Would You Use a Free Netbook From Google?

Glyn Moody writes "The response to Google's Chromium OS has been rather lukewarm. But suppose it's just part of something much bigger: a netbook computer from Google that would cost absolutely nothing. Because all the apps and data are stored in the cloud, storage requirements would be minimal; screens are getting cheaper, and the emphasis on lean code means that a low-cost processor could be used. Those relatively small hardware costs could then be covered by advertising in the apps — after all, they are just Web pages. Interestingly, Google has not only rolled out advertising to more of its services recently, it has also started running AdSense ads in the desktop application Google Earth. Would you accept a free Google netbook — or is the price you would pay in terms of the company knowing even more about what you do on an hour-by-hour basis just too high?"

Comments

Not possible

[sopssa]

As nice as it is to think that advertisements will cover everything, a single user isn't worth a $150+ netbook. Actually single user is worth a lot less for Google and other companies.

Lets say Google gets around $2 CPM on normal searches. That means a single search is worth something like $0.002 for Google. It's going to take lots of searches and ad clicks from every user to even cover the costs of the netbook. And the same users would be doing those searches and ad clicks anyway, so it serves no purpose.

Another thing is that search result advertisements and even ads on gmail are worth more because they can be really targeted. But what do you advertise on a spreadsheet app? Users aren't looking for any info or such - they're working on their spreadsheet.

It's just out of the question that a single user would be worth $150 for Google.

Re:Not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

If it had free 3g, ala kindle, I'd plop down even $200 for one in a heartbeat. If it only had WiFi... sure, if it were free. I could easily find a use for it, but it wouldn't be nearly as useful.

Re:Not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

Where are you getting the $150 number from? A minimalistic, barebones computer capable of running a browser would cost a lot less than that, wouldn't it?

Re:Not possible

[Glyn Moody]

Yes, but what about a $20 netbook? That's the issue: when hardware costs fall to the point that the numbers work, what happens then?

Re:Not possible

[slim]

As nice as it is to think that advertisements will cover everything, a single user isn't worth a $150+ netbook. Actually single user is worth a lot less for Google and other companies.

I agree with this, although I think the hardware could be *much* cheaper than $150. Say $50, in time. But still advertising couldn't cover 100% of it.

But what do you advertise on a spreadsheet app? Users aren't looking for any info or such - they're working on their spreadsheet.

I have a Google Docs spreadsheet right here entitled "Warwick office Christmas Lunch 2009".

Along with the column headings, there's a good chance Google's systems could guess it's a good place to advertise restaurants and pubs near Warwick.

How many spreadsheets contain the name of a product, with the price alongside it? That's a signal to advertise that product.

Re:Not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd never use such an adware computer. My attention is worth far more than $150, more like 150$ AN HOUR.

And I haven't even said anything about privacy yet.

Re:Not possible

[rolfwind]

I don't think it has to be a $150 netbook. If all you are doing is regular internet surfing sans flash, an OLPC level book should be fine, and that was designed to be $100 years ago (although not quite reaching that level).

The problem with free is that people won't value it enough to take care of it. They'll just trash it and move onto the next thing. But a $50 or $100 netbook would be huge for customers. Anything else on that level is usually a crappy toy.

And just like Microsoft counts on people growing up on their OS, google could do the same here. Of course, I don't know if such a netbook will be worth it in the end in America, but definitely in third world countries.

Re:Not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

TripMaster Monkey, why do you pretend that you know better than Google if they can afford this or not?

Unlike them, you're just MAKING UP NUMBERS.

Re:Not possible

[eldavojohn]

As nice as it is to think that advertisements will cover everything, a single user isn't worth a $150+ netbook.

Who said the netbook cost $150? I would guess that the bulk purchases and low requirements could allow them to cut that down to sub $40 within four or five years. And even if the netbooks had decent hardware, look at the number of servers Google runs to provide free and paid services ... now what if you had idle processes on netbooks using up spare Atom (or whatever is out there) CPU time? Think about it, it could be the user footing part of your server energy bill.

Another thing is that search result advertisements and even ads on gmail are worth more because they can be really targeted. But what do you advertise on a spreadsheet app? Users aren't looking for any info or such - they're working on their spreadsheet.

Well, your logic works both ways. Why would I want to be bothered with ads when I'm busy working on my e-mail? And the data in a spreadsheet says a lot, if their doing their finances, you offer them financial products. Numbers and abbreviations give away a lot. If they are using scientific notation, you give them scientific product ads. It's also a single piece of Google's offerings. Docs and gmail are much more useful to me.

It's just out of the question that a single user would be worth $150 for Google.

You didn't list a lot of innovative ideas for their strategy to mitigate hardware cost and you also ignore the rapidly falling costs of hardware that the OLPC tried to take advantage of. I'm confident that if they embark on this endeavor, it will be well thought out and phased. I think you underestimate your worth in the eyes of Google and what it means to have you as a resource--both in purchasing power and generating content as a contributor.

Re:Not possible

[j00r0m4nc3r]

It's just out of the question that a single user would be worth $150 for Google.

Man, it's a good thing that Google has you to make tough judgements like that for them. Where would they be without you?

Re:Not possible

[oldspewey]

Then you start to see netbooks in those big centre aisle bins at WalMart under a sign that says "Price Drop! $24.87", and consumers react accordingly when they see service providers offering a similar netbook for free.

Re:Not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

TripMaster Monkey, why do you pretend that you know better than Google if they can afford this or not?

Unlike them, you're just MAKING UP NUMBERS.

TMM was more refined in English and grammar than sopssa.

Re:Not possible

[oldspewey]

How much will it cost to get you to respond to this thread again? I'll take up a collection.

Re:Not possible

[Roger W Moore]

It would also be a good place to store a Linux distribution...of course that might not display the ads which is why I highly doubt that Google will do it. It would be far too easy to strip out the Google OS and install your own.

Re:Not possible

[getNewNickName]

I'm still waiting for my free gPhone. What happened to those rumors?

Re:Not possible

[ShakaUVM]

Who said the netbook cost $150? I would guess that the bulk purchases and low requirements could allow them to cut that down to sub $40 within four or five years. And even if the netbooks had decent hardware, look at the number of servers Google runs to provide free and paid services ... now what if you had idle processes on netbooks using up spare Atom (or whatever is out there) CPU time? Think about it, it could be the user footing part of your server energy bill.

+1 insightful

That might actually be what this is all about... getting users to pay for the electricity to run a grid. Especially if the netbook doesn't end up being free but just low enough to cover (most of) the cost of making it.

Re:Not possible

[PhilHibbs]

It'll have minimal storage, maybe just a small SSD to hold connection settings and updates.

Re:Not possible

[JWSmythe]

Well, the whole thing is speculation anyways, so it really doesn't matter.

    Plenty of companies sell or give away loss leaders. *IF* they did it, it could be used to get their product to market. They may give away the free version, with an upgrade path to a better version. They may give away the free version with pay features such as requiring a 2 year 3G contract, or pay to use the Google cloud services. Really, even without the advertising, it would be worth the money if they charged $10/mo for using their storage. The prices mentioned were retail prices. Just because something costs $200 in the store doesn't mean it costs the manufacturer $200. Usually it costs an awful lot less.

    Even the folks saying that they'd install whatever alternative OS on it, that would still be a minority, and they would make their money on the majority of the users.

    I doubt we'll see the Google branded free netbook anytime soon, but hey, it could happen. Or folks will continue to speculate about it. :)

Re:Not possible

[sorton9999]

Let's say the hardware DOES cost $150. I think over the lifetime of the hardware they can more than recoup the cost. I think it's in the realm of possibility to get $10 add revenue per month per user. That includes search revenue and adds splashed all over everything. They get their money back after 15 months. Let's say the average lifetime of the hardware is 2 years, they make money after a while. Of course, they make money sooner as the hardware gets cheaper.

Re:Not possible

[poetmatt]

I disagree. Google's clearly making money as it is, so what makes you think they wouldn't make even more from the info they can glean from a free netbook? It'd cost them minimal amounts to host applications which are already hosted.

It also ties in wonderfully to android, given that you could have a laptop that could potentially use cellular for data.

The bigger issue is the OS is very lackluster at the moment and there are issues trying to get more serious applications/work done via a cheap netbook of some variety, especially on google's OS. However, would it work for the purposes shown on the preview? Absolutely. Word processing, email, spreadsheets, etc? Easily.

Re:Not possible

[Enderandrew]

Your $150 price point is interesting.

AT&T subsidized $400 of my iPhone for signing a two-year contract with data plan.

Let's say that Google offers up $50 of the netbook cost to get their OS in people's hands, and to get search and advertising revenue. Even if they lose a little money, they're buying market share. AT&T would only need to subsidize $100 of the netbook to get it to me for free. AT&T and Verizon are already doing deals where they will subsidize $100 of a netbook if you sign up for an associated data plan for it.

Re:Not possible

[damburger]

Advertising on the netbook itself could not cover it, perhaps, but remember what Google are trying to do here is break on the desktop; if they make a loss getting their netbooks into peoples homes (and their lives) then they are getting more desktop users by default (because if you are keeping your documents on google docs, then you will still use it when you boot a windows machine). They can make the numbers work if they are banking on increasing their userbase elsewhere.

If Google can get a large enough userbase on their cloud applications to break the MS Office monopoly, then suddenly the reason 95% of the worlds desktop computers run Windows evaporates.

I myself don't like cloud computing for office work - I tend to use openoffice. This will still work out well for users like me though; Without an MS monopoly people will become more used to working between different office packages.

Re:Not possible

[Spud Stud]

Think NASCAR. Sure, it might not be worth it to Google alone, but imagine a laptop "sponsored" by 15-20 vendors, each with their logo emblazoned on the case or the home screen.

Re:Not possible

[Enderandrew]

The test hardware they've been showing off apparently has a 32 GB SSD, and also accepts SD card storage. It isn't mammoth, but you can keep cached versions (via Google Gears) of all your data on your SSD just the same.

Re:Not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

Had a lot of success putting Linux on a DVR or an XBox lately? Chromium is already signed, so there's no reason they can't bake it in further. Don't assume success in hacking something that can be demonstrably locked down.

Re:Not possible

[Lord Bitman]

Your attention is worth $150 an hour, and you can't even focus it enough to ignore ads you don't care about? Shit, mine must be worth BILLIONS!

Re:Not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd get the free netbook and then hack it to run another free cloud OS on it. Anyway clouds are ephemeral things that you can never reach, can you?

Re:Not possible

[aztracker1]

If it has bluetooth, and I can tether it to my G1, I'd be fine with that. :) Already have a data plan for my phone, that works pretty decent (for roaming wireless) in tethering, pretty similar to low-bandwidth DSL on 3G, EDGE is barely better than dialup imo.

Re:Not possible

[Yvanhoe]

Agreed, not possible (yet). The article itself is made out of wild assumption by someone who doesn't think to quite understand the subject at hand... Even the 10-20$ figures he proposes for a netbook is more than what a consumer is worth to Google. I could see them giving away computers in some specific programs however.

Re:Not possible

[rackeer]

Ok... given you stipulate users have to use your applications and it is practical to do so (otherwise the calculation becomes void). You assume that you can collect more data to target ads better in order to increase significantly the cost per thousand impressions (CPM) of the ads. Can you really collect more data? The device would be marketed most successfully to people already using google accounts, I think. Other people would not be so much interested in a google netbook ("where is the internet here? where is word?"). If netbook users are already google users there would be not so much to gain. If you don't annoy people with additional ads, you would hardly gain any more to get returns from your investment. Let's assume to the contrary that CPM will not significantly increase. Though there are stories about people gaining about $25 CPM, I think adsense CPM is usually much lower, say about $0.4. Now if you want to get back your money for the netbook in one year (say $150) you'll have to show many additional ads to people. I calculate 375000 impressions/year at a CPM of $0.4 or 1027 a day. If people use their netbooks in their free time, 4 hours a day (sounds ok?), that would be 4 ad impressions per minute. That sounds very high and unrealistic. I would think that in order to get back your money from the netbooks they'd really have to annoy people with full screen ads and more. I am skeptical about the business model.

Re:Not possible

[jellomizer]

$150 an hour seems like a standard consulting rate... However... Do you really think you are going to spend all your times focused on the adds. Especially google adds which don't popup etc... Heck they may even be helpful to you as you doing your work an add will come up for a product that will make your life easier as it is context sensitive.

Re:Not possible

[jonbryce]

In a third world country it costs something like $10,000 per year for the broadband connection needed to make such a netbook work, so it isn't viable from the customer's point of view.

Re:Not possible

[Rich0]

Assuming that Chrome runs Chromium as the browser (haven't read up on it much), that could be a problem. The last time I browsed a gears-enabled site using Chromium I got an error that my browser didn't support gears. My IE 6 browser at work had no issues. Oh, the irony...

Re:Not possible

[Garble Snarky]

If it's THAT cheap, I'll just buy my own. Even if the unsubsidized hardware costs twice that, I'd still rather spend $40 and have the freedom to do what I want with MY hardware.

Re:Not possible

[bberens]

I'm pretty sure you'll be able to use google voice on your netbook.

Re:Not possible

[Glyn Moody]

Yes, and that's a sensible approach. But I suspect most non-technical users would just take the "easy" option of the all-in-one Google package, rather than trying to do it themselves.

Re:Not possible

[natehoy]

I think the issue goes deeper than CPM.

If you get someone to use this as their daily computer and load something that can track their every move (not just on the Web, but how much time they spend in a spreadsheet, on Thunderbird, on IM, etc), you can build a really valuable profile on them that goes FAR beyond simple google-analytics tracking or web ad responses.

You can start building predictable behavior models for a significantly large population.

That is data you simply cannot buy today.

Experiments like this have been tried in the past, all to end in failure, but that's because something like this requires REALLY cheap hardware (the costs model being so low that you don't care that half of your freebie customers are hacking the hardware and taking out your stuff or using it as a specific-purpose machine, because the remaining half are using the systems for everything exactly as you intended). The data, if it can be gathered successfully, makes the hardware cost look cheap by comparison.

Armed with this data, Google could start predicting with pretty creepy accuracy what the response rate is going to be to a particular campaign. Then they can start charging a higher CPM for ALL of their advertising, because they can do what no one else in the industry is able to do. Guarantee a specific response rate based on a carefully-crafted campaign, that is crafted based on good models of how people act in real life.

Under the current model, an advertiser approaches Google and says "we want to advertise this new vehicle". Google gets info on the vehicle and charges a CPM for sending hopefully relevant clicks through to the automaker's page.

With the new data model in place and populated, the advertiser approaches Google and says "we want to sell 5,000 automobiles". Google can charge a flat rate per actual sale, which they can predict based on these models. They'll not only be able to predict clickthrough rates, but have a fair shot at actual sales.

And this is not only the people who participated - they would in theory use google-analytics surfing data for the entire websurfing population combined with the models they've build based on the people they track to predict behavior for a much larger population.

So, for example, they come out with a new ad for the "Ford Monopole", a hypothetical electric car. The looks appeal to a subset of their tracked population that are into certain TV shows, search for certain movies on IMDB, and get emails from people who are into similar things. Use the analytics data from those TV shows' web sites to determine fans of the show/movie, and you can target campaigns to those people.

Yes, advertisers do this today, but this could bring it to a whole new level, because they'll know which cars their tracked population actually bought and what factors led up to that decision. Then they can extrapolate that out to the larger population for which they have less complete data.

Creeped out yet?

Re:Not possible

[Ephemeriis]

As nice as it is to think that advertisements will cover everything, a single user isn't worth a $150+ netbook. Actually single user is worth a lot less for Google and other companies.

Who says the netbook will cost $150?

Hardware keeps getting cheaper... And if everything lives in the cloud then you really need virtually no local storage. Just a screen, keyboard, and some kind of Internet connection.

What if the netbook only costs $100? $50?

Lets say Google gets around $2 CPM on normal searches. That means a single search is worth something like $0.002 for Google. It's going to take lots of searches and ad clicks from every user to even cover the costs of the netbook. And the same users would be doing those searches and ad clicks anyway, so it serves no purpose.

What about advertising that's physically on the netbook itself? Like logos and graphics and whatnot?

Companies pay good money to advertise on billboards and in movies and on the sides of busses. You could take the low-tech approach and just slap some logos on the thing... You know Google would have their logo on it somewhere. Someone asks you at work or wherever - where'd you get the netbook? - oh, it's free, check out netbook.google.com Gets Google another user looking at the ads on their free netbook.

And you could slap some FedEx or WalMart or whatever other signage on it. I'm sure companies would happily pay a few dollars to slap a logo on a netbook that you'll be using in public on a more-or-less daily basis.

Or you could take a more high-tech approach and put an epaper display on the back of the screen... Orient it so that other people can read it while you're using the netbook... Google could tie that feed right into their AdSense program. Of course that'd be a bigger ad... Something with some graphics and whatnot... And it'd be visible to more than just the person using the netbook... So Google could charge extra for that ad space.

Another thing is that search result advertisements and even ads on gmail are worth more because they can be really targeted. But what do you advertise on a spreadsheet app? Users aren't looking for any info or such - they're working on their spreadsheet.

Why, you advertise a competing spreadsheet app, of course! Microsoft can advertise their new and improved LiveSpreadsheet... Or their own free netbook program... Someone can roll up a new cloud-based spreadsheet app and advertise it... Or Google can advertise their professional spreadsheet app... More built-in functions, no advertising, priority cloud processing... Maybe you can advertise QuickBooks Cloud Edition or something like that, especially if you serve up ads based on content like Gmail does now.

It's just out of the question that a single user would be worth $150 for Google.

Again, I don't know that Google needs $150 from each user. Maybe you're only worth $75 to Google... But Joe over in accounting is worth $300... So Google still makes enough money to support both of you. And that's assuming that the netbooks actually cost $150 each.

But I think you're being short-sighted. You're only looking at AdSense impressions - not the new possibilities that these netbooks present. Not just new possibilities for advertising either...

The free netbook could easily become a platform to deliver software as a service. Intuit could pay Google a fee to advertise this year's edition of TurboTax... And then pay another fee to host the cloud-based version of TurboTax... And then you could pay Intuit to use this year's version of TurboTax.

Yes, I know, software as a service is evil... You'll never trust your data to the cloud...

But if Joe Sixpack can get a free netbook, and this year's TurboTax Cloud Edition for only $20... Instead of buying a PC and full-priced TurboTax... I think they'll manage to move a lot of free netbooks and a lot of TurboTax Cloud Editions.

Re:Not possible

[Maniacal]

There's more possibilities than just ad revenue. How much do guys like HP and Dell make when they stick someones trial app on new computers they sell? If Google were giving away netbooks, how much would it be worth to companies to have an link to their website included in the default install? How about having something in the licensing agreement that gives them rights to your spare CPU cycles? That could be a good revenue stream or they could use it to offset their own datacenter costs.

Re:Not possible

[m.ducharme]

Your attention is worth $150 an hour, and you can't even focus it enough to ignore slashdot?

FTFY

Re:Not possible

[Beardo the Bearded]

My laptop is a Thinkpad 600E:

P2 366
64MB RAM
6G HDD.
Wireless via PCMCIA
no sound
no USB
CD-ROM

So yes, I would take a free upgrade from Google. Maybe it'll run Puppy...

Re:Not possible

[sznupi]

Google is worth around $150 billion right now, apparently. Assuming they have around 1 billion users, that could indeed mean one Google user is worth around $150.

Of course it doesn't follow from this that Google would be willing to finance netbooks for all of them... However not all Google users are worth the same amount. Some markets are worth much more than others. Yeah, again only US would get some nice deal.

Re:Not possible

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Exactly. A small modification of the numbers, may result in it being economically feasible. Difficult to tell without knowing what the exact numbers are. (sorry no mod points, today)

Re:Not possible

[KylePflug]

I saw a post on some site recently about how Motorola spent $100 on DROID ads per sale in the first couple weeks. Are you sure a single user isn't worth $150? Hell, you could probably make that back in a couple months, with smart targeting.

