will handle documents and privacy. However the pitch for the OS is to be fully online-transparent/centric.
In a perfect world this idea sounds fantastic, however in the world we live in, this will make the NSA wiretapping depacle seem like peanuts. And worse yet, we all seem, me included actually, to accept and worship this without question. How would you respons if this was a product by Apple or Microsoft? Or are the blinders simply there because the license says GPL?
Time will tell.
It is easily demonstrable that most people have a pleasant experience with Ubuntu.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
<rolls_eyes>
It is heart warming that some people around here keep themselves well informed about cutting edge technology
</rolls_eyes>
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Can you point out which FUD are you refering to, or perhaps you haven't figured out what the initials stand for.?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
2.
Uhm, er, yeah, whatever...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I think MS would be very wrong if they even think about that. The internet savvy generation that brought Obama to power would make sure that the US Dept. of Justice takes notice of such a move.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.