If advertisers had access to a single user's entire computer, they could orchestrate entire rich campaigns alongside your content and workflow. Don't forget, ads pay for TV, and that shit's expensive. A car company, for instance, would probably gladly pay $150 for the opportunity to gradually present the case for a car or line of cars to a single user - show feature comparisons, pictures, testimonials, reviews, dynamically updated content; track a single campaign for a specific user to make sure it's always fresh. You would have the unique opportunity to deliver a compelling and truly targeted campaign. And then you just jack the price of the car up $50 to offset costs. Assuming even a modest success rate, that pays for itself pretty quickly.

Same goes for cell providers and the like. What if Comcast could pay for your laptop in exchange for guaranteed exclusivity (your laptop will never display Verizon ads or Qwest ads or Dish ads) and the opportunity to continually advertise their best deals, upgrade packages, etc? Hell, they could sell existing users on a new channel or two and pay for the laptop in a year.

I keep hearing people dismissing this, but if it were done tactfully, the opportunity is definitely there. You could even attach these netbooks to premium goods like TVs, cars, or subscriptions as a "bonus" to increase brand loyalty. You buy a Prius, and Toyota subsidizes your "free" Prius netbook which has all kinds of nerdy green hippie widgets, wallpapers, etc. Direct ROI might be hard to measure, but you can bet Toyota would love if everyone who drove a Prius appeared to love it so much that their wallpaper was a Prius wallpaper, their laptop had a Prius tattoo, etc...

The business model is solid. The execution has never been pulled off before. This needs the technology behind Google as well as some extremely clever advertisers and branding experts to make sure the entire package, from lid design to the desktop wallpaper, is simultaneously stylish and an advertisement. There are plenty of companies who have high enough prices and high enough margins that $150 is worth it to make a sale. Hell, it's cheaper than telemarketing.

Re:Not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

This is insane for any server application that is limited by network bandwidth or storage bandwidth rather than CPU time (i.e. most of them).

Re:Not possible

[ClosedSource]

Where do you think the savings should be coming from? You still need an LCD screen, video hardware, audio hardware, processor, RAM, etc. And you can't buy a generic netbook case like you can for a desktop PC.

Re:Not possible

[ClosedSource]

There's never going to be a $20 netbook even if your labor costs were zero.

Re:Not possible

[crazycheetah]

ok, I was originally going to respond about I thought I remembered a "GDrive" being speculated. And then I googled it and found this, where someone caught Google mentioning efforts towards GDrive in a presentation. So, say they make the GDrive (there's more to the blog [read it], but let's say it's just rented out space on the cloud) and charge for it.

And Chrome OS I heard some speculation about before it came up as real.

What's to stop them from charging for the GDrives monthly, putting Chrome OS on cheap enough hardware, and just giving out those cheap computers for free, charging for GDrives to make up for it?

Re:Not possible

[ClosedSource]

The fact that OLPC specifically targeted a $100 machine and couldn't achieve it should tell you a lot about the feasibility of a sub $100 computer.

Historically prices on PCs have come down, but the low end computers have started to reach a limit. A sub $100 laptop/netbook is about as practical as it was 5 years ago except that you can put more RAM in it now.

Re:Not possible

[ClosedSource]

"Who said the netbook cost $150? I would guess that the bulk purchases and low requirements could allow them to cut that down to sub $40 within four or five years."

Why do you think there's some special economies of scale that only Google understands? Laptop makers have lots of volume and have already "cooked in" economies of scale.

Try this experiment. Itemize all the hardware required for a netbook and try to figure out a price for each item that adds up to $40. Don't forget the cost of the case and its tooling. Then what about labor and shipping?

I think you'll find that it won't add up.

Re:Not possible

[V4Vendetta75]

Based on the current beta of Chromium, the ads WOULD be really targeted since you login with a gmail account. Meaning even "just" using a spreadsheet in google docs would be done with your gmail/google account... Unless of course you create a bogus gmail/google account for this specific computer. In which case you'd loose a good deal of interest in the bargain. Sorry for the lame english, I'm french (yep, we're still alive and kickin' !). Also, first post for me on /. Very happy to join you guys ! V

Re:Not possible

[tomhudson]

And if it gets down to that price, the same manufacturer (not google) is going to offer similar netbooks with other operating systems for a few bucks more, and without the advertising. they already have the economies of scale at that point, so why not milk it for a few extra bucks? Sell it with a real linux distro that doesn't have adware for $10 more. Sell it with Windows for $20 more. Sell it with OSX for ... ummm ... maybe not OSX ...

Also, clicks from people running "welfarebooks" aren't going to be worth anything to a pay-per-click advertiser. Terrible demographics, especially since if you're too poor to even buy a netbook, some of you are paying your ISP bill by engaging in one of those "make money at home clicking on links" pay-to-click frauds, so advertisers will aggressively filter out users of any "free" netbook.

Re:Not possible

[IndustrialComplex]

There's never going to be a $20 netbook even if your labor costs were zero.

Just like there will never be $20 cell phones?

Netbook = Display, keyboard/HID, 802.11, Battery, Microcontroller, plastic frame/shell, AC-DC converter.

We have already proven that all of those items except for the display can be included in a $20 product. Do you believe that the Display will always keep the cost above $20? With the advent of mobile browsing, many services now revolve around repackaging websites for viewing on smaller screens and requiring less processor overhead. I could see it happening in 5-10 years easily.

What I'm really waiting for is this:

Color e-Ink displays at a reasonable cost. THAT is going to usher in a huge change to our mobile landscape. It might not be the $20 model you state is impossible, but it's my prediction.

Re:Not possible

[Marxist Hacker 42]

But what if instead of $150, that netbook could be built for $75 or less? And be small enough with Skype and other such programs to double as a cell phone? And be given away through say, T-Mobile with a 2 year, $25/month unlimited data contract?

Re:Not possible

[sopssa]

You also need good amount of CPU and RAM. Websites and especially video streaming and flash games are quite heavy, and so are the heavily-ajaxied Google apps.

And like someone said, shown hardware had 32 GB SSD card, which isn't really dirt cheap either.

Re:Not possible

[B1oodAnge1]

wat?

http://www.xbox-linux.org/wiki/Main_Page

Re:Not possible

[iluvcapra]

Just like there will never be $20 cell phones?

There aren't $20 cell phones, that's the subsidized price. If you were a phone company, or someone in a position to collect a monthly fee for running these netbooks, you certainly could dump them for $20 on a shelf at Wal-Mart, provided they come with a 2 year contract for whatever you're selling... I think the GP is right in that AdSense could never produce the revenue, and it would drive people crazy anyways.

If you're Google or VNZ, you could bundle internet connectivity. If you're Microsoft or Google, your could bundle connectivity+OS updates+cloud apps. If you're Apple, you wouldn't sell it as a laptop, you'd sell it like an AppleTV, except very cheap with a 2-year "all you can download" media plan.

Re:Not possible

[TheRaven64]

On the other hand, if it has ChromeOS installed and I can nuke it and install FreeBSD without violating the conditions of sale, then I'd be happy to pick one up for free, especially if it had an ARM CPU and decent battery life.

Re:Not possible

[kbielefe]

Chromium is still very much under development. I have no doubt gears will be fully supported before the OS is released to the general non-OS-hacker public next year.

Re:Not possible

[maxwell demon]

Or they'll just become more used to using Google Apps exclusively.

Re:Not possible

[Acer500]

Just like there will never be $20 cell phones?

There aren't $20 cell phones, that's the subsidized price. If you were a phone company, or someone in a position to collect a monthly fee for running these netbooks, you certainly could dump them for $20 on a shelf at Wal-Mart, provided they come with a 2 year contract for whatever you're selling...

I'm not so sure... I bought a U$ 20 cell phone recently (the Nokia 1208), new, from the local carrier, without a contract or any fees of any kind and with 300 minutes of credit thrown in. Maybe they hope they'll make it up off prepaid phone cards, but they're not getting them off a contract.

Re:Not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this askslashdot? If they don't want my opinion, they don't have to post the question!

Re:Not possible

[4D6963]

now what if you had idle processes on netbooks using up spare Atom (or whatever is out there) CPU time? Think about it, it could be the user footing part of your server energy bill.

I thought about it, and no. No one's stupid enough to run idle processes for processing. Idle priority or not, you don't run a portable device's CPU at 100% all the time unless you have a damn good reason.

And then, even if they did that, how much could they get done with a bunch of low spec machines with crappy Internet connections? If they had a problem with their energy bill and wanted to save energy in such a way they'd build a server farm out of OMAP3-based SoCs.

This being said, if Google gets $1 everytime you click on one of their ads, it won't take too long before a $50 machine is paid for.

Re:Not possible

[Zerth]

You can buy a Sheevaplug, retail, for $100 right now. It is essentially a netbook, sans screen/keyboard/touchpad/battery.

Wholesale it is approaching $50. Keyboards & touchpads are a couple of dollars wholesale, netbook screens can be had for ~$50, and undersize netbook batteries for the same.

Wait another year or two, when the core will come down to $25 and find a battery/screen combo for under $75, albeit with only a few hours of charge and a 7" screen. It won't run Windows, but it'll be better than the netbook sitting on my desk right now.

Re:Not possible

[debatem1]

I've purchased new cell phones for less than $20 without a contract before. They suck, but they do exist.

Re:Not possible

[DerekLyons]

Advertising on the netbook itself could not cover it, perhaps, but remember what Google are trying to do here is break on the desktop; if they make a loss getting their netbooks into peoples homes (and their lives) then they are getting more desktop users by default (because if you are keeping your documents on google docs, then you will still use it when you boot a windows machine). They can make the numbers work if they are banking on increasing their userbase elsewhere.

That sounds suspiciously like Milo Minderbinder in Catch-22... "I lose money on every sale, but I make it up in volume!".
 
 

If Google can get a large enough userbase on their cloud applications to break the MS Office monopoly, then suddenly the reason 95% of the worlds desktop computers run Windows evaporates.

And suddenly a Microsoft monopoly is replaced by a Google monopoly. Pardon me for not regarding this as the Second Coming.

Re:Not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

Please Send check to:

Anonymous Coward
5050 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 11220

Re:Not possible

[mujadaddy]

Creeped out yet?

Not me, I took a soldering iron to the "Google might be evil" part of my brain about a week ago! It's a bright new future!

Seriously, though, datamining by Google is reaching redonkalous proportions.

Re:Not possible

[Abcd1234]

Creeped out yet?

Not particularly, given this would be an opt-in process. It's no different than people choosing to use club cards at the grocery store... except, in this case, they get a free netbook out of the deal.

Would I do it? Meh, probably not. But for most people, I'd say they'd consider information about their personal browsing habits easily worth a free computer.

And this is all assuming your paranoid fantasy is even true.

Re:Not possible

[kbielefe]

Congratulations on making the first reasonable argument. Google has made way too many statements like "We are not interested in locking or preventing users from installing other operating systems, on their hardware if they so please." (toward the end) to make me believe an advertising model to offset free netbooks is viable. However, factor in a two-year contract for internet service, and it makes perfect sense. Google provides a simple, secure, easy to support, easy to upgrade OS, gaining some ad revenue, but doesn't lose much if the end user wipes the OS. The ISP assumes the financial risk with the contract, and gets the monthly payments in return, and can provide a usable netbook for cheaper thanks to the low hardware requirements of Google's OS, maybe even kicking part of the contract revenue back to Google in exchange for support. That sounds like the Google way.

Re:Not possible

[idiot900]

Who said the netbook cost $150? I would guess that the bulk purchases and low requirements could allow them to cut that down to sub $40 within four or five years.

$40 isn't much. I would be perfectly willing to pay $40 for a computer without ads or intrusive tracking rather than $0 for one with those things.

Re:Not possible

[Norny]

You can't leave out the fact that Google has advertising, analytics, feed proxying, and blog hosting everywhere - not just on *.google.com. Even if you don't click on ads, they can still profile your traffic patterns and sell their research findings.

Re:Not possible

[Tybalt_Capulet]

The browser also doesn't allow use of Google Earth.

Re:Not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just plain stupid. This is what flushed out so many companies in the dotcom bubble. advertisements only work when people *actually* need something.

Today, most people have everything they need, mostly. Especially in a economic slump, you'll hit even less buyers, because people are just saving more. They also know exactly where and when to buy whatever they need, which they usually know.
You're not going to get rich doing advertisements only. But maybe they can sell personal information to the mob, the government, military and foreign countries. Seems a much better business opportunity than this half-baked speculation.

Think a bit about what advertisement is for a second. It's completely humbug, and most people know it by now. You can't afford to NOT use it, but you'll have a hard time targetting people even more, as they will just filter out your adverts.

Re:Not possible

[IKnwThePiecesFt]

I think he's referring to the xbox 360, which requires digitally signed code which unless you happen to have one with very old firmware, is unable to be hacked.

Re:Not possible

[Arancaytar]

Well, that's the sensible option for them, too.

If you don't know how your hardware works, it wouldn't make sense to pay a premium for being allowed to hack it.

(Unless this means they get it full of viruses and ask us for support, but it's likely that as a thin client, Google OS will be less broken than Windows in that respect.)

Re:Not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

one more thing you guys are forgetting is government affiliations and capital to be gain from the data alone. also there is the ideal of an infrastructure morover standard bieng implemented which can be very benificial. it doesnt neccesarily have to be about just the ads

Re:Not possible

[Arancaytar]

There aren't $20 cell phones, that's the subsidized price.

I paid $22 for a Motorola W156 with no contract.

Of course, it isn't exactly a spiffy toy, but it beats all smart-phones on battery life and start up time...

Re:Not possible

[trenton]

Just like there will never be a $20 calculator, $20 digital watch, $20 hand-held laser, or $20 digital camera.

Re:Not possible

[w0mprat]

I can't afford a long reply you insensitive cloud!

Re:Not possible

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

Yes, advertisers do this today, but this could bring it to a whole new level, because they'll know which cars their tracked population actually bought and what factors led up to that decision. Then they can extrapolate that out to the larger population for which they have less complete data.

Creeped out yet?

If the advertisers know what factors lead up to my decision, then they wouldn't show me ads unless I was in the market for that or something similar. I can understand the creepiness of that kind of mind reading, but if for example the ad host in question did a deal with you where you said what you were in the market for whenever you wanted something, and they turned off the ads when you were NOT going to buy anything, or at least reduced them to things that fall into your impulse buy range, then I can't see this being a bad thing.

And really, once you get to the point you're talking about, it makes plenty of sense for you to actually have an account with the ad host so that you can have some explicit input anyway.

(Cue a thousand cynical slashdotters telling me how business interests are never going to do anything halfway worthwhile for the consumer like that, even when it IS practical)

Re:Not possible

[BobMcD]

Nothing

is unable to be hacked.

Re:Not possible

[tool462]

This kind of business model is where I think companies like TiVo are missing the boat. They are currently trying to sell themselves as a hardware company selling a platform that is going to eventually be crushed by the extremely low-cost option provided by cable and satellite providers. Where they would stand to do well is as a replacement for Nielsen ratings. They have unprecedented access into not only what people are watching, but when, where they skip, pause, replay. Advertisers could get real feedback on which commercials actually get watched when the viewer has the option not to watch altogether. Networks can improve their program schedules by getting a feel for when people actually prefer to watch a particular program. They may notice that a program that airs at 9pm is often watched late afternoon. Or maybe there are a significant number of people TiVo'ing The Tonight Show, and then watching it mid-morning the next day. This kind of info could help them design their schedules to get better ratings with non-TiVo users. I know TiVo is doing this to some extent, but not anywhere they could be.

Re:Not possible

[Penguinisto]

To be fair, the OLPC had mesh networking, a semi-rugged build, a rather unique means of power/replenishment, and was begun as a project back when notebooks would cost you an average of $800-$1000 apiece. Trying to undercut the average price by up to 90% really took some doing.

Nowadays, Google only has to shoot for cutting the average netbook price by 50-66%, and (unlike today's OLPC) doesn't have to shiv out for a Windows license to do it, which saves them a healthy chunk of change ($20 - $30, IIRC) right off the bat.

Re:Not possible

[mrboyd]

I can imagine the only ad I'd feel compulsed to click if I had to work in google docs on a chrome netbook.

Looking for a faster word processor?
Microsoft Office 2010.
50% off with a real pc.

Re:Not possible

[stefanlasiewski]

Nothing

is unable to be hacked.

assuming sufficient time, effort and resources, which we don't always have.

Re:Not possible

[simplu]

Never? Bill, is it you?

Re:Not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

Spot on! This is an attempt by GOOG to break the Windows Oligarchy.

Re:Not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not thinking like a dot-com business droid! Stop with all that rationality... If they give away expensive things, and they're lucky, they might just be able to give them away fast enough to make a profit on volume... don't ask how! Only sheep ask how... Sharks just go with it, and don't ask silly questions. Be a shark man...

Re:Not possible

[node 3]

If I ever run into someone who doubts that Stockholm Syndrome is real, I'll just direct them to your post.

Re:Not possible

[node 3]

In a third world country it costs something like $10,000 per year for the broadband connection needed to make such a netbook work, so it isn't viable from the customer's point of view.

The real question is, how much does it cost to make up numbers about costs in a third world country?

Re:Not possible

[jedidiah]

> Had a lot of success putting Linux on a DVR or an XBox lately?

Why bother? You can get a more suitable PC for the same price now.

THIS is Google's real problem. Hardware is cheap enough that they may have trouble convincing people that the cost savings are worth whatever tradeoffs are involved.

Re:Not possible

[jedidiah]

The problem is not that your attention is going to be focused on ads but that
it probably won't be completely focused on your "work". The adware interface
is going to degrade the quality of the rest of the system and your "work". It
will probably do so to an amount far greater than what you save buy agreeing to
take the "free" system to begin with.

The adware will devalue the end user experience more than it will enrich Google.

Re:Not possible

[ShieldW0lf]

Personally, I would rather use an abacus.

Re:Not possible

[indi0144]

>> Creeped out yet?

Nope, but thats because my background education is in advertising. You sir, have outlined the wet dream of many advertising companies.

And yes, I'd use a subsidized Google netbook even if I have a real laptop, it's an appliance not a real PC. The same as I'd use a subsidized coffeemaker if it's provided by mi favorite coffee brand under the condition to use it with said brand of coffee only, because I'm going to be buying that coffee anyway.

Also, the coffee brand don't know about my coffee bush in my patio (I have one, really) and Google do not care if I install $random_linux_distro

Re:Not possible

[xonicx]

May be google netbooks are small servers running on user's electricity and Internet bandwidth to serve other users.

Re:Not possible

[jedidiah]

No. Not really. It's quite easy to run right into a cloud and fly right through it.

Actually, it's a pretty mundane thing for anyone that's ever been flying...

Re:Not possible

[natehoy]

Good point. What I would expect is that Google would use searches you are doing to determine what you are trying to do, then use your profile information and that extrapolated from members of their "total information awareness" group who carry the Netbooks to determine what sort of car you're going to end up buying.

Then they'll save you the search.

You Google "prices Ford Mondeo"

Google replies:

[Click here if you aren't actually in the market for a new car (takes you to Google Search page on the Mondeo).]

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

Voice=Clippy: It looks like you're searching for a new car! Congratulations! I can help you with that if you like.

We have found 1,321,452 people whose habits correlate to yours by more than 85% and who live in similar climates, are of similar height and build, and have purchased new cars in the last year. Based on feedback they have placed on their cars, there is a 97.45% chance you will be thrilled with the car I've chosen for you.

The car will be available to test drive tomorrow at your local dealer, and your schedule has an opening at 11:00AM so I've put it on your calendar. Click here to see the model we've chosen and to choose your preferred car color."

And Google will, 90% of the time, be completely correct about the model that's right for you. About 85% of the time they'll be equally unsurprised at your choice of color.

Make that 95% on both if you carry one of their netbooks. :)

Yes, it was a (hopefully) humorous exaggeration. But I can see them building a pretty darned accurate profile of people in general, and people similar to you in specific, if they get a few tens of thousands of people carrying a "free" GoogleBook. Marketers have been looking for this sort of data for, well, since marketing existed. Some of the databases are scary accurate, but nothing compares to people letting you into their daily lives for months or years on end. And that's never been practical, but it might be with something like this.

It'll make advertising more efficient, meaning Google gets paid more per transaction but when they get paid they really add value. This could even reduce prices in the end, since companies won't have to spend millions on scattershot advertising. If I was a car dealer, and I knew you could get a consumer's arse in one of my cars, I'd pay you good money per completed sale.

It'll make advertising less annoying, since you will generally see ads that are very specific to your tastes.

And Google would know everything about you. Life would be more convenient, and somehow, less interesting, I suppose. LOL.

Re:Not possible

[pwfffff]

Yeah, the end result of his paranoid nightmare is that we get ads we can actually use and some Google datacenter employee spends 30 minutes one night chuckling at your porn habits. I'd say that's worth a free netbook.

Re:Not possible

[Chryana]

If google needed processing power to compute prime number or to do protein folding, you would have a point. However, as it is, most of their products are fairly bandwidth intensive (text searches for database access, youtube, etc), and I'm not sure what kind of calculations they could get done remotely on under-powered Atoms, which can be turned off at the whim of their users, and whose profitability would outweigh the bandwidth cost. Also, although anecdotes are not data, this is not a novel idea, and yet I'm still waiting to see a profitable business model which is centered on distributed processing power. None of those businesses lasted, and they weren't giving away laptops for free...

I personally doubt Google netbooks will ever be given away, but I can imagine them being offered for "free" as part a long term Internet contract.

Re:Not possible

[Nefarious Wheel]

It would also be a good place to store a Linux distribution...of course that might not display the ads which is why I highly doubt that Google will do it. It would be far too easy to strip out the Google OS and install your own.

Quite correct, for those so inclined. Far too easy -- for those who would bother to break it. And for those, I can imagine Google could find it useful to have their name and brand associated with the cred of having a new toy for the technically-inclined community to play with. If it's fun to break, and easy to break, people will see a lot of them in the hands of geeks. Not a bad thing.

Because it will be a very small percentage of the users who would do more than boot & use, the rest of the user community would easily underwrite the jailbroken ones. Mostly they don't care about such tracking, because rightfully or wrongfully, Google is a name a lot of people trust.

Remember that Google is also investing a bit in the brand wars, and this could score a major coup against Bing, and that alone would be worth a pilot investment.

Also remember that among the larger population of computer users, the technically astute are still a minority.

Re:Not possible

[ShakaUVM]

>>Also, clicks from people running "welfarebooks" aren't going to be worth anything to a pay-per-click advertiser.

Right, the point is the secret purpose would be to take advantage of the subsidized CPU cycles the netbook offers for grid applications. If they can sell it at cost, or near cost, and get people to power it and keep it connected to the net, while Google retains control of the OS and background apps, they could get a massive compute engine for free or cheap. The ads would either just be window dressing, or would be just another data point in Google's attempt to know everything.

Re:Not possible

[ShakaUVM]

>>This is insane for any server application that is limited by network bandwidth or storage bandwidth rather than CPU time (i.e. most of them).

That's why I said grid application, not server application. If you don't know the difference, then you shouldn't be calling something you don't understand insane.

Re:Not possible

[crazybilly]

just out of curiosity, how much coffee are you getting out of that bush? I've thought about raising my own coffee, but somebody told me the yields make it pretty much impractical. Are you getting enough coffee to make it worthwhile?

Re:Not possible

[nurb432]

It's just out of the question that a single user would be worth $150 for Google.

Unless there is more going on here then we know.

I have always questioned Googles goals and funding sources anyway. Giving away laptops like this wouldn't surprise me in the slightest and only serve to get them closer to their end goal agenda ( whatever that really is.. ).

Re:Not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

What about, "Need help with spelling? Click here to learn more!"

Re:Not possible

[rel4x]

Except that Google gets much more than $2.00 CPM on searches. MUCH more.
Checking some quick numbers from campaigns I have access to show it's actually in the double digits in some pretty low-intensity/cheap vertical.

I guess we'd have to know what percent of searches trigger an ad to get anything conclusive though.

Re:Not possible

[Nerdposeur]

The question is, did they make a profit from that $22 cell phone? Or were they just getting it out of their stock for whatever price they could get, even at a loss?

Re:Not possible

[microbee]

I get a free computer doesn't mean I use it.

Re:Not possible

[FatAlb3rt]

How many sub $500 laptops did you see 5 yrs ago? Pretty much none. Remember Gates internet lore about RAM reqmts.

Re:Not possible

[mcvos]

Color e-Ink displays at a reasonable cost. THAT is going to usher in a huge change to our mobile landscape. It might not be the $20 model you state is impossible, but it's my prediction.

Remember how much CRT monitors once cost? How much the first flat screens cost? You can bet the price of e-paper is going to drop a lot over the next couple of decades. Maybe not to less than $20, or maybe it will drop to the price of paper. It's impossible to predict (who could have predicted how cheap cellphones (with the same processing power that supercomputers had 30 years ago) would become?).

But if it's going to be big (and I think it will), then prices will drop.

Re:Not possible

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

Google knows UI design better than that. Instead of Clippy, they'd just have a short snippet that says, "According to our profile, the Ford Mondeo is X% likely to be a good car for you. [Click here for details]" and then below that they'd have the normal search results. There would probably also be competitive ad spots in the same area, if your profile matches you better with another car for example, or for dealerships nearby.

Amazon, et al, would LOVE them for that kind of positioning. I have to say, it would very likely hurt small business pretty badly, though, unless their reviews process weights small (or local) businesses appropriately.

Re:Not possible

[ClosedSource]

No, more like there will never be a $.02 calculator, $.02 digital watch, $.02 hand-held laser, or a $.02 digital camera.

Re:Not possible

[ClosedSource]

Bill Shatner?

Re:Not possible

[trenton]

Somewhere between $20 and $0.02 is "free" for most people in developed countries.

Re:Not possible

[negRo_slim]

THIS is Google's real problem. Hardware is cheap enough that they may have trouble convincing people that the cost savings are worth whatever tradeoffs are involved.

I'm sure you could convince the Walmart crowd.

Re:Not possible

[ClosedSource]

I'm not talking about 2 year commitments or selling the razor blades and giving away the razor - I'm talking about actual cost of parts and shipping.

Re:Not possible

[Cryacin]

You know what? I've had the "You can disable advertising" option on Slashdot for about 6 months or so now. You know what? I don't click it. Why? Because Slashdot is not rude in its advertising. Their advertising generates money for slashdot, which means that I can read some interesting stories during the day. I'm happy about this situation and I support it.

Google I've found to be the same. They don't have flashy lights and fancy tricks to demand my attention. They also don't hit me over the head with a baseball bat like so many other advertisers to get my eyeballs. Hence, I am perfectly OK with google advertising. They provide a service in exchange for my eyeballs, and don't burn my retinas at the same time. If they were to supply me with a laptop, I would out of principle keep the advertising enabled. That is, of course, if it would be obnoxious.

Re:Not possible

[Anonym1ty]

Well if the dollar keeps falling...

Re:Not possible

[jimmydevice]

Yaking into a netbook will look as silly as a shoephone.

Re:Not possible

[Thinboy00]

But what do you advertise on a spreadsheet app? Users aren't looking for any info or such - they're working on their spreadsheet.

In that particular app, you take a loss. But in the word-processing app you can add ads. Same is true of ~every app they'll have.

Re:Not possible

[Thinboy00]

IIRC Chrome OS is intended to be TiVoized (i.e. w/ digital signatures in the hardware/firmware).

Re:Not possible

[bigngamer92]

"Sell it with Windows for $20 more"

ARM defeats this from happening.

Re:Not possible

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Where do I sign up for 6 or so of these?
If the "conditions of sale" are too odious, I have a feeling all six will be stolen out of the trunk of my car. Now if some thief hacks them and puts some other OS on my stolen "ChromeBooks" I have no way to prevent that.

Re:Not possible

[tomhudson]

"Sell it with Windows for $20 more"

ARM defeats this from happening.

Not necessarily. All Microsoft has to do is port the Windows UI - not the Windows kernel. Even a small team, well-funded, could have that ready the day the ChromeBook launches. Chairs would flyyyyyyy!

Re:Not possible

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

How dare you insult the Shatner like that!

Re:Not possible

[Lunzo]

Ask Slashdot is over that way ---->

This is advertisements.slashdot.org.

Re:Not possible

[ClosedSource]

The issue wasn't what the average price of a laptop was but rather what was the lowest price at that time. OLPC wasn't even enjoying economies of scale as good as commercial laptop makers had. What magic did they use that nobody else had thought of to cut costs?

Re:Not possible

[BikeHelmet]

There's never going to be a $20 netbook even if your labor costs were zero.

Just like there's never going to be a $20 HDD? Oh wait...

With the new SoCs coming out, where a single chip can do everything... I could see a $10 chip powering a netbook with all its peripherals, years in the future.

Give it an SD card slot, affordable $30 screen, and your actual costs are under $100.

Re:Not possible

[BikeHelmet]

Yes, there's $20 cellphones. If you mass produce 500k of a model, then you can get the PCB costs down to about $7 populated. Throw in a $3 ARM MCU and $5 GSM chip and some required extras like SIM card, LCD and battery. Okay, maybe $20 is unrealistic - but $35 isn't.

Might want to google the Peek Pronto. The CEO had a teardown of one. Very tiny PCB with only a few chips on it. It does email through GSM.

Re:Not possible

[Miseph]

"That sounds suspiciously like Milo Minderbinder in Catch-22... "I lose money on every sale, but I make it up in volume!".'

Which, of course, worked out quite well for Milo, making him both extremely wealthy and extremely powerful.

Maybe you forget that his trick was where he lost the money in question... most of his transactions were actually purchases from himself.

Re:Not possible

[minorproblem]

What you are forgetting is that the more relevant the results are the more valuable the advertisements to that user become. Lets say they have a whole heap of data about you. And the Laptop has a built in GPS. You search for a haircut and they know that you are a trendy person who is probably willing to spend $50 on a style/cut. If you where the local Hairdresser 500m away from that user how much would you be willing to pay to have that user see your advert. I would bet it would be much closer to the $1-2 mark...

Re:Not possible

[minorproblem]

To expand on this you can even target offers to that user. So a local computer shop could target all users in the local area who are searching for ways to fix their computer. Maybe under certain keywords they would present an advertisement that offers a free "computer checkup". They would probably be willing to pay $0.10 to get that users clicks.

Re:Not possible

[dspratomo]

Agreed, even less on ARM processor. http://techvideoblog.com/reviews/80-android-laptop-menq-easypc-e790/. There's still a possibility that google will port it's Chrome+Android to this platform.

Re:Not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

If given unlimited time, true. However the console makers are winning this round. The Xbox 360 if updated to the latest firmware will brick hacked boxes running the Linux boot blocks, and the PS3 has yet to have *any* progress at all to break that open.

Re:Not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

$10 of revenue becomes maybe $1-2 of profit. that's $6-12 a year, so 7-13 years to get even. Stellar business for netbooks -- and that's without considering the "welfarebook" aspect that others pointed out.

Re:Not possible

[bhiestand]

My take on this is that it's just about simple Business 101: Commoditize whatever customers need to use your service.

Google wants everyone to be able to use Google as much as possible. To do this, they need to put out a good mobile OS and browser for free. Drive the price of these devices down as much as possible, and more people will be using Google services.

It seems that's what it's really all about. Who gives a damn whether or not Google actually offers their own netbooks? They just have to drive the costs down as much as possible so that everyone with a dollar to spend has SOME device that has them using Google's services.

Re:Not possible

[bhiestand]

And if it gets down to that price, the same manufacturer (not google) is going to offer similar netbooks with other operating systems for a few bucks more, and without the advertising. they already have the economies of scale at that point, so why not milk it for a few extra bucks? Sell it with a real linux distro that doesn't have adware for $10 more. Sell it with Windows for $20 more. Sell it with OSX for ... ummm ... maybe not OSX ...

That's still a net win for Google! They don't have to dominate the netbook market, they just have to drive costs down and get as many people as possible using netbooks to access Google's services.

Re:Not possible

[Daengbo]

My gal just bought a new cell phone two months ago. Not US$20, but well under US$30. A recent G-Net phone with MP3 player, e-book reader, 512MB SSD card (which we replaced with a 2GB one), and dual-SIMs. No contract. Got a pre-pay SIM thrown in for free from the vendor, which means that the store could have dropped the price further if it had wanted to. Everyone in the wholesale-retail chain makes a profit on it ... so how cheap is it to manufacture? Maybe $12-15?

Mine was even cheaper, but doesn't have SSD, e-book, or MP3 capability.

Re:Not possible

[Daengbo]

If I were Google, I would require that each user buy no more than one netbook, supply ID, and report his/her Google login ID (or issue on with the purchase). Suddenly all this ad data about an account is tied to a real person. Bam! Money in buckets.

Re:Not possible

[bberens]

Are you suggesting you would not buy a shoe phone?

Re:Not possible

[tomhudson]

No, they have to do that while MAKING MONEY. If it doesn't make money, it's no good. Google makes its' money from advertiser. Google is an advertising business. These locked-in netbooks will only be interesting to a very narrow market that advertisers don't want if they can avoid. So what will happen is that savvy advertisers will not show ads where the platform is that particular netbook. So the ads that will be shown are the slush-pile. The poor response rates from that will just piss off advertisers, who will look for better alternatives.

Ask yourself - can you live google-free? I don't need any of the "free web services". I can host my own videos, my mail goes to my machine so unless the sender is using gmail or hotmail or yahoo, the search engines never see it, I make my docs, plaintext, spreadsheets, etc., on local machines, and I can transfer them easily either over the network, via email, or a usb key. My cloud is my machines and my server.

If search disappeared tomorrow, I'd just start spidering and indexing the web myself, starting with my bookmarks, since that's the most relevant to me. Then I'd start making that info searchable by others. No advertising needed, just running on spare cpu cycles. Sound familiar? If a significant portion of users did that, we'd have a real cloud computing model. My bet is that this will happen by the end of the next decade, as privacy concerns trump worries about centralized control and invasiveness of data aggregators.

Re:Not possible

[B1oodAnge1]

again, WAT?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_on_the_PlayStation_3

Re:Not possible

[Nyder]

not that old of firmware.

In fact, if you were stupid enough to update it since august, your sol.

Plus they figured out jtag connections for all the models now.

Re:Not possible

[Shortgeek]

I'm going to go with the rest of the bandwagon and say no, I wouldn't be creeped out.

Say I've been watching a bunch of TV shows about scientific developments, because I am interested in those things. I also happen to be an environmentalist, and really hate Big Oil. Just last week, hypothetical me watched "Who Killed the Electric Car?" and was very interested, so I did some Googling around and reading of Wikipedia (in Chrome). Google knows everything I do, and Google knows that I would be a target audience for an electric car. If I saw an ad for a reasonably-priced, powerful, electric car, then I would want to buy it. And I want to see that ad so I can know about it.

Advertisers could use Google's massive datamining to bring this to a "whole new level", as you say. They will be able to do so much more, and target so many more ads. Oh no! I'll have to put up with ads for things I actually want! I won't see those Blackberry ads that keep repeating the same two bars of a Beatles song! How will I ever survive?

The only scary thing about Google owning my life is the worry of their servers failing. But I trust their computers more than I trust mine.

Re:Not possible

[bigngamer92]

Great. What apps would you be running on Windows 7 ARM edition?

With OSS you can recompile, with Windows you'd have to wait for Adobe,Symantec, Intuit, etc to release a new binary for that small market of Windows ARM users.

Re:Not possible

[tomhudson]

... and you don't think they wouldn't? It's not like they don't have the source code - it's their own apps, and the market could very well boom. They can't afford to ignore it.

Re:Not possible

[shnull]

wether its possible or not is not something i'm even gonna think about but ofcourse i would accept a 'free' netbook. Doesnt mean i have to use it all the time ...

I Just Installed a Google Camera in my Bedroom

[RobotRunAmok]

They asked me to, and I did it! Why wouldn't I? They're Google, after all, and they can Do No Evil. Besides, it was shiny, and open source...

Re:I Just Installed a Google Camera in my Bedroom

[ctrl-alt-canc]

Please can you share with us the url ?

Re:I Just Installed a Google Camera in my Bedroom

[YrWrstNtmr]

Are you sure you want to go there? He is a /.er afterall.

A free _netbook_?

[E-Sabbath]

Considering the uses I'd have for a netbook, yes. It wouldn't replace my main computer. It'd be a walking about sort of tool. If it had a cell modem in it, so much the better.

Yeah, I'd allow it for a netbook. Advertise all you want.

Re:A free _netbook_?

[nicholasjay]

Yeah, me too. I have a netbook that I only take on vacation with me or use when my other computers are taken. No personal data is stored on it, so I wouldn't mind a free one from Google.

Re:A free _netbook_?

[amplt1337]

It'd be a walking about sort of tool.

I can fix that for you if you let me take out one letter and an apostrophe. What'd'ya say?

"It be a walking about sort of tool?"

I'd like to know what you mean.

Re:A free _netbook_?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that the correct parse of his statement is:

It would be a walking about sort of tool.

The "'d" after it can parse to "it would" perfectly legally. He is saying that he would use it as a computer that he could walk around with while using. Seems pretty obvious to me.

Re:A free _netbook_?

[postbigbang]

It would be a freaking toy. You'd end up using your main computer because at that price, the darn thing is almost disposable.

And if it had a cell modem in it, it would end up costing you a lot more than free, $150/whatever.

Plastic tinker-toy tools are for those that just play around. Buying something with quality helps-- despite the fact that today's quad-core notebook has a half-life of only three years if we're lucky.

Re:A free _netbook_?

[Zerth]

I already have a netbook and I'd get it, as I got mine early, so odds are it might be better.

If you're really paranoid: get it, stick it in a closet, wait for the eventual failure/shutdown of the project, google for re-imaging HOWTOs, and then start using it.

I've still got some declawed CueCats:)

Re:A free _netbook_?

[digitig]

It looks ideal for this guy.

Re:A free _netbook_?

[Ephemeriis]

It would be a freaking toy.

Toy or not, it might be very handy to pull up my email on the road. Or check the prices on Amazon/NewEgg/wherever while I'm out shopping.

You'd end up using your main computer because at that price, the darn thing is almost disposable.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying...

The point is basically that the thing would be disposable. I worry a hell of a lot less about a brand new HDD than one that's got years worth of data stored on it. And if it's all cloud-based, then the netbook itself has little more than some bootstrapping on it. If it breaks, you chuck it and get a new one. They're free after all.

But I wouldn't end up using my main computer... Because my main computer is a big box with a bunch of cables, a couple monitors, a keyboard, a mouse, and it all requires a power outlet. So I can't very well haul it around with me when I'm on the road. And I can't very well fire it up at a rest stop somewhere to see if I've got any important email to worry about.

And if it had a cell modem in it, it would end up costing you a lot more than free, $150/whatever.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Hardware costs keep coming down. And I'm sure if Google starts giving these things away for free we'll see mass production and price drops pretty quick.

Partnering with a wireless carrier might be more difficult... Amazon and Barnes & Noble have both managed it... But they didn't do it for free products... I guess it'd come down to how much revenue Google thinks they can generate from the thing.

Plastic tinker-toy tools are for those that just play around. Buying something with quality helps-- despite the fact that today's quad-core notebook has a half-life of only three years if we're lucky.

I think you're missing the point.

For the average consumer, a computer is basically disposable right now. They'll buy some $300 special at Dell, use it for a year, and then replace it because the thing is too full of crap to be used.

If they can get a netbook for free that is able to check their email and log in to Facebook, I'm sure they'll jump all over it. Even if the thing dies in only 6 months.

For those of us who actually buy quality hardware that lasts for 3+ years with no trouble, this isn't going to be a replacement for your main computer. But it might make a nice addition. Again, I don't have a portable little machine to haul around with me when I travel. A free netbook might be very nice in that capacity.

Re:A free _netbook_?

[aztracker1]

I don't know that I'd care for it, as it is, I'm running small icons, and the personal toolbar plugin for firefox, so I can reduce the vertical footprint a little more, which helps (also disabling bookmark toolbar) on my current netbook at 1024x600)... The ads would probably have to be a 2 second tab-out, a slider to take most of it off screen after a couple seconds, with a tab in case you're actually interested to not interfere with the usability of anything. I've been to enough sites lately where I have to use alt+F11/fullscreen mode to even close the stupid pop-overs on some sites. With the popularity of netbooks, sites & apps really need to be tested in 1024x450 viewports. It's almost a shame, if 1280x800 were the standard for more netbooks it'd be less of an issue... though I wonder if a low-rez version targetted to mobile platforms might be a better fit for netbooks that full-blown sites.

Re:A free _netbook_?

[gladish]

Ya, and some guy will post step-by-step instructions on the web on how to flash a clean ubuntu install onto and I'll remove your adware garbage.

Re:A free _netbook_?

[unixguy43]

Agreed- As a tool that I could use in order to access some of my non-critical data on the fly, it would be useful. I wouldn't want to use it as a replacement for my desktop or laptop systems though. I use my Google G1 in that capacity now, but it would be nice to have a little more functionality than what can be provided over a small Android device. The obvious problem that I would see with it is battery life. As a portable tool, it doesn't have much value if I'd need to be tied to an electrical outlet 50% of the time in order to make use of it. For checking e-mail and Facebook, or surfing the CNN page, or checking out the sports scores, or even modifying and sending out a resume, I see this as something that I would use. I wouldn't want to do my banking or make online purchases with it though.

Re:A free _netbook_?

[postbigbang]

I don't think I'm missing your point, I'm categorically criticizing it.

1) We have a junk disposal problem with computers anyway; clogging it further with cheap machines isn't an answer.

2) The decent machines cost money. Face it: quality costs, and subsidies by carriers/telcos/etc are false economy

3) You certainly jest when you reply, 'Maybe. Maybe not.' Who do you think you're kidding? Tethered broadband costs lots of $$ in the US, and the carriers are having trouble dishing up what they have (no fights regarding Verizon vs AT&T, etc.). Subsidized cell phones are the same scam.

4) Netbooks fill a need, and I see that need. It also means that the cloud/SaaS apps that are required to be used to do something real are probably going to be tethered to a provider. ChromeOS means you better love Google.... or it will be difficult (probably not impossible) to move to someone else's meager offerings. Google's service levels aren't guaranteed, and if they're offline for whatever reason, go fish.

5) The average consumer REELS at having to dump their $500 machine every three years. They would (and so would I) prefer to invest every five or even more years in new hardware. But the stuff breaks, and is subject to the madness of Moore's Law, keeping up with the joneses, and so on. Six months? Ye Gawds, Man.

6) A good tool is a good tool. In my cabinet are lots of tools that are older than I am, and I'm a half-century-plus. These tools stand the test of time because they're quality devices. The concept of a disposable machine is as abhorent as disposable razors. If they can't built it well enough to withstand average use over a decent lifecycle, then they shouldn't build it at all. Look at the fate of General Motors for questions.

Finally, Google's revenues be damned. We owe them nothing, and they're not my knight in shining armor to fight Microsoft, Apple, or anyone else. They must live in the market by producing products that customers want and being good citizens like the rest of us. Should they make something I like and it meets the criteria of a strong value and life, I'll get it. Otherwise, just because they build a centrist model ecosystem doesn't mean everyone's going to flock there. They have to do better than that.

Re:A free _netbook_?

[tomhudson]

Ya, and some guy will post step-by-step instructions on the web on how to flash a clean ubuntu install onto and I'll remove your adware garbage.

... except that the proposed ChromeOS netbook/welfarebook runs cryptographically signed software, and if any software that fails the checks,it re-images itself off the cloud. Unless they release the signing keys, you won't be able to install anything on it.

In other words, it's just like a Tivo. Open in name only.

Re:A free _netbook_?

[Anonymous Coward]

Grammar nazis usually at least have the decency to be right about the thing they complain about from a prescriptive pov, even if they usually make mistakes elsewhere.

Re:A free _netbook_?

[Ephemeriis]

1) We have a junk disposal problem with computers anyway; clogging it further with cheap machines isn't an answer.

The reason we have a junk disposal problem is because the average consumer doesn't care about it. And since the average consumer doesn't care about it, it won't be an issue in rolling out more cheap machines.

2) The decent machines cost money. Face it: quality costs, and subsidies by carriers/telcos/etc are false economy

I agree that you generally get what you pay for. I understand that subsidies by carriers aren't actually making anything cheaper. But it does make things more accessible. If Verizon will give me a phone for "free" when I sign a two-year contract, that's all most people will see. And as far as actually getting a decent machine? Look around you. Disposability reigns supreme.

3) You certainly jest when you reply, 'Maybe. Maybe not.' Who do you think you're kidding? Tethered broadband costs lots of $$ in the US, and the carriers are having trouble dishing up what they have (no fights regarding Verizon vs AT&T, etc.). Subsidized cell phones are the same scam.

I do not jest, nor am I trying to kid anyone. I don't know what kind of leverage Google may have... I have no idea what kind of income they could make off a netbook... I don't know what kind of network infrastructure they might have... It might be cost-prohibitive to provide cellular data on a free netbook, it might not be.

4) Netbooks fill a need, and I see that need. It also means that the cloud/SaaS apps that are required to be used to do something real are probably going to be tethered to a provider. ChromeOS means you better love Google.... or it will be difficult (probably not impossible) to move to someone else's meager offerings. Google's service levels aren't guaranteed, and if they're offline for whatever reason, go fish.

Unless Google's free netbooks become more of a platform than a service themselves. I'm sure software companies would be happy to pay a fee to Google to make their new SaaS offerings available on Google's netbooks. And keep in mind that Google does have paid versions of their services.

5) The average consumer REELS at having to dump their $500 machine every three years. They would (and so would I) prefer to invest every five or even more years in new hardware. But the stuff breaks, and is subject to the madness of Moore's Law, keeping up with the joneses, and so on. Six months? Ye Gawds, Man.

Not because of the price... Or some emotional attachment to the hardware... Because of the data. It's a pain in the ass to move all your pictures and documents over to a new machine... Re-install all your software... But if everything lives on the cloud? What if you just put your username & password into any netbook and it suddenly becomes just like your home computer? All your data, all your programs... Because everything lives on the cloud.

6) A good tool is a good tool. In my cabinet are lots of tools that are older than I am, and I'm a half-century-plus. These tools stand the test of time because they're quality devices. The concept of a disposable machine is as abhorent as disposable razors. If they can't built it well enough to withstand average use over a decent lifecycle, then they shouldn't build it at all. Look at the fate of General Motors for questions.

In case you hadn't noticed, disposable razors are pretty popular.

And I think this gets to the crux of our disagreement. You have a problem against disposable razors. You think something should be built to last and continue to be used for years. That's fine. That's a choice you can make. But that's not a value that everyone else holds. Like it or not, many people out there are just fine with their disposable razors. They're perfectly happy to buy cheap bits of plastic and throw them away, day

Re:A free _netbook_?

[E-Sabbath]

Precisely. Now, for checking NewEgg prices, or adding books to my Amazon cart (not checking out, just adding things) or checking mail (which google has already) or... well, any number of walking around sort of tasks, it'd be a handy sort of thing.
Even more so if it read PDFs.

Considering ChromeOS is a thin client, and mandates network storage, I'd assume that some sort of internet access is required for usage, and I'd hope it would be cell phone style like the Kindle. Now, text only, maybe, but I could live with that.

Re:A free _netbook_?

[TheRealGrogan]

Me, I'd change the l to an n so he'd be out there "wanking about with his tool"

Re:A free _netbook_?

[gladish]

Unless they release the signing keys, you won't be able to install anything on it.

I'll save this quote for a later date. :)

Re:A free _netbook_?

[khope]

"If it had a cell modem in it, so much the better."

My vision would be one that incorporates wired and cell connections and functions as an element in a wi-fi mesh. Now the user has strong reasons to want this device because one gets connectivity in all the likely ways. And sharing the connectivity provides a reason to leave it on 24/7 when it's in a fixed location.

If the cell modem requires a paid service, one should be able to turn it off to control ones costs.

If this device could eliminate the cost of an ISP, it's value rises to the cost of an ISP. My ISP and Vonage cost $76/month. I'll happily pay a fraction of that to Google if I can dump the ISP, get connectivity everywhere, and use a VOIP phone (say magicjack). Throw in GPS and maps and they can have it all.

What's it worth to Google to have their own network?

Much like the I-opener

[asicsolutions]

Someone will figure out how to hack it and use it for whatever you want.

Sign me up

Re:Much like the I-opener

[Abreu]

Or the :CueCat

Re:Much like the I-opener

[maxume]

I don't know, I think people might do something more with a netbook than just sticking it on a shelf somewhere.

Re:Much like the I-opener

[Abreu]

Well, my point is that people felt motivated to hack a mostly useless piece of free hardware like a barcode reader and make something moderately useful out of it.

Now, take something which is more powerful and potentially a lot more useful, like a netbook. People are going to be a lot more motivated to look for ways to hack that hardware into running other software.

Re:Much like the I-opener

[yurtinus]

I like where you're going with this. We could hack it to run Linux, Windows 7, anything! And it'd be cheap... and small... sort of like every single other netbook out on the market right now.

I dunno, hardware hacking a general purpose computer just doesn't excite me as much as it does for special purpose hardware.

Re:Much like the I-opener

[Abreu]

Yeah, of course if this theoretical "Google Ad-running Netbook" is within the same price range as the other netbooks out on the market right now it is simply not interesting.

But if Google were to offer an ARM-based netbook at a considerably cheaper price than the current batch of Atom-based netbooks (even subsidized), then it would become a lot more interesting to get the hardware to run another OS, wouldn't it?

Re:Much like the I-opener

[yurtinus]

ARM netbooks!! Be still my fleeting heart!

Definitely would be more interesting. Y'know, enough waiting, let's just build and sell one already. There's clearly a market!

No I won't

[godrik]

I won't use a machine which is useless without network. I don't like to rely on an internet connection because some times it breaks. I want to be able to store files on my computer and use it on the plane. And I want to be able to do it off-line. I want all my tools locally, I need LaTeX to work, I need a compiler, I need scientific visualization tools.

I believe in free-as-in-speech software and I don't see how GoogleOS really fits into it.

Re:No I won't

[Anonymous Coward]

Who says it wont work without a network, cloud applications can be cashed you know, they will continue working without a network connection, as long as you have used them once.

Also Google has already demonstrated that cloud applications can store data locally, so you can "store files on my computer and use it on the plane, and you will be able to do it off-line.".
Latex can work as a cloud application, as can compilers and other "scientific visualization tools", in fact any kind of application can! Because applications can be much more massive than current applications, their capabilities will be greater than current similar applications too.

"I believe in free-as-in-speech software and I don't see how GoogleOS really fits into it." maybe you cant, but I can!

Re:No I won't

[ProppaT]

You realize that this machine is intended for browsing the internet and updating your blog on the couch or at *bucks, not replacing your normal computer, right? No one is expecting anyone to get work done on this thing...it'd be too small to be a productive work computer to begin with...but it'd be good enough for social networking, instant messaging, e-mail, etc.

You can't have it both ways. You want total control over all your software on a free machine? That's never going to happen. I suspect a tool like this would be perfect for older people who just want to e-mail their kids/grandkids and check their bank account and perfect for younger people who don't have the money for a netbook or laptop but want a portable internet device. Not to mention college students who want something small and portable for taking notes in class. There really is a lot of potential to the device, although I don't see anyone getting it for free. Maybe $50, but free is a stretch.

Re:No I won't

[geekoid]

OF course you wont, and neither will any of the other .005% users who need a computer to work that way.

GoogleOS fits into it because free-as-in-speech software is much bigger then you.

Re:No I won't

[Hatta]

Why do LaTeX, a compiler, and scientific visualization tools (R?) need to be run locally? I never had a problem running everything in an SSH (-X as needed) session. Yes there's an issue if you can't connect to the network, but if Google can work things out with cell providers and airlines (and I don't see why they couldn't) there would be very few dead zones.

As for free-as-in-speech software, aren't Android and Chrome OS both open source?

Re:No I won't

[kFiddle]

I fail to see why it's can't be used for "real work." Just do your compiles on a remote google-hosted developer box with 12 CPUs. I'm sure your compiles will be much faster. As far as internet availability, let's not forget white spaces internet, which Google also has a hand in.

Re:No I won't

[godrik]

If I need to update my blog or do IM, I need a real keyboard. If I need a real keyboard, than I prefer using a netbook that can work offline. Because I am going to be offline some times and it would be a waste to have 2 netbooks one for being online and one for being offline. I can have a powered-by-free-software that I can update/tune to my needs so I won't use google's one for that

If the machine is intended to be a portable internet device then nokia has really good hardware and I am actually using a N810. I am enjoying it both online and offline. I am enjoying being able to write software for it and get a full unix compatibility. I even have a very compatible webbrowser for web applications. So I am not going to use a google-locked platform.

You want total control over all your software on a free machine?

I just say I prefer a free-as-in-speech machine over free-as-in-beer because my freedom worth the 300 bucks I will put in it.

I suspect a tool like this would be perfect for older people who just want to e-mail their kids/grandkids

Those people are not me. The question is "would you use such a machine ?" and my answer is "no, I won't". If the question was "will some people use it ?", then the answer is "sure, a lot of people will".

Re:No I won't

[Anonymous Coward]

haha bigger in what way? Bigger in the way that "we are marketing company who is utilizing free-as-in-speech software in order to drive ads down your throat to collect all the personal information we can about you in order that we can maximize our profit" bigger?

It sounds like parent is heavily researching a specific topic to contribute to all of mankind's knowledge so that we can all benefit from it. while he is certainly not in the majority, don't throw out that .005% as "negligible", it is probably more important, if not the most important, reasons to use a computer.

Re:No I won't

[godrik]

The question never was "will other people use it ?" :)

Re:No I won't

[slim]

Just do your compiles on a remote google-hosted developer box with 12 CPUs.

I very much doubt that even on the hypothetical free box, you'd be restricted to Google services.
You could do your compiles on Amazon hosted developer boxes, or even your own server.

It might not feel all that different to using a desktop IDE, Bespin won't be the only browser based IDE.

Re:No I won't

[godrik]

IDL is almost slow on my computer. I can not even imagine what it will be across the network. When you are having a look at GB of data you need them locally. The results of latex compilation can easily be MB large which is probably going to take one or two seconds to transfer I can have it instantly if the compilation is local. What if the network breaks for 10 minutes. It happens. Will I have to take a 10 minutes break ?

As for free-as-in-speech software, aren't Android and Chrome OS both open source?

Sure the software is free-as-in-speech. But can I update the machine to get my flavor of it ? Certainly not. Then I don't care I can have the source code since it is useless.

Re:No I won't

[Hatta]

This is what X forwarding is for. You don't need to process a GB of remote data on your local machine. Have the remote machine process the data and only display the graph over the network. Same with LaTeX, run xpdf remotely and it only has to transfer what you're actually looking at over the network.

Re:No I won't

[Anonymous Coward]

Freak.

Re:No I won't

[Ephemeriis]

I won't use a machine which is useless without network. I don't like to rely on an internet connection because some times it breaks. I want to be able to store files on my computer and use it on the plane. And I want to be able to do it off-line. I want all my tools locally, I need LaTeX to work, I need a compiler, I need scientific visualization tools.

I believe in free-as-in-speech software and I don't see how GoogleOS really fits into it.

I do believe you've completely missed the point.

If the device is little more than a portable web browser, what would you do with it offline?

Netbooks are not intended to run LaTeX or compilers or scientific visualization... They're intended to surf the web, log on to Facebook, and check your email.

Fine, you need LaTeX and compilers and scientific visualization to work... But you're on vacation, on a road trip somewhere. You've stopped at a rest stop somewhere that offers free WiFi and you're wondering if that book you ordered has shipped yet. Do you really need offline storage, gigs of RAM, and a quad-core CPU to check your email? Are you going to compile up a new email client there in the parking lot? Do you routinely craft your email messages in LaTeX?

Re:No I won't

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that what Google Gears is for, and then money they've been throwing at Mozilla? To allow online apps to be used offline? It would seem that Google saw your point of view 2-3 years ago and the fact that ChromeOS is still a year a way could be indicative of them waiting for all the technology to be in place.

Re:No I won't

[blowdart]

cloud applications can be cashed

That's certainly what google is hoping for.

Re:No I won't

[elashish14]

Much, if not all, of those can probably be solved by setting up a home server to handle all of that while you work remotely. I myself run a lot of Python scripts for scientific work and use Latex for pretty much every document/presentation I make, and I can do it just fine over ssh. Gnuplot is still pretty slow though, don't have a great solution for that on this weak Atom chip.

Re:No I won't

[Jon Peterson]

I won't use a machine which is useless without network

I started out using VT320 terminals, so I'm kind of used to the idea of using lightweight hardware that's useless without a network. Worked pretty well at the time ;-)

Re:No I won't

[tomhudson]

GoogleOS fits into it because free-as-in-speech software is much bigger then you.

The google netbook uses cryptographically signed images for its software. In the event that the software fails the check, the device re-images itself from the cloud, so you don't have "free-as-in-speech" software, you have a closed, Tivo-type system; "look but don't touch."

Re:No I won't

[bzipitidoo]

This whole idea of accessing a cloud via a netbook sounds awfully like accessing a mainframe via a remote terminal.

We know what happens with many terminals hooked up to a single mainframe. It has many weaknesses. Mainframes do sometimes go down. They have to be taken down for maintenance on occasion. They often slow to a crawl. It could take only a few users being infected or running big jobs to spoil things for everyone. True, the network of a bunch of independent PCs can be saturated, but that doesn't stop everyone's CPUs like it does with the mainframe. And mainframes are easy to configure badly so that some users are starved even though their requests are very modest. I have not forgotten the experience of having to do class work on a university mainframe that was also used by administration. Administration had priority of course, and the set up was such that if administration was at work, it took 6 hours (!) before a student's job would even run. The only time we students could really do our work was between 5pm and midnight because at all other hours the terminal rooms were closed or administration was at work. Even though that was the usual time we did our homework, it was still a constraint to have to work around an artificial scarcity of a single resource.

Whatever happens on the mainframe affects everyone and every service all at once. PCs are more robust, and allow networking issues to be handled in isolation from other services.

Re:No I won't

[memnock]

i wouldn't because like the last line of the summary says, i don't want to let the all-knowing Google any further into my life. i use scroogle for my web searches and have gmail accounts that sit there idle, so i have the ids if want them, but no real intention of using them.

Google does some interesting things, but analogous to M$ monopolizing computer OSes, Google seems to want to do the same thing with information or data. i'm not too fond of that.

Re:No I won't

[Anonymous Coward]

I won't use a machine which is useless without network.

So you do not use phones? And by phones, I mean POTS.

Re:No I won't

[slim]

IDL seems like an ideal candidate for conversion into a cloud application. Your GB of data lives spread across cloud storage. Your code does too. If you're lucky, your analysis code is amenable to distributed execution with mapreduce. To it may run much faster.

The only thing that has to touch your local machine is your edits to the code, and your view of the results.

Re:No I won't

[godrik]

IDL requires a good graphics card to do the rendering otherwise it is slow. Have you ever run a opengl application over the network ? it really sucks.

Re:No I won't

[godrik]

Netbooks are intended to be small to be carried easily. If people use them only to check their mail and surf the web then "good for them". The question is not "will some people use them ?" but "will I use it ?". I am sure some people will find them useful; they are just not to me.

I see them as the smallest/lightest machines featuring a usable keyboard so I can do my typing activities on the go either on a car, in a plane, in a train, in a hotel room all over the world. In bombfuck, I don't think I will have an internet connexion.

Re:No I won't

[godrik]

But you need network to do that. I was in bombfuck cevennes last year in a workshop. We barely had a landline so let's forget about mobile phones or internet connexion.

Even if you have network, if it is not a high bandwidth, low latency link, you are screwed for most tasks. I am in Ohio,USA right now connecting to a university gateway in France. The latency is too high to type text. I am going to have constraint through the network. With a classical netbook I won't have those issues.

Why try to build usable tools over web applications when we already have a perfect solution in netbooks?

Re:No I won't

[Hatta]

That's a fair reason. But I don't guess you'd be running this on a netbook whether it was provided free by google or not.

Re:No I won't

[gbarules2999]

Then this product is not for you. Simple as that.

What about throwaways?

[winthrop]

If google offered completely free netbooks, people would use them as disposable, costing google tons of money. Even subsidized hardware like game consoles relies on the fact that the consumer is putting some investment in, so they'll probably increase their investment over time by buying games, and not just throw it out and get a new one every month because they feel like it.

Would you accept a free Google netbook?

[John Hasler]

Sure, as long as it wasn't too difficult to wipe it and install Debian.

Re:Would you accept a free Google netbook?

[cavok]

no, only Gnewsense is allowed

Re:Would you accept a free Google netbook?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to a previous story it would probably not have a hard drive, so that could be difficult

Re:Would you accept a free Google netbook?

[Hatta]

I installed Sid on a USB stick just last week.

Re:Would you accept a free Google netbook?

[Opportunist]

I just wanted to ask: Does it run Linux?

Re:Would you accept a free Google netbook?

[daid303]

Better to ask: Can I hack the running Linux? (see: Tivoization)

Re:Would you accept a free Google netbook?

[EPDowd]

Right on. I'd love a free computer as long as I could wipe it and install what I wanted.

Re:Would you accept a free Google netbook?

[tomhudson]

Sure, as long as it wasn't too difficult to wipe it and install Debian.

Google isn't about to release the signing keys to allow you to digitally sign your distro, so if you did succeed in wiping it, it would fail on boot, notice the checksum is wrong, and re-image itself. They've already said that's how it's going to work "as protection from malware." You won't even be able to install an unsigned printer driver, so you're going to want a new "ChromeOS-compatible" printer with that welfarebook.

Re:Would you accept a free Google netbook?

[John Hasler]

> Google isn't about to release the signing keys...

Google "jailbreak". If I can't install a Free OS on it I'm not interested, of course. I thought I made that clear. As delivered the thing would be useless to me.

Re:Would you accept a free Google netbook?

[Anonymous Coward]

But did you have to wipe it's ROM to let you boot from that stick?

Re:Would you accept a free Google netbook?

[Idiomatick]

And what gives you the impression that the motherboard would let you pick a boot device?

Re:Would you accept a free Google netbook?

[Anonymous Coward]

My netbook doesn't have a hard drive, but installing Ubuntu on it isn't harder than installing it on any other computer.

Yes, Google has specified that these devices are not to have hard drives, they are to have SSDs instead, but that in itself shouldn't be a hindrance to installing Linux. Since ChromeOS is based on Linux, the hardware should be Linux compatible.

Pay

[truthsearch]

I would pay to not see the ads. I would also pay to retain control over the device (assuming the give-away would be a type of lease).

But the privacy arguments are an issue whether or not you buy the device. If your apps are on the web, they're on someone's servers, whether you paid for the client or not.

Re:Pay

[StreetStealth]

Honestly, this is a parallel direction I'd love to see Google expand into. They have great services, but I just don't really like ads that much -- even ads as subtle as Google's. I'd use GMail more if I could pay a reasonable annual fee to skip the ads and have a nice, clean web UI.

I know Google offers an enterprise solution to this effect, but I've never seen a consumer solution marketed.

Re:Pay

[karcirate]

If you are willing to pay, why not just buy your own netbook?

Re:Pay

[bonch]

But then it wouldn't be from Goooooooogle!!!

Re:Pay

[John Hasler]

Most likely because this would be cheaper.

Re:Pay

[slim]

I'd use GMail more if I could pay a reasonable annual fee to skip the ads and have a nice, clean web UI.

Google Apps. $50 per user per year.
You don't have to be an 'enterprise'.

http://www.google.com/apps/

Me, I'll tolerate GMail's very unobtrusive ads to save $50 a year.

Duhhh

[Idiomatick]

I'd take several dozen, probably hundreds... hardware can't be given away. I think.... I'd wallpaper my house with monitors. I'm sure I could make a nice server/web ap to run all the buggers even if I couldn't take the hardware apart.

Basically, the idea is impossible and stupid.

Re:Duhhh

[jonbryce]

I think you will find it will be tied to a cellphone plan.

You can get "free" netbooks on a cellphone plan at the moment. You pay about £40 per month for two years on the plan vs £15 per month if you only take the modem. The £360 extra you pay over two years more than covers the cost of the hardware.

Re:Duhhh

[Ephemeriis]

I'd take several dozen, probably hundreds... hardware can't be given away. I think.... I'd wallpaper my house with monitors. I'm sure I could make a nice server/web ap to run all the buggers even if I couldn't take the hardware apart.

Basically, the idea is impossible and stupid.

Limit 1 per customer.

Not available locally, have to sign up on-line with a unique name/phone number/address that it will be shipped to - so they can make sure you aren't abusing things too badly.

They used to give away all sorts of goodies when you opened a new bank account... They were even giving away iPods at one of the local banks for a while.

Re:Duhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you build a Beowulf cluster out of them?

Re:Duhhh

[misexistentialist]

Free after rebate. Limit one per address.

Re:Duhhh

[KermitJunior]

"Hardware can't be given away." Oh really? Let me introduce you to a new invention. Call the Cell Phone.

Re:Duhhh

[Idiomatick]

Cellphones aren't free... I didn't say leasing was impossible.

Re:Duhhh

[Idiomatick]

"They were even giving away iPods at one of the local banks for a while."

How much did they make you deposit/how much to open an account?

Re:Duhhh

[Idiomatick]

That's a lease... not free....

No catch

[vvaduva]

Yes, absolutely...there is never a catch to free stuff being handed out by large corporations!! Sign me up!

Re:No catch

[dzfoo]

But it's not just any large corporation, it's Google! So, you know that the netbook not only comes with no strings attached, it comes with ponies and rainbows, yay!

          -dZ.

Certainly!

[PHPNerd]

I, for one, welcome our new Google overlords.

Re:Certainly!

[Anonymous Coward]

Death to all overlords.

Re:Certainly!

[CannonballHead]

new?

Google changing mobile computing?

[Azureflare]

This strategy might work if Google really is serious about changing mobile computing. They have the money to fund something like this (maybe even subsidizing netbooks would work). I would certainly accept a netbook with advertising if it was free, because, hell, it's free!

Even if it was subisidized at say $50, I would be willing to buy it. Any more then that and I would have to pass.

I watched the demo of Chrome OS that was posted on youtube, and from the presentation they really think Chrome OS will change the "paradigm" of computing. If they actually fund it by giving people free netbooks with chrome os installed, well, that's going to make it a LOT easier to change how we think of computing!

Unrelated note: I really find the browser-OS model fascinating. In a way, the presenter was correct: we really do most of our computing activities online (especially when mobile), and if the internet isnt there it's kind of pointless. I think the real issue will be offline application access, which hopefully will be solved by the upcoming HTML 5 Offline capabilities. All in all this is definitely going to be interesting to watch in the next year, but I'm not going to really obsess about it until Google comes out with a final product *snicker*.

Yes, I would.

[methano]

And I'll say it again. Yes, I would.

Meanwhile: Apple Smiles ...

[foobsr]

... having a patent on forced advertising.

Myself, I would not want such crap.

CC.

Re:Meanwhile: Apple Smiles ...

[dzfoo]

Sure, there's an app for that!

No Internet=useless computer

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't sound like a useful machine to me.

Not for daily use, but maybe while traveling

[davidwr]

I can see hotels, conference centers, and the like providing computers "brought to you by Google" or for that matter any advertising partner.

Of course, to be a winner with businesses they would have to allow VPNs to work and would have to guarentee there were no keyloggers or other security issues with the device. That should be easy enough to promise if the device boots over the network from an authenticated and trusted source and the machine were epoxy-sealed to prevent tampering.

Re:Not for daily use, but maybe while traveling

[alen]

a lot of business hotels offer printing as well, so there would have to be a way to customize the OS to be able to print on the local printer

Re:Not for daily use, but maybe while traveling

[contrapunctus]

Also if airport/border security people confiscate it it's no big deal.

Re:Not for daily use, but maybe while traveling

[Ephemeriis]

I can see hotels, conference centers, and the like providing computers "brought to you by Google" or for that matter any advertising partner.

Most of the hotels I've stayed at in the last several years have some kind of public terminal in the lobby already.

Unless they're literally handing you a computer to keep, I don't see the whole "brought to you by Google" thing being any different than what we have now.

Of course, to be a winner with businesses they would have to allow VPNs to work and would have to guarentee there were no keyloggers or other security issues with the device. That should be easy enough to promise if the device boots over the network from an authenticated and trusted source and the machine were epoxy-sealed to prevent tampering.

I have a hard time seeing a business that security conscious allowing you to connect with some random netbook you were given for free.

So...

[Zapotek]

I'm guessing AdBlock and/or NoScript are out of the question, huh?

Re:So...

[NixieBunny]

My first thought. But Google likes text ads, so they might not care so much if AdBlock were installed. Their advertisers, on the other hand, would be more than a bit unhappy.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing AdBlock and/or NoScript are out of the question, huh?

Nope. Chrome supports extensions, and several people have created ad blockers for chrome. Search for 'chrome adblock extension' to see a few.

        I suppose extensions could be disabled in the OS image that is included in chrome OS, but this would be a shot in their own foot. When your product is open source, good luck shipping a crippled version. Anyone could build an uncrippled version. Sure, a manufacturer could sign their extensionless image and have the hardware reject any unsigned image. Unless every manufacturer does this, the ones that do will have to offer a discount on their hardware to make anyone choose to buy it.

        Why would Google ban ad blockers? Almost no one uses them, and the people that do hate ads enough not to click on them. Spending engineering time to do something that pisses people off and makes you no money is not something any rational company would do. I don't think google employees are that dumb.

Sam

Re:So...

[maxwell demon]

Anyone could build an uncrippled version.

But that won't help you if you cannot install it.
man tivoization

Yes, I would

[V50]

I would easily take a free netbook if it were offered. I'd mess around with it, if it was useful, I'd continue using it, if not, it would go in the big pile of laptops I've replaced but haven't gotten rid of yet. (Going back to a PowerBook 540c from 1994, IIRC).

However, I can't see the advertising or whatever actually making up for it, especially considering that a fair number of them wouldn't end up being used at all, and many would end up being used for strange purposes.

The last time I remember a company giving large amounts of free hardware away, to make it up with advertising, was the CueCat disaster. OTOH, the CueCat was pretty useless to begin with, and their company was based only on that junk, IIRC. Even if such an idea tanks, I'm sure google could eat a few billion in losses. Still, I really doubt such a thing will happen. Free netbooks just sound too good to be true.

Re:Yes, I would

[hot soldering iron]

I don't know if it's possible to make netbooks so cheap you can throw them away, which is what this plan equates to. If you can get the price down to about that of a pad of paper, then sure, it's easily doable. It would have to be along the lines of an E-ink display, inkjet printed circuit board, and a thumbdrive-sized battery with an internal system chip (with flash, IC, wifi) fastened in with conductive glue. It's a theory. Then, even though it's low-power and low-capable, it's extremely low price, and can start to compete against fliers, magazine inserts, logo embossed mugs, and other forms of advertising.

if it comes

[WormholeFiend]

with a free CueCat, sure!

Re:if it comes

[himself]

Laugh all you want about the CueCat and this Google laptop, but it sounds like a great plan to me:

You, the user, scan in a book's barcode with the CueCat (see http://www2.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/CueCat_barcode_scanning), and Google will look it up in Google Books. If it's already cataloged, then you get access to it in the Google Laptop Browser wherever you are. And if not, a Google SpecOps Team fast-ropes down on your location within minutes to seize the book.

Easy!

The short answer is...

[Dartz-IRL]

No..

Aside from Gmail, (which I access with Thunderbird) I try not to use too many google services. . I'm also mindful of that recent Apple patent about ad's which can physically block the machine, forcing the user to interact with them.

There's also a personal freedom/privacy issue.

I use Linux because it's 'mine' as such. I can pretty do what I want with it (compared to traditional software licenses anyway). I'm not quite sure how to word this in a rational .... but something about Google providing me a free laptop, in exchange for being allowed to target-advertise me.... it's deeply unsettling. I don't like being followed.

Of course, I'm just a tinfoil hat moron, but well.... my computer is my castle, thick stone walls around my data safeguarding my privacy against casual observers.
I don't want transparent walls of glass showing my world to someone else.... even it it was free.

It feels very Big brother-ish.

Re:The short answer is...

[geekoid]

Your ego is much to big.

No one need to follow you, and no one out side your circle of family gives damn about you.

"It feels very Big brother-ish."
IF ti were BIg Brother then you would be forced to take it, it would watch everything you do all that time, work to keep you ignorant.

Google and the internet are the anti-thesis to Big Brother. So are a populace with cameras.
LEt me know when only a large body control all information, can't be tracked, and controls all cameras, and actively hunts down people who innovate as a matter of course and policy.

Contrary to what you are thinking right now, Google does not control in information, and if they did three are other alternative to that same information.

Re:The short answer is...

[natehoy]

So you get one of these, use it just for Gmail, and block Google from even being accessed on your main machine(s). What the hell, it's free. :)

I don't know if it would be a profitable proposition for Google, but I'd get one of these little buggers in a second. I'd do my Gmail, my Google Earth, my Google Voice, my Facebook, etc on it. Then I'd have a REAL machine that I'd do my finances and other sensitive stuff on.

Re:The short answer is...

[kFiddle]

Nothing that a little crypto can't solve.

Re:The short answer is...

[bmimatt]

"Google and the internet are the anti-thesis to Big Brother. So are a populace with cameras."

yes, until the government makes them hand over the data for processing by the NSA.

[tinfoil hat on]
You sound like you do not realize that the big corporations are the new government.  As much as I respect Google and love their products, the sheer amount of personal information they collect and sit on is astonishing.  Who is to say they will not be the next victim of the next massive data breach?
[tinfoil hat off]
The Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other 'social sites' users seem to be completely unconcerned about their privacy online, so a freebie netbook would definitely find its audience.

Re:The short answer is...

[lidocaineus]

Big Brother may be inappropriate in this situation, but privacy matters are a huge concern with something like this. Just because you have nothing to hide doesn't mean you shouldn't maintain your privacy, and to that end, I don't want people data mining my habits when I can avoid it.

Re:The short answer is...

[Zalbik]

Google and the internet are the anti-thesis to Big Brother. So are a populace with cameras.

This is what scares me about Google more than anything. Three important things are compared in this quote:
1) the Internet
2) Google
3) the public

One of these things is very different than the others...can you spot which? (hint...one has shareholders).

Far too often do I see people confusing Google with the internet, or believing that what's good for Google is good for us all.

They have basically accomplished what Microsoft tried 10 years ago...they are synonymous with the internet.

Sorry, maybe my tinfoil hat is too snug, but that feels very Big Brother-ish to me. They may be all "do no evil" today, but there was even a time (believe it or not) when Microsoft was a "good guy", fighting the tyranny of the evil Big Blue. Once we've given Google the keys to the internet, we may find our new Googlish overlords to be not quite as nice as we had imagined.

Re:The short answer is...

[Anonymous Coward]

No one need to follow you, and no one out side your circle of family gives damn about you.

If that is true why do people give a damn about gay mariage? Why is it good that criminal records are deleted after a while?

The world is full of people who interfere with your life for no other reason than their prejudice and bigotery. Just look at the problems we have because of the facts people can't hide about themselves, like the color of their skin.

Re:The short answer is...

[Dartz-IRL]

Yup.

And then get sent to prison in the UK for not giving the police your decryption key.

Re:The short answer is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but it's free!

No Thanks

[OrangeMonkey11]

My privacy comes with a higher price tag then just some POS hardware.

I rather have my own hardware and software that does not call home every second I'm on it and throwing ads in my face constantly.

Re:No Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

My privacy comes with a higher price tag then just some POS hardware.

A tad late, there - your privacy has already been bought and sold long ago, no matter what computer you run and what OS is installed on it.

Re:No Thanks

[SQLGuru]

My privacy was stolen long ago when [insert name of corporation that was hacked] stored my information on their computers. It's happened more than once and had nothing to do with my security. Oh, and I get a free year of credit protection from each incident.....woo....hooo....

an apostrophe

[Anonymous Coward]

Too easy.

please

[Anonymous Coward]

are the goods and services offered by google, really more valuable than the computer they are offered on?

No Way

[rainmaestro]

A $200 netbook is not worth losing the privacy. If I can't run a 7-pass wipe algorithm over my data, I don't want to use it.

Excuse me?

[Anonymous Coward]

emphasis on lean code means that a low-cost processor could be used

I must've missed a meeting. Emphasis on lean code? A 1.6GHz netbook CPU is considered bottom of the barrel performance-wise these days. That's 1600MHz. For reading email and web pages. Where is this lean code that you're talking about? How dare you talk about lean code on SLASHDOT, which uses so much scripting that it is slow as molasses on even moderately fast CPUs?

Net-Apps

[eepok]

Net Apps are useful in a pinch, but I don't think anyone here believes they can offer the speed and versatility of a full blow spreadsheet or word processor (like Word/Excel or Open Office). They just won't put enough effort into development to make it a realistic substitute... on NETBOOK machinery. Then there's the issue of not having an internet connection, but needing to work or wanting to read something.

Remember the 90's

[Ceiynt]

When companies would hand out free computers to anyone who asked, but they were so ad laden they were unusable? Or stopped whatever it was you were doing to play some sort of video for 30 seconds? Nothing is free.

Re:Remember the 90's

[mdm-adph]

Yeah, but those companies weren't gazillion-dollar companies with share prices in the $5600's. I think Google might actually get the balance right.

Re:Remember the 90's

[mdm-adph]

Please -- no one use that share price to make any financial decisions. That was a typo.

Re:Remember the 90's

[misexistentialist]

Now you pay hundreds for a computer and it's still ad-laden with trial software that pops up on your desktop. I'd prefer free.

Will they support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

If so, then yes yes, oh $diety yes! And the first thing I'll do is give it to my parents with a giant sticker on it that says "For support call 1-800-googlez"

Re:Will they support it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Parents response: "How do I call a number with letters?"

Re:Will they support it?

[SQLGuru]

Grandparents were calling numbers with letters long before you were around. Just watch Hee-Haw reruns. BR5-49.

from an ignoramus on all things Chrome OS

[ScottyB]

Here I've just gotten my head around Android, and now there's Chrome OS. Will someone please explain, why? Why would anyone bother with Chrome OS? I mean, weren't we just talking about a netbook with Android?

I get Android. It's the open-source, linux-type competitor to Windows Mobile and iPhone OS, being helped by Google's name and stature in the mobile market.

But Chrome OS? I understand netbooks will run slightly faster with linux or some lightweight variant than with Windows XP, but really, the hardware's the limitation here, not the OS. Taking a 4-cylinder Honda Civic and reducing the weight may give you better gas mileage and a slightly higher top speed, but we're not talking much, and certainly not enough to make me at least (and I like linux!) switch to linux on my Lenovo netbook. It's a netbook. It surfs the web. Learning a new OS for a netbook just doesn't have much appeal when my main system is still running Windows.

Re:from an ignoramus on all things Chrome OS

[geekoid]

I don't think you understand Android as well as you think you do.
Android was made for smart phone devices. There are some key differences between netbooks and smart phones in what you can do regarding multi-tasking and power. To jst name two.

Re:from an ignoramus on all things Chrome OS

[brkello]

Chrome OS is basically just a web browser. It is an OS that only runs web apps. It doesn't really have any storage so it has to get it from Google. So it basically allows Google have an OS run on really cheap hardware. It is a bit like a thin client. This way more people have access to the Internet and google has better access to advertise to these people.

Re:from an ignoramus on all things Chrome OS

[digitalchinky]

It's purely about the money. If google can shove their own locked down free laptop in your face and advertise directly at you, the short story is that they get to keep more advertiser cash for themselves. In simple terms, they don't want to endlessly pay people to host adverts for them.

Keeping their cake and eating it too, one free laptop at a time.

Re:from an ignoramus on all things Chrome OS

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't seem to get it do you? its not slightly faster they are talking about boot times that are faster than your monitor, on LOW END hardware. That means you turn it on and by the time display boots up your at your login screen.

Also incorperate a cell \ wi-max modem and you have an internet computer that can do anything but play hardcore games anywhere. You lose the netbook or throw it off a bridge go to the store pick another one up, turn it on and 5 seconds later your logged in and back to where you were. Access to ALL of your files, bookmarks, settings all on the cloud no backups, no loss of files.

You may also want to think about the fact that it would be impossible for trojan's, worms, or virus'sto infect your machine since you aren't running local code.

Would it replace my desktop machine? Hell no. but it certainly would do everything thing else and probably replace my macbook pro.

Re:from an ignoramus on all things Chrome OS

[Anonymous Coward]

Here I've just gotten my head around Android, and now there's Chrome OS. Will someone please explain, why?

Anderiod is aimed at mobile phones. It needs to run well with very low RAM requirements. It must work well with a single processor that is very slow compared to any PC's processor.

Chrome is aimed at the kind of hardware that PCs have today. It spawns a new process for rendering each tab. It has a JIT compiler for javascript. It makes use of the resources a PC has to make web apps more useful.

Over time, expect chrome to use more resources to make web browsing faster. Expect android to do everything possible to avoid using more resources, so that it can be used in lower cost phones.

Netbooks almost have the resources that chrome expects, and they will grow over time. This is where chrome OS is useful.

Re:from an ignoramus on all things Chrome OS

[DragonWriter]

But Chrome OS? I understand netbooks will run slightly faster with linux or some lightweight variant than with Windows XP, but really, the hardware's the limitation here, not the OS.

The big deal, as I see it, with Chrome OS isn't that the OS is so much more efficient, but things like the UI model (which isn't finalized and there are several possible directions), the security model designed to support both owner control and easy "pass-around" sharing without compromising things that should be secure, etc.

Browser speed is, of course, a focus of the Chromium projects (both the Chromium browser and the Chromium OS operating system and its specialized derivative of the browser), but really that's just part of the user experience focus in Chromium OS.

No thanks.

[Old97]

I've already removed Google software from my Mac & PC. No, I don't want to tether to the Google cloud or any cloud and give up my privacy or freedom. At what point will companies like Google be compelled to enforce government mandates and restrictions? (Think China today. The U.S. will start with DMCA and Europe will restrict whatever they think is "offensive" to others.)

Re:No thanks.

[brkello]

*cough* Privacy? You do realize you are posting on the Internet right? I am so tired of people throwing around the word privacy and freedom. Is this a Palin rally or something? You are on the Internet, you send you e-mail through the Internet, you have a Slashdot account...you don't have privacy. The only way to win is not to play. Coming up with some conspiracy on how China will do something or how we will do something like it makes you look like a nut job. Other than advertisers or identity thieves, governments don't give a rats ass about your data. Do you have any idea how much data is out there? And you think you are so special that anyone cares what you do in your insignificant little life? You need to read more Bruce Schneir books. Just cause you read the Government somewhere at sometime did something doesn't mean they are constantly trying to get info on you. Turn off Glenn Beck or whatever it is that is making you crazy.

Re:No thanks.

[Old97]

What does Palin have to do with anything? I chose when, where and how I post on the Internet. I own my computer and I own my software that runs on it. I exercise control over what programs I run or don't run and the data I store on my computer. I control access to my data. Just because you use the internet does not necessarily mean you've given up all your privacy or control of your hardware - unless you don't have a clue.

China already has dictated to Yahoo, Google and Microsoft - what sites their people see and what data about their people they must surrender to the government. If China can do that, so can the EU, the U.S., India or any other government in a major market.

When you have direct physical access to a computer, there is no security that can stop you. When your computer is in a cloud, the owner of the cloud has direct physical access to your computer. You have to rely on the cloud provider to protect your interests and yet in this case, you aren't even the customer. Advertisers are Google's customers, not you. Google requires the cooperation from governments in order to deliver services to you. Google is not there for you. It's services to you are merely a way of getting your attention and information so they can more effectively (as defined by advertisers) serve ads to you and information to advertisers.

Re:No thanks.

[bmimatt]

Well put.  The "your insignificant little life" piece is especially weak - the world is comprised of our 'insignificant little lives' and what's important about my particular little life to me is that it's mine to share what, when, where and with whom I choose.  Even though I do not think I am 'that special'.  As to governments not 'giving rats ass' - remember them asking all major search engines to give up their logs?  Yes, Google chose not to share that time, but next time they may not have a choice.  If you have nothing to hide, why not install cameras in every room of your house and broadcast your 'insignificant little life' 24/7.  How refreshing.  You might even get an advertising deal out of it from Google/Bing/etc.

I Would

[whisper_jeff]

I doubt they'll ever give away a free computer as hypothesized but, if they did, I'd get one. Now, I'm Canadian so I don't have the same cultural distrust of Big Brother that most Americans have (not a knock - just an honest observation - it is a cultural difference between our two countries) so I'm sure that plays a big part of it but, to me, I'm willing to "pay" for a computer by giving Google some valuable information that they can use to better advertise to me. That is, after all, what they would be "buying" by giving me a netbook - they're buying information so that they can better appeal to me as a consumer of advertising. They are making their advertising work better. I'm ok with that. Sure, they may also find out little quirks about me that I'd rather they not discover. Yes, it opens up a plethora of privacy debates well-worth having. Yes, I know all of that. To me, however, it's worth it. I have nothing to hide from Google so I'm willing to give them what they're asking for if they're willing to give me something in return that I desire.

Re:I Would

[digitalPhant0m]

I see the bug's have been worked out of 'Goolgle Mind Control'.

Like the Minitel

[frednofr]

This would be like the Minitel, except for the part where it's funded by advertising instead of billing its usage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel

Of course

[Krneki]

If it is free I'd take it.

And then install a Linux distro on it + adblock plus, noscript, ....

No Way...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets see... all my personal data stored on some host somewhere outside of my control, thanks but no, if google really wanted to be fruitful and compete in this market space of clouds and netbooks, they would allow for you to have a choice, say to store your data in your own cloud environment, or theirs, or other service. From a personal aspect I see the potential usefulness for convenience but privacy concerns are abundant when I have no other method but to store my data on someone elses server outside my control. If it were to enable me to use other services, ie.. my own cloud storage, then potentially so, then we also have the issue of storage size they'll provide. Also note, there doesn't appear to be a method for offline document / email viewing. This OS is always on / always connected or it plainly doesn't function. If Google really wants to play in this space they need to allow for more flexibility such as offline disconnected use, synchronizing data when reconnected, and other "services connectivity" like my own hosted cloud environment running like or similar capable apps. Until google releases a something more rounded and useful it appears to many more technical people as just a "hobbyist" or "not ready for prime time" OS, with limited functionality at that. Google is a giant, yes, but they need to get REAL... in the meantime ill stick with Ubuntu Netbook remix. At least that allows me choices of local apps, local storage, disconnected use, and synchronization with my own data center. We wount even begin to discuss the capabilities that are seriously lacking for a corporate world.

Next google app....

[digitalPhant0m]

Google is also announcing several new products, in-line with their ideal of total homogony and conformity: 'Google Brainwash', leading up to the beta release of 'Google Existence'.

Thanks Google, I was having a rough time thinking for myself, and making my own desicion's.

In other related news, Microsoft, after a 25 year streak as the #1 corporation hell bent on world domination, has just been usurped.

I wouldn't, but not for privacy concerns

[JakeD409]

I wouldn't use a free netbook from Google because I'm a developer. I also play games, use Photoshop, and other things that are out of the scope of web apps. However, the primary audience of Chrome OS (people who just need to do word processing, spreadsheets, email, check the internet, etc.) would probably love it. They're already used to their computer being full of ads from the spyware they don't know how to avoid, so a free computer with (theoretically) nicer ads is probably infinitely preferable to a $300+ computer that still has ads for them.

Re:I wouldn't, but not for privacy concerns

[groovelator]

Call me horribly naive, but what does it really matter if Google knows something or even loads about my online life? It'll eventually know something about billions of people. I'm sure I'm not that interesting.

Re:I wouldn't, but not for privacy concerns

[MozeeToby]

Chromium isn't about a target user, it's about a target use. I'm also the developer, gamer, video editor type; that doesn't mean a netbook wouldn't come in handy for other things. My wife and I fight over the laptop all the time but I refuse to spend the money on a second one, a free netbook (even if all it could do was browse the web) would be very welcome.

That being said, it'll never happen. As someone up above pointed out, a single user isn't worth hundreds of dollars to Google, and it would only be a matter of time before someone figures out how to load custom software and hardware onto the thing. The article should be tagged with 'baseless speculation', that's all it is.

Re:I wouldn't, but not for privacy concerns

[JakeD409]

"I don't have anything to hide" is an extremely common and misguided attitude towards privacy. I won't rehash the problems with it here, because it's been done millions of times. Read up on it a bit.

Re:I wouldn't, but not for privacy concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

And like so many other Slashdotters it seems (quite a number if you read all the comments), you assume this is for replacing your primary computer. That's not what its for at all. This is solely to do online-based stuff. Like checking Gmail. This isn't for anything offline. Certainly not for Photoshop and I seriously doubt it would run much in the way of games either.

Re:I wouldn't, but not for privacy concerns

[slim]

"I don't have anything to hide" is an extremely common and misguided attitude towards privacy. I won't rehash the problems with it here

I don't think that's the point made though. Rather than "I have nothing to hide", it's "The people who can see this data don't find me (or anyone else) interesting enough to investigate (except in aggregate)"

Re:I wouldn't, but not for privacy concerns

[JakeD409]

You're right, but it amounts to the same thing: "I don't care about privacy because I don't think a lack of privacy could negatively affect me." You should only be willing to give up privacy after considering the potential consequences.

yes it is

[NoYob]

They're using Adsense advertising in the apps and in other places. Back when I had my website and hosted Google ads, I got between $3-$4 per ad click. Now, I have to wonder if the terms will stay the same for ads on these devices or if showing an ad on one's desktop or app would be considered a "click". That's something to look for in the fine print - for the advertisers. Anyway, if Google was paying my 3-4 dollars, they were getting at least 1-2 dollars in profit,, meaning they were charging the advertiser at least $5 a click. 30 clicks and TADA! break even?

Just think how many people will intentionally or inadvertently click on ads because they're placed "strategically".

Re:yes it is

[TheRaven64]

Just think how many people will intentionally or inadvertently click on ads because they're placed "strategically".

That doesn't really help, because clicks that don't lead to purchases devalue the entire AdSense network. On the other hand, doing the tracking on the client side can be a lot more reliable. It would enable Google to track every site you visit, how long you spend, and even which parts of the page you're looking at (particularly on a machine with a small screen, which can't display a typical page without scrolling). That information could be easily used to provide better-targeted ads. If they're making $2 on each click then they need 75 clicks over the product lifetime to break even, and probably around 100 for it to be worth bothering with. If a NetBook lasts two years, then they need to persuade you to click on about one ad a week, which might be feasible.

Interesting Historical Perspective

[Like2Byte]

The good gents at IBM didn't see the value in the "Operating System" Microsoft was selling them.

The good gents at Microsoft didn't see the value in monitoring what their users' daily activity on their respective OS was.

I wonder what the good gents at Google are ignoring today that will be a gold mine tomorrow.

---

On another note: I'm very surprised that people are all that interested in what is, essentially, a SpyOS. Forget tracking cookies - this OS is going to be tracking people's behavior 24 hours a day.

Not to provide any ideas into advanced Spywware under the guise of "free useful PC" but imagine if there is a GPS in the netbook that is able to track the users' movements. Traffic patterns, of the individual, could be analyzed and combined with other users and applicable advertising will show up for 'popular' products both in on-line advertising and roadside billboards.

I don't want to get too far off topic so I'll ask this question: When did we turn the corner of being Anti-Spyware to being Pro-Spyware?

Re:Interesting Historical Perspective

[natehoy]

I imagine there WILL be a GPS in this unit. It wouldn't make sense at the price NOT to put one in, and it would make the unit more useful to carry around with you, and therefore you will. In fact, I think instead of a netbook they should make it a subsidized smart phone that you can hook a monitor and keyboard up to, and still use it independently.

They will turn a significant number of people into information-gathering machines for the Google Hegemony. Hmm, what would be an appropriate name? "Robot"? No, not really. Hmmm... What do they call mobile robots in human form again? Oh, yeah. Androids.

In return for "all your movements are belong to us", you'll get all sorts of free and convenient benefits, over and above the subsidy on the phone and maybe even a subsidy on service fees.

Example: If the GPS is on and you are being tracked, they can also track whether you are on the highway and, if so, if you are moving or stopped. In other words, once they reach saturation, they can gather realtime traffic data and route you around jams efficiently. Then, if you get caught in a traffic jam, they can determine how long the wait will be and offer you a nice inexpensive streaming movie to watch while you sit in traffic. ;)

Seriously, Google is already talking about this with Latitude.

>>>I don't want to get too far off topic so I'll ask this question: When did we turn the corner of being Anti-Spyware to being Pro-Spyware?

Hmm, that opens up a can of worms on the definition. Not to get all Clinton on you, but if you volunteer to be tracked, are offered specific benefits in return for the tracking, knowingly accept the tracking in return for the benefits, is it really "SPY"Ware?

Am I spying on you if I follow you around with a camera while wearing a bright orange suit to make it obvious I'm there, asking your permission each morning to follow you, and handing you a $5 bill every day you say "yes"? Sure, I'm completely destroying every modicum of privacy you have, but I'm not spying on you. Spying implies some sort of surreptitiousness or concealment, and Google's pretty open about what they collect and what they do with it, and what you get in return.

Americans have come to expect a right to privacy in their personal lives, and that's good. When that right is violated against our will, we get all honked off and protest in righteous moral indignation, and that's also good. But when that right is knowingly sold by an individual, well, that's a really grey area. And we all know that the nature of the Internet assures that everything delivered to you is tracked back to the destination (or it couldn't be delivered), so I think we as a nation are becoming more aware that the whole "privacy on the Internet" thing was a comfortable lie we told ourselves.

Google is a for-profit company, with one goal. To make money. In order to make money, they want you to sell them your privacy in return for nifty tools. Some people are taking the stance (right or wrong) that their privacy on the Internet is largely being taken from them anyway, so they might as well get something in return.

"And if I'm going to have my privacy violated, dammit, I might as well get a share of the profits."

Is this noble and just and the American Way? I dunno. I know the tools are handy, and I know what kind of data I'm coughing up to get them. I'm relatively comfortable with the arrangement. For now.

Re:Interesting Historical Perspective

[Ephemeriis]

On another note: I'm very surprised that people are all that interested in what is, essentially, a SpyOS. Forget tracking cookies - this OS is going to be tracking people's behavior 24 hours a day.

Not to provide any ideas into advanced Spywware under the guise of "free useful PC" but imagine if there is a GPS in the netbook that is able to track the users' movements. Traffic patterns, of the individual, could be analyzed and combined with other users and applicable advertising will show up for 'popular' products both in on-line advertising and roadside billboards.

I don't want to get too far off topic so I'll ask this question: When did we turn the corner of being Anti-Spyware to being Pro-Spyware?

I don't know that it's really a question of being anti- or pro-spyware so much as whether we're being paranoid or pragmatic.

I've got a Garmin, it's handy for getting me where I need to go. However, it's theoretically possible that someone could subpoena the GPS logs on it to find out where I've been. I'm not sure how useful that would be... I don't know if the logs are timestamped or anything... But it could happen.

So, what, do I throw away my Garmin because it's spying on me?

Cell phones can give your approximate location if you call 911... Should I throw away my cell phone because it's spying on me?

Sure, this new Google netbook thing could become the ultimate SpyOS. GPS tracking...ability to phone home...reading your email...watching your surfing habits... But to what end? This thing would be distributed by Google - they're not going to steal your credit card number and run off to Jamaica. They're going to serve you ads.

Big freaking deal. I don't need a netbook spying on me to get served with ads. Just about every web page I bring up has ads on it... If I call a company I'll likely have to listen to them advertise their services while I'm on hold... If I turn on the TV I'll be hit with one ad after another... Same thing goes for the radio... If I open up a newspaper, or magazine, or even just walk down the street... Advertising is everywhere. Why would I care if Google throws a couple more ads at me?

Yeah, I suppose the government could get some kind of a wiretap on it... Or law enforcement could subpoena some logs... But, again, to what end? I'm not saying if you have nothing to hide, what are you worried about? I'm saying it's too late for those kinds of privacy concerns.

The US Government has already admitted to illegally wiretapping tons of citizens. We've got people being held for years before being charged with anything. Everyone and their brother has a cell phone with a camera in it. We've got security cameras all over stores and shopping centers. You actually think you've got any kind of privacy these days?

If I was really worried about privacy, I wouldn't be starting with Google's new SpyOS netbook. I'd have to close my bank accounts and cancel my credit cards... Start doing business exclusively in cash... I'd have to cancel my cell phones, throw away my GPS... I'd have to move someplace far more rural... I'd have to do everything on-line through TOR or something equivalent... Actually, I'm not sure that I'd even want to keep my Internet connection, nor any of the other utilities. If I was genuinely concerned about privacy I'd likely be living in a cave somewhere completely off the grid.

Re:Interesting Historical Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

The up side of this would be that governments could buy this movement data too and create public transport systems that get me where I want, when I want.

Yes, and root and reflash it

[pmontra]

Otherwise I won't touch it. I don't like being spied over so easily.

Count me in

[KingSkippus]

I won't use a machine which is useless without network.

I just about can't use a machine without using a network. My favorite game is an MMORPG, which is useless without a network. Even other games, I usually have a browser window open for reference. My e-mail is accessed via a web client. (Even with a local client, all you could do is compose or read, not send or receive.) I do web development, which is on a remote web host. When I'm developing things locally in Visual Studio, I'm constantly using online references and documentation. I suppose I could in theory write a letter or something, but to be honest, I don't write letters to people any more. I even require the Internet to do something as simple as watch television these days. (Broadcast tv? Forget it, I use Hulu.)

If you don't use the Internet as much as I do, more power to you. But I really think that going forward, offline computer use is going to be the exception, not the rule. I think saying what you said will eventually sound like, "I won't use a telephone that is useless without a wireless connectivity." Like the cell network, the Internet is so pervasive today that it's weird to run across an application that doesn't use it in some capacity.

Oh, and by the way, Chromium is released under the BSD license, which is free-as-in-speech. I don't know what the license terms will be if such a hypothetical netbook were released, but at least the OS running on it would be open source. From a freedom-as-in-Stallman viewpoint, it may not be perfect, but it is orders of magnitude better than what is currently running on most netbooks out there. Evil is not the opposite of perfect.

Re:Count me in

[godrik]

Oh, and by the way, Chromium is released under the BSD license [google.com], which is free-as-in-speech.

The machine are supposed to be locked to prevent custom OS and to have no hard drive. No hard drive implies no data which implies useless in offline mode.

My favorite game is an MMORPG. [...]Even other games[...]When I'm developing things locally in Visual Studio[...]

And how do you do that through a webbrowser ? The machine is supposed to only run a webbrowser...

Re:Count me in

[slim]

The machine are supposed to be locked to prevent custom OS

... I heard something about a "developer" switch which would disable the lock. Whether this would make it to free handout machines, I don't know.

and to have no hard drive. No hard drive implies no data which implies useless in offline mode.

No hard drive, but possibly an SSD.

And how do you do [games], [IDE developent] through a webbrowser ? The machine is supposed to only run a webbrowser...

Games: Flash, DHTML, and in future, in-browser 3D engines.
IDE: Something akin to https://bespin.mozilla.com/ - maybe not ready for prime time now, but we're talking about the future.

Re:Count me in

[Anonymous Coward]

you obviously don't live in the mountains, or fly on planes. I use a 12" Acer with a 120GB HDD, and I d/l a carry a huge amount of email before travelling, several hours of offline work. And I have other documents that I work on when offline, mostly in word'97 or excel'97 format (the most portable format out there now). I have several stand-alone games that I enjoy playing (some report high-scores to a server, but that can wait till I'm back online).

So sure, for you small-time city folk 24/7 internet is a necessity, but here in the country one hour of dial-up a day is still plenty. Though why I'm wasting bandwidth on this, even I don't know.

Re:Count me in

[Culture20]

Oh, and by the way, Chromium is released under the BSD license, which is free-as-in-speech. I don't know what the license terms will be if such a hypothetical netbook were released, but at least the OS running on it would be open source.

IIRC, chromium =/= chrome OS. It's like saying BSD is released under the BSD license, so Mac OS X and Windows (both use different amounts of BSD code) are open source. Since Chromium is released under BSD, Google can make any number of changes they want to it before they distribute it as Chrome OS.

Re:Count me in

[MattskEE]

Well then I guess that unlike me you will be screwed whenever your internet goes down ;-)

To start you should separate local network and internet connectivity, in the companies I've worked at you can access many resources including instant messaging and some documentation over an intranet.

When I'm at work (RF circuit engineer) the big thing that I use the internet for is searching vendors like Digikey and Mouser for parts, and downloading datasheets. If the internet goes down, then I have the gigantic paper catalogs they always send me (currently serving as monitor stands), and a pretty good collection of datasheets to refer to. Much of the software that I use requires the company's local network to function in order to connect to the license server. And I need the local network working to email internal colleagues, but I can pick up the phone or walk to their desk if necessary.

So for me the internet going down would be a bearable inconvenience, but the local network in our company going down would be pretty bad.

why would I accept a netbook?

[Tom]

Why would I want a netbook, free or not? You have to have demand first before you think of price, and even at price 0, demand is not infinite (you've got to carry the thing home, find a place to stash it, etc. - there are costs involved in addition to the price).

So no. Even for free, I wouldn't have a use for it. The whole netbook thing is pointless anyways and will soon blow over.

Re:why would I accept a netbook?

[UnHolier than ever]

Why would I want a netbook, free or not? You have to have demand first before you think of price, and even at price 0, demand is not infinite (you've got to carry the thing home, find a place to stash it, etc. - there are costs involved in addition to the price).

Of course, some people will want it, others won't. Considering there are people who are happy to pay for one, they would be probably be happy to get one for free.

So no. Even for free, I wouldn't have a use for it. The whole netbook thing is pointless anyways and will soon blow over.

Overblown, maybe, but far from pointless. It's easier to carry around than a full-blown laptop and it's cheaper and easier to use for working than an iPhone.

Re:why would I accept a netbook?

[Ephemeriis]

Why would I want a netbook, free or not? You have to have demand first before you think of price, and even at price 0, demand is not infinite (you've got to carry the thing home, find a place to stash it, etc. - there are costs involved in addition to the price).

So no. Even for free, I wouldn't have a use for it. The whole netbook thing is pointless anyways and will soon blow over.

You may not want a netbook, but I think there is demand.

For myself, it would be handy to have something small and portable that can browse the web. It'd be handy for checking email while on the road... But it would also be nice to have something small and lightweight that was able to bring up a webUI on a router - so I don't have to balance my laptop on top of the ladder with me in the wiring closet. The ability to read PDFs or such would be very nice as well.

For Joe Sixpack... Let's be honest, most folks see a computer as essentially disposable already. I don't know how many people I hear from who just buy some $300 special at WalMart or Sam's Club around Christmas time... They'll use it for about a year and then replace it because the thing was crap to begin with and is now full of garbage. If they can get a free (or very cheap) netbook and use it to log into Facebook and check their email, I'm sure there'll be tons of demand.

ideal for my 2 year old

[alen]

i have already started teaching my son who is 2 and a few months about computers. found a few free games like Thomas the Train that he likes. and for reading i'll open up Google and type in Dora in the search box and spell it out for him letter by letter. he already knows most of the letters of the alphabet, can count to 12 with help, knows a bunch of basic shapes and colors. time to teach him to read since most of the good NYC schools expect a child to read and write by 1st grade. at least that's what i'm told by parents with kids that old. the good schools in the NYC suburbs are the same way.

a free or ultra low cost Google netbook is perfect for this. my son likes to bang on the keyboard so if it breaks i just go get another one. nothing to break software-wise.

a few months of playing with one of these junky useless Chrome OS gizmos and he will be ready for a real computer. i'm thinking a Mac just because he can learn some UNIX on it and it's usable unlike most of the linux distro's i've tried. I do think Ubuntu sucks as a home PC

i've played with the Chrome OS vmware image floating around the internet and i don't think it has any value at all for a normal person or any kind of computer user i've ever met

Re:ideal for my 2 year old

[Anonymous Coward]

"I do think Ubuntu sucks as a home PC"

Your Mom sucks a home PC.

Re:ideal for my 2 year old

[Anonymous Coward]

Something tells me the parent post is a subtle trolling.

Re:ideal for my 2 year old

[nexttech]

You have hit on an important point. No OS is perfect for all users. I love the idea of a free Google Netbook. I have started my kids using Google Apps. Why, because I do not have to worry about operating systems. I can cheaply build a linux system for them using cheap hardware simply because all I really need is a browser. Combine this with Google Gears for those rare times the Internet is down and you have a very productive system.

This way if my kids want to work at the library, home or school everything is right there.

So as far as a free Google Netbook I'll take one for each member of my family.

Re:ideal for my 2 year old

[Culture20]

i'm thinking a Mac just because he can learn some UNIX on it and it's usable unlike most of the linux distro's i've tried. I do think Ubuntu sucks as a home PC

So you give UNIX a ++, but think that Linux is unusable. Then you attack Ubuntu specifically. Strange.

Re:ideal for my 2 year old

[alen]

it's fun to watch. i let my son play with my iphone and when we play with the computer he tries to do something by touching the screen and it's hard teaching him the concept of the computer mouse at this age

Re:ideal for my 2 year old

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you ought to try teaching him proper capitalization.

I suppose that means you'll need to learn it first.

Re:ideal for my 2 year old

[kuzb]

Parent is a troll, or a fanboy, or both. Can't decide, don't care.

I for one wouldn't train my kids on niche machines just because I think they might turn in to geeks like me. Train them on machines they'd run in to every day, and later if they express an interest, move them in to unix and/or linux. Don't stuff it down their throat because you happen to have a fanboy opinion. Use common sense, and think about practicality.

Enjoy the free netbook kid!

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell us where the disk is.

"Final product"

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean after the Beta?

You mean the year of the linux desktop or when Duke Nukem Forever is released?

Would it have ssh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I could use it as a smart terminal.

I spend a lot of time SSHing to my work desktop anyway. So, ssh, use my existing apps, ignore Google's stuff.

I think it's a great idea.

[tmosley]

I don't think they would be able to give them away for free, though. As someone else mentioned, people would take advantage of that, and wallpaper their rooms with monitors and such. What I would do is charge the person who wanted one COST or something less than cost, and let your profits come from the advertising as mentioned. If the cost to make one of these things is ten or twenty dollars, as speculated in the article, it would probably work quite well. I'd pay ten or twenty bucks for a Google netbook. Hell, if it provided free internet access, I'd pay a few hundred, a la Kindle. I think most people in the developed world would do the same. That is, assuming it remained open and unhobbled.

response to Chromium has been rather lukewarm

[viralMeme]

"It's the morning after the big Chrome OS event .. now that the news is out, has Chrome OS lost its shine?"

Chromium OS has been out one whole day and already you can tell it's reception is lukewarm. Maybe you should be doing magic future prediction acts on television, like Derren Brown predicting what the lottery results are going to be.

You forget who you're talking to

[Tarlus]

Give us a free netbook at the cost of seeing ads? You're forgetting one thing: Chrome OS is Linux at its heart, and we're a bunch of Linux geeks. We'd have those ads hacked out of it faster than you could say "/etc/hosts.deny".

Re:You forget who you're talking to

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of ROM?

Re:You forget who you're talking to

[mounthood]

I don't use AdBlock, I haven't turned off /. adds. I might be OK with a chromeOS machine as long as I can do what I want with it.

Google: Well give you free hardware if you use our software.
Slashdot: I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.

Re:You forget who you're talking to

[Anonymous Coward]

/etc/hosts... What was that last part again?

I wouldn't. . . not yet

[bjd145]

I wouldn't be then again after playing around with Chromium OS for the past couple of days, I've found it very limiting. And I'm not talking about PhotoShop or stuff like that. My reasons are

1. I have TBs of data. Only about 10% of it is in the cloud so most of my data would be unavailable to me. Even if I could nfs mount a volume what I am going to use to view my images and videos? A browser? Weak in my opinion.
2. I have a netbook right now and one of the best uses for it is Skype video. Right now I don't see anything in the plans to support something like this.
3. Another use that I have for my netbook is as a eBook reader. Will Amazon or B&N release readers for this platform?

One thing that I wonder is if Google will release a port of Adobe Aire. Another thing that I miss in Chrome OS are the Twitter and Remember the Milke aire apps that have the data in the cloud but have functionality way beyond what a web page can do (even with HTML5)

Imagine

[Anonymous Coward]

A BeoWulf Cluster of those!!

AdBlock

[Enderandrew]

I can't imagine that Google likes AdBlock, but they've made no effort to stop people from developing AdBlock solutions for the Chrome browser. Likewise, Google is the primary source of revenue for Mozilla, and Mozilla says Google has never suggested they try to block AdBlock.

Absolutely would use one

[jebrew]

Hells yeah I'd use one. I'd keep it in my bag and use it when I'm out and need to give lengthy responses to e-mails, stuck somewhere and want to watch some netflix (maybe...if netflix moves away from silverlight to html5) or hulu or something. I've got a million places I'd use this. It'd be basically a larger version of my Android phone. Sometimes the phone is just a little cramped and I'd like a little more screen real estate...also, Google, if you're reading this, I could also totally make use of an electric car that's ad supported...I'm just sayin'.

I'd take two

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to have a laptop in the kitchen, and a laptop in the bathroom.
And I don't want really want to use the same one in both places.

That would keep my other computers a lot cleaner.
 

Gah. No.

[brennanw]

A netbook that requires internet access in order for it to function in any useful manner? What's the point of a netbook if you can't use it to type up a quick memo/article when you're flying coach on a 4 hour flight? Gah. I am not a fan.

Re:Gah. No.

[slim]

A netbook that requires internet access in order for it to function in any useful manner? What's the point of a netbook if you can't use it to type up a quick memo/article when you're flying coach on a 4 hour flight? Gah. I am not a fan.

They're going to need to make offline mode a priority. OTOH I have offline mode enabled in my GMail, and used it offline exactly once.

why give space

[Anonymous Coward]

Why give space to this Microsoft astroturfer on slashdot ?

RWW's Sarah Perez: Microsoft Hitwoman?

Yes

[TeXMaster]

next question

Privacy Issues

[DaMattster]

I wouldn't accept a free netbook from Google because, in effect, you do not own the netbook. It is almost a zero dollar lease concept so you really would not be allowed to modify it. Therefore, you surrender your privacy to the security or lackthereof of Google. Imagine a massive botnet replicating along a network of Google Netbooks. Furthermore, imagine your private data being accessed or stolen. No, this is not Orwellian 1984 paranoia - this is a 2009 reality.

1. Make OS 2. ??? 3. Profit!

[VGPowerlord]

The Plan:
1. Google makes an OS.
2. ???
3. Profit!

This is what the article/summary says The Plan is:
1. Google makes an OS.
2. Google puts ads in the OS and gives away free computers with it installed.
3. Profit!

Free processors, sure, I'll take 2 ;)

[almondo]

Sure, if it could surf I could use it to monitor my nms while driving down the road or while sitting at the bar. It would be cool if it was more than a toy, (as in has an SSH client, etc) but even if it didn't I could cope with it. If it starts uncontrollably spewing Rollax, Vialis, Shrinx ads I will just have the bartender put it in the beer cooler for a while so it can cool down. I could take it to wally world and scan random barcodes for no apparent reason other than to confuse the ad targeting bot. I still have a USB cuecat around somewhere...I think it's filed under b for barcode, c for cool, s for stuff, or worst case, l for lost.

Recycle

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, I just had a great idea. Someone needs to invent a totally recyclable data delivery system made of a really light material. Just load it up with about a days worth of information and carry it anywhere. News, sports, puzzles, etc. You just toss it in a recycle bin when your done and get a new one the next day with all updated information. No network connection required. That would be a lot better than some crippled, hard to recycle piece of electronics.

What happens if you do not have net access

[boylinux]

I'm still trying to figure out these things will work in non-internet environments? Is it only a brick in places like jets and traveling in cars?

Of course I wouldn't

[knarf]

Me, take a handout from an advertising company? Are you silly? I make an effort to lower the amount of commercial drivel which surrounds me. Why would I allow them to give me some trinket to shower me in ads? Thanks but no thanks, if I want a 'netbook' I'll buy one myself. Without ads.

$10 - 20 manufacturing cost, NOT!

[richardkelleher]

Even purchased in quantity from Chinese manufacturers using prison labor, a 9 or 10 inch display panel would be more than $10 by itself. I'd guess over 20. I mean, you have to pay off the local officials and the prison officials, provide some profit to the corporation, there's the overhead for the factory, proper disposal of toxic waste, no wait, forget the last one. Oh there are the actual materials, can't forget those. If OLPC couldn't keep their costs down below $100, I don't see a netbook coming in under that. Maybe closer to $150 with shipping and everything.

Attempted before

[flogger]

This was attempted before with Free-Pc.com (Now it is just a parked domain). This was back in 1999. 10000 free Compaq computers were given away. In return people gave up personal information/demographics/hobbies/etc in return for a PC that had advertising on the screen 24/7. Source.

The attempt was a bust if I recall right.

But this is 10 years later; we have come a long way in targeted advertising. If anyone can do this, it is Google.

Re:Attempted before

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't this also happen with the iOpener net appliance?

People bought them to hack them, not to view the ads.

Re:Attempted before

[couchslug]

"The attempt was a bust if I recall right."

The I-Appliance BBS is an interesting source of info on orphan devices whose business models shat the bed, beginning with the famous http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-Opener

http://www.linux-hacker.net/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.pl

I could care less if someones business model fails, and if they gimme free stuff I'll happily put it to use.

Sure I would

[Wint3rhart]

If someone's giving away free computers, of any sort, I'm in on principle - at least for initial testing. Without seeing the OS up close and personally, I can't say whether I'd use it for any extended period of time. Added to that, assuming that Chromium OS does indeed check out and I've found a use for a lightweight web-driven PC (and I do have a use in mind), I'm going to need a touchscreen with this.

$150?

[OrangeTide]

What makes you think it would cost them $150 to make a netbook? If they have minimal needs in terms of memory and processing power it could be manufactured much more cheaply than that. I did some napkin math on a few things from a BOM on another product and discounted it heavily for very large volumes and ended up with $55.

Re:$150?

[koiransuklaa]

First, the current netbook market is a cut-throat business and they already have huge volumes. Google is not going to get some amazing discount. Second, there is only one web and Google netbook hardware needs to be able to handle it.

So let's see that napkin. I call bullshit.

Define "Free"

[gmuslera]

Could be "given" by cellphone companies with 3g-data contracts.

But cellphone companies make me remember that they put their content or links on cellphones. When you login (with your i.e. google account) where you land? What will be the Chrome (browser) homepage in that context? Could end being your cellphone provider homepage tied with your account, if you got that way your netbook?

They..

[Anonymous Coward]

.. are using us as food.

Only a few more steps until we all become "batteries" in the googleplex.

Run. Run as fast as you can. Don't look back.

Advertising Inside Apps

[gedrin]

We all can see the likelyhood of a gmail skin brought to us by Coke. What about more subtle advertising inside an app? Word selection in spell check or thesaurus for example ("lymon" appears on searches for fruit). Then there's the idea of using the data they gather to dynamicly generate integrated campaigns through your OS. Google is pretty sophisticated in its advertising, and while I'm certain they'd have the ability, I don't know how such a thing would be recieved.

It won't be a netbook, it will be a smartphone

[Anonymous Coward]

It will be a smartphone, and they don't need chromeOS, they already have Android. And Voice Central.

Free phone, free calls, free mobile internet, just accept targeted ads. And targeted ads will be so convinient you will want them.

Let's say you are close to a restaurant, your GPS phone hasn't detected that you have stopped anywhere close to a restaurant during your usual eating hours, so you are tagged as "Not fed yet". That restaurant can pay google a high rate for advertise to "Not fed yet" customers in it's neighborhood. You won't mind receiving a google voucher for a restaurant, after all, they pay for your phone bills.

Yes... next question?

[rwa2]

But really, how hard is it to maintain multiple personas online?

I have a consumer persona, with one set of amazon / ebay / email accounts, who likes to buy computer stuff, and gets a lot of relevant ads for computer stuff which he doesn't mind seeing (as opposed to beer or tampons).

I have a paranoid persona, who uses a different wired computer just to check his financial accounts and do his taxes and always encrypts everything.

And of course the anonymous persona, who likes to read about anarchism and the Quran and, uh, natural art, and send flames and stuff through anonymized services.

I suppose there's time to do a friends and family persona, kinda like Dexter, with a facebook account and a personal email account and flickr and fluff.

Computers are cheap, dammit. And multiple personalities aren't all that difficult to keep separate. And it probably also helps google inflate their eyeballs stats, and if law enforcement /really really/ wanted to, they might be able to connect the dots, but then I would have already have committed some horrible crime to be under such investigation :P

Windows 7 boils more babies!

[David Gerard]

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer played down the news of Googles new Chrome OS, designed to outdo Microsoft in quickly and efficiently boiling babies on netbooks.

Yo Sergey, shouted Ballmer, Imma really happy for you, Ill let you finish, but Windows 7 is one of the best baby roasters of all time. He slowly and lumberingly rolled a seven-foot-tall baby boiler with a Windows logo on the side onto the stage. One of the best baby roasters of all time!

Early paid press coverage for Windows 7 lauded its theoretical likelihood of boiling babies in the near future, as compared to the effects of Vista, which left many of the babies with frostbite. But we are fully confident that with Windows 7, we can get the baby up to 90, 100 degrees every time! The fine print on the benchmark results revealed these figures were Fahrenheit, not Celsius.

Microsofts derision of Chrome OS as unimportant follows Microsofts derision of the iPhone, the iPod, Google Search, the Chrome browser, Mozilla Firefox and Linux and any other competitor thats ended up kicking their lazy fat asses. With Windows 7, Microsofts baby boiling operations will leave that Jobs asshole in the dust. In the dust!

Steve Jobs snorted in derision at his rivals pathetic attempts to do something useful, before revealing Apples new iBoil, which fits in your pocket and will lightly sautee the baby with a bechamel sauce and garnish.

With a single provision

[Anonymous Coward]

It must interface with my CueCat

If I can get Ubuntu or hackIntosh OSX on it

[Ralph Spoilsport]

and ditch the stupid ad-clogged OS - sure - I'll take a free computer.

It's like what Handey said:

If you're walking down the street and a mannequin falls out of a window - go and catch it - after all, hey - it's a free dummy!

RS

Probably not.

[symbolic]

I'm in favor of retaining my sense of humanity - of being comfortable with the idea that I'm more than just a thread in the fabric of the US economy through which my money flows into the pockets of large companies. If I want something, I'll go look for it. I don't need ads on my computer suggesting, telling, predicting, threatening, and otherwise trying to convince me that I need what it's pitching.

Revenue per Customer

[Anonymous Coward]

Some very crude math: Google's Q3 revenues from search were $3.96 billion. Let's extrapolate that to $16 bn annually. Number of users of Google search? Let's guess liberally 1 billion. By that very rough math, each user of Google search is worth $1.600. If there are only 500 million users, that figure becomes $3,200. More than enough for a free netbook, tho only if the netbook customers wouldn't otherwise be using Google, or they're simply cannibalizing their profit margin.

Re:Revenue per Customer

[CrashandDie]

I don't know how rough your math is, but in my book, (16 * 10^9) / 10^9 = 16. Same thing for (16 * 10^9) / (500 * 10^6) = 32.

Let's take the average between those two. $24 would be a very rough estimate of what each user brings Google, each year. Quite far from the ludicrous $1600 or $3200 you've assumed.

Were you, by any chance, educated in the Verizon School of Mathematics? Where 0,001c == $0,001 and 1 billion != 1 billion?

PS: Slashdot doesn't like the cent sign, either in unicode or html format. In this case, my intention was to have c being displayed as ¢, but alas, Slashcode claims victory.

You obviously never worked in the search industry.

[tomhudson]

Advertisers don't want clicks from users of what would be "welfarebooks".

If they can't even afford $200 for a netbook, their demographics are horrendous. Advertisers base their CPM on such things as location, time of day, day of the week, referrer, OS (if I'm advertising pc software, I don't want mac user clicks, and vice versa), etc. Clicks from users of "free" computers won't generate revenue because advertisers will avoid them like the plague.

These are the type of people who are the most likely to be engaged in click fraud, such as pay-to-click "make money at home surfing the web" scams. After all, if they can't afford a computer, they've got to pay for their net access somehow, and it's easier to do click fraud than to scrounge around the 'hood for returnable pop bottles.

No

[Stan92057]

I don't want to be spied upon,its just that simple :)

Would I use a free netbook from Google?

[icannotthinkofaname]

Depends. Is this netbook also open-source?

Not a car analogy, but close.

[Loosifur]

Would you live in a house for free if the walls had to be transparent?

And this might be an even more pertinent question: when was the last time you clicked on an ad in Gmail?

I'm sure there's a market for this among the stereotypical little old ladies emailing their grandchildren, etc., but I don't think it would take off. People like owning things, not using them with Google's permission.

freedom depends on who owns the cloud servers

[xzvf]

In the big scheme of things, the freedom of the client is insignificant to the freedom of the cloud. This client, while optimized for Google, will be just as capable of attaching to a private, fully controlled cloud. You could setup a home server with email, office suite, etc.... and remain totally free, or you can connect to services from Google and other providers and give up some of that freedom. The providers will be cheaper, but you will give up significant freedom and control of your own data. An interesting option is bringing up all the services you want on EC2 (Amazon) servers, and point your clients to that. Of course you can use any hosting company for similar results. There is an advantage in cost savings for many companies if you can eliminate, or minimize desktop support. A $1K laptop costs over $6K+ in support over its lifetime. If that can be replaced by a $200 a year disposable appliance with a server back end, the PC replacement and upgrade cycle can be broken saving companies tons of money.

Anyone that says no

[d4nowar]

Is lying to themselves.

If someone gives you something useful for free and you don't use it just because of who you got it from, then you're just being stubborn.

So here's to getting a free netbook someday!

hardware piracy?

[ChrmnMa0]

One ethical question is raised. If you accept a free netbook, knowing that the price is covered by the advertisements, are you obligated to keep the adds installed? If you remove them are you then stealing the machine?

Plus infinite demand kills this

[Crazy Taco]

Lets say Google gets around $2 CPM on normal searches. That means a single search is worth something like $0.002 for Google. It's going to take lots of searches and ad clicks from every user to even cover the costs of the netbook.

Exactly. And because of infinite demand, you'll really need a lot of clicks, but you probably won't get many. Here's why. Let's say you make something free. Say a McDonald's hamburger. Suddenly you are going to have everyone running out to get the hamburger, even though they weren't planning to get one today, just because it is free. Now consider a netbook. I really don't want one, but heck, if it's free I'll take one! Everyone would take one, whether they really wanted one before or not, because it's a free portable computer. Now most of those people will later put that netbook on a shelf to gather dust as soon as the novelty wears off, because they really didn't have a deep need/desire for the netbook in the first place. They've probably got a desktop or laptop that has more computing power, more privacy, and runs a greater variety of apps, so they won't really need the netbook. The problem for google is that each of those netbooks still cost them 150, and now they don't even have people using them and clicking on ads.

So this will be a guaranteed fiasco for Google should they choose to go through with this. They will have to make about 305 million of the netbooks because everyone in the US will want one (ok, maybe 250 million because there will be some 1 year olds and grandmas that don't, but anyone who knows how to use a computer will probably take one). Multiply those millions of units by 150 dollars, and that's how much advertising dollars google will need to have just to break even. And that's oversimplifying things, because since the apps live in the cloud, you have to have the server infrastructure, bandwidth costs, engineering, support techs, software developers, etc. Their costs will be much greater than the costs for the Windows OS, because at least with a Windows OS you don't have to provide a server, bandwidth, PC, etc, because it's off running on a user PC somewhere. I think you start to see how there is no way this will possibly happen... no way can they get the ad revenue to cover this. Plus it's naive to assume that they will even get that many users (something they would have to have, since that's the only way they could truly corner the ad market and charge the premium prices they'd need to pay for this), since most people will probably stick with Linux, Mac, or Windows.

Re:Plus infinite demand kills this

[el3mentary]

Every person in the united states with one of your computers, running your advertisements sounds like a pretty sweet deal regardless of the cost.

Any subscription fee?

[BenSchuarmer]

It seems to me that a better business model would be for wireless carriers or ISPs to give these away in order to get/keep subscribers (sort of like the "free" cell phones that my family got for agreeing to pay $80 a month for 2 years).

Gotta love bloggers

[93 Escort Wagon]

I hope the unemployment rate starts to head down soon - all these garbage submissions from people with nothing to do all day are getting annoying.

So response to Google's just announced, and still unreleased, Chrome OS is "rather lukewarm"? That's a really silly statement. Here's an idea - how about we let them release something and see how it does in the marketplace before we make statements regarding how well or how poorly it's faring?

Re:Gotta love bloggers

[V4Vendetta75]

+1 Actually, Chromium does exactly what was announced... It's an OS based on Chrome, to be used with cloud applications. Instead of "lukewarm", the responses should be "ecstatic" ! Finally an OS which delivers exactly what it tells it would !!!! Only question I ask myself is: "How would one be able to watch a movie easily ?" Granted you can do that with websites but streaming a whole movie can be a pain when your network's not that good.

Google AdSense = Microsoft's Clippy

[AnotherUsername]

If you hated Clippy, imagine every single application having Google's version. You can't turn it off. It is always there.

"It looks like you are writing a letter. Would you like to know where you can get cheap ink, paper, and envelopes, all for one low price?"

"It sounds like you are playing music! Click here to get the latest album from the Number 1 Top 40 band this week!"

"Are you watching a movie? Click here to find where to get movie tickets to a theater near you!"

It makes me shudder just to think about it.

back to the future

[viralMeme]

'I have a critical meeting with Intel a week from Wednesday. I want to convince them that they need to stay away from Oracle NCs and work more closely with Microsoft', Oct 1997

'They did 2 things that amaze me: a) They kept the NC specification around despite saying they would not. b) They snuck in a server specification. There is some failure in communication', Nov 1997

Re:Not possible (to lock it well enough)

[Techmeology]

The parent poster does make a good point. Let's suppose for the sake of argument that Google does do this. I doubt a general purpose machine (which, ultimately, it'd have to be in order to run the Linux kernel) could be locked well enough to prevent someone installing another operating system (Linux or possibly even otherwise) on their free netbook (it's the same problem DRM faces). Google'd have to stop giving them away sooner or later.

Of course I'd accept one.

[StikyPad]

And I'd start hacking it about 5 seconds after I got home.

Netbooks are free with 3g

[Colin Smith]

3G connection, 3g enabled netbook. 20/month.

25 and Google apps are thrown in.

Without the netbook, just a sim? 20/month.

 

Re:Netbooks are free with 3g

[ClosedSource]

Sounds like $480 for a netbook with free 3G for two years.

Re:Netbooks are free with 3g

[arkane1234]

a $240 netbook and 2 years of 3G for $240 ;)

FREE FREE FREE GET IT WHILE IT IS HOT

[axor1337]

Sure would FREE Netbook running the chrome OS. if it was 3g capable it would be even better. partner with AT&T or Verizon and get them to subsidize the hardware, and the the customer pays $35.00 a month for an unlimited data plan. I would do that and ditch my current phone.

Not necessarily

[DrYak]

You also need good amount of CPU and RAM. Websites and especially video streaming and flash games are quite heavy, and so are the heavily-ajaxied Google apps.

To be precise : Adobe's crappy flash plugin and most current Javascript *interpreters* require lots of processing power.
What I mean is that the current slowness of Flash and AJAX is mostly due to current software not being efficient enough.

But google has quite some budget to leverage - both in terms of cash and brain power - to tackle this problem.
Their effort on Chrome's (browser) flash JIT compiler show that this is actually their intent.
(Similar as other work in other browsers. It seems that every browser conceptor is currently trying to make Javascript less CPU-power hungry).

Now if Google also could use their resource to bring a decent open source Flash plugin that isn't a huge useless junk (For example: finishing to make Gnash compatible and making it efficient ?)

Nonetheless, there are current (closed, proprietary) implementations of flash already running on embed hardware, so it should be achievable by google.

Last but not least : CPU performance of ultra low power embed CPU is currently rising - The next generation of ARM Cortex A9 is supposed to provide dual cores for the same power envelope as current single core Cortex A8.
In addition to that, handheld and palmtop CPUs usually have some special purpose hardware in addition to the ARM CPU (usually some DSP/FPU and some PowerVR 2D/3Dcore) - so the most CPU intensive task - decompressing the video streams - could be done in hardware.

And like someone said, shown hardware had 32 GB SSD card, which isn't really dirt cheap either.

That's probably because it is the smallest SATA SSD that you can quickly buy nowadays. They just went for a quickly customised Netbook using off-the-shelf parts.

But keep in mind that Chrome OS is basically just a browser-as-a-GUI running over a simple graphic server on a linux kernel. A minimalist Linux distribution is pretty much enough.

I've personnally already managed to cram Linux installations on 4GB Compact Flash modules (you can plug them directly into a IDE connector given the proper cable. CF and 16bits PC-CARD are basically ATAPI with a miniature connector.)
You can find projects like Damn Small Linux which pack much more functionality on minimalistic LiveCDs. (On 50MB mini CD !)
As another example OpenMoko manages to cram quite a few linux tools into 256MiBytes images.

We're really far from the minimal 16GB requirement of Windows Vista and 7.

In theory you could run Chrome OS into something like a Pandora with a bigger screen. And could indeed jury-rig something like this using Beagle boards.
That means having a Chrome OS low-power machine build *today* out of *hobbyist* parts. Now think about the near future, with mass produced units.
By 5-10 years, as the GP wrote, it's entirely possible that you could find such hardware with a bigger screen and a slightly better CPU within reasonable costs.
Even earlier than that I think.

Would You Use a Free Netbook From Google?

[Dreadneck]

Sure, I can always use a free doorstop.

Oh, wait... you mean to do my actual day-to-day computing? Not likely.

This is not a Netbook

[itsdapead]

At least, not what "netbooks" have actually become: cheap, compact, entry-level laptop PCs for people who want to run standard PC software but can live without editing HD video and have an xbox for their 100fps 3D fragging.

The Chrome idea is actually much closer to the original "netbook" concept: something the size of a BOOK to use to access the NET. (See what they did there?)

Now, we never got to find out how that went because ASUS made such a botch of the original EEE PC: it looked great on first sight, and they sold like hotcakes, but it was let down by the OS. Once you got past the click-and-drool "launcher" no effort had been made to adapt the usual Firefox/Thunderbird/OpenOffice apps for the small screen or get the power management working properly. Then ASUS drank the Microsoft Kool-Aid and effectively switched to making entry level Windows laptops.

Bottom line: Asus had no particular investment in promoting Linux - it was just a cheap option that ceased to be the cheapest option when MS started offering XP for a knock-down price.

Google, OTOH, is presumably going to get behind its platform, push and keep pushing - and you have to use a Chrome machine as a netbook (especially if they take the ARM route). So now we'll see if the "true" netbook model works.

Oh, and Google doesn't have to give them away to make them free - just ensure the wholesale price is cheaper than the "netbooks" that mobile carriers and ISPs are already giving away "free".

Bear in mind that the slashdot readership is not Google's target market. Nobody here is going to enthuse about a free/cheap web browser appliance unless they can hack it and use it for writing python scripts for automated wardriving.

However, other people might be sold on the idea of a free netbook thrown in with their mobile contract, broadband or cable TV*, especially if it is marketed enthusiastically.

(*How about a Chrome tablet as a program guide/remote for your TV...?)

Re:You obviously never worked in the search indust

[slim]

Advertisers don't want clicks from users of what would be "welfarebooks".

Since you imply you've worked for the search industry, I'll take your word for it. But I'm surprised.

The poor are a lucrative market for certain products, and many successful businesses made their fortunes by taking small amounts of money from large numbers of poor people. Simple and not-unethical example: discount supermarkets.

Yeah, pushing Lexus adverts at them isn't going to work out. Pushing cornflakes ads at them might.

Sure

[Jesus_666]

Step 1: Get free netbook
Step 2: Strip it of interesting components
Step 3: Use free components in own electronics projects
Step 4: Prof-- er, break-even!!

Sure

[ITJC68]

As long as I can format the hard drive and install the OS of my choice without notifying said company of that. LOL. Otherwise no thanks.

Absolutely Not - Google is next level evil

[Anonymous Coward]

I would not accept it myself and neither would anyone in my family. Now, if I were extremely desperate and broke and needing to get on-line I would take it. But if that were the situation then the ads would not do me much good unless they were something like coupons for my local grocery store.

Google is next level evil. We need to get our privacy back. Most average Google users do not know that Google knows and stores so much information about them.

Absolutely

[md27]

Where do I submit my mailing address? Create a new Google account just for that purpose till you figure out just how much it phones home.

Heck No - What about privacy?

[BlueCoder]

I actually trust Bid Brother Google to a certain extent right now. But that's only right now, trust changes with time. At the moment what really bothers me is governments and that they can get at your data with merely a judges signature, like there aren't any corrupt judges or judges deep in politics. Google is politically correct and follows laws of most of the countries on this planet so we also have to fear private interests that can bribe judges in other countries.

Now while I may not spend all my time plotting to take over the world I'm not about to give anyone anything that someone else can leverage against me. Show me a Switzerland for private data that is going to stand up to all government and private interests and is willing blow up it's facilities before handing it over my diary to anyone but me and maybe I upload an encrypted backup.

I give criminals rights and privacy so that I have them. Criminals don't need rights although they may use them it's only because it cheaper. Real criminals buy their freedom and take away our rights everyday.

And I don't give a crap about pedophiles online or their fantasy's. It's a red herring. We want them online trading images. We need to focus on those people making the images and identify the children involved. All these macho politicization pounding their chests going after pedophiles, why aren't they out lobbying the public to raise taxes to get children out of abusive homes?

Re:You obviously never worked in the search indust

[Penguinisto]

Clicks from users of "free" computers won't generate revenue because advertisers will avoid them like the plague.

Depends, really... In the poorer neighborhoods, you still find companies who happily make profit off of poor folks more often than not: Liquor/Beer, Tobacco, low-end calling cards, pre-paid cell phones, and, pretty much anything you'd find in a local convenience store on the bad side of town... especially those that feed off of legal yet less glamorous addictions.

Hell, even convenience stores would want to target 'em. So would grocery stores.

They may get food stamps and government checks instead of AMEX and dividends, but they're going to spend what little they do have somewhere... Last I checked, tobacco, beer, and convenience store franchises are still making some rather surprising profits, in spite of their biggest demographic being the "welfarebooks", so to speak.

Re:You obviously never worked in the search indust

[Anonymous Coward]

You again? whats you fucking problem with ChromeOS? Stop trolling betch!

Re:You obviously never worked in the search indust

[tomhudson]

The problem is that too many of them participate in "pay-to-click". You may have seen that sort of thing - "make money surfing the web". Clickstreams from people in that general demographic, and a few others with smilar economic profiles, can't be monetized - they aren't worth even $0.001 (a tenth of a cent).

Sure, they'd be suckers for credit cards at 35% interest, with a front-loaded fee on the first month of $75, etc. Problem is, they wouldn't even qualify for that ... and those that would, too many would default, so the advertiser would just find it to be a huge money pit.

Then you have the possibility of mixing those into the general click pool - which only goes to lower the overall quality of your click stream to the advertiser, who then reasonably drops the price they're willing to pay - or if it now becomes marginal, drops that whole stream, because it's too contaminated with crap.

Clicks in and of themselves have no value. It's only because you can safely predict that in a particular batch of clicks, from a particular set of sources, for a particular product, a certain percentage will convert to actions that ultimately generate the desired response - usually involving the exchange of money at some point. There's a floor to how low you can go for any demographic before it becomes unprofitable, and halo effects (such as "increasing brand recognition") have to be discounted. This can all be calculated in real time, then automatically applied to "protect" other ad campaigns against similar conversion-poor sources.

At under a tenth of a cent per click, the associated costs just aren't worth it - better to devote the same resources to handling a market that *has* money. After all, to generate $10 of revenue, with a click-thru ratio of 2%, shared 50/50 with the web site desplaying the ad, at $0.001 per click, you'd need a million impressions. There's bottom-feeding, then there's *bottom-feeding*. A million page views to make $10? "Well, just show more ads per page!" Too many ads lowers your click-thru rate, so at a certain point, you're going backwards - and your page becomes a wall of ads and almost no content, so you end up losing traffic.

This is just a replay of the old "get a free pc" gimmicks from years gone by, where you had to browse the web with a browser that constantly streamed ads. It didn't work, and this won't either. It's also extremely vulnerable to the peer-to-pear web (the real "cloud computing" model) that will render centralized search engines obsolete by the end of the next decade, but that's another story.

Internet breaks? Yeah, once in a blue moon.

[jotaeleemeese]

My desktop is frankly useless without a network connection nowadays, so the Internet connection is nowadays a given, so recoiling on that regard is valid only in Zimbabwe or other such places.

Re:You obviously never worked in the search indust

[pwfffff]

I was thinking about picking up a free netbook, but I'm so rich that instead I decided to buy a netbook, even though I didn't buy a netbook BEFORE there was a free one... makes perfect sense. This guy knows his economics.

Re:You obviously never worked in the search indust

[tomhudson]

Those all make money because of the limited mobility of that demographic.

Liquor/Beer, Tobacco, low-end calling cards, pre-paid cell phones

Why would they buy any of that off the net and have to wait when they can get them locally? And have you checked out the cost of shipping a case of beer by FedEx or UPS?

The shipping costs and the lack of immediacy mean that particular market is going to stay with the local rip-off joints.

They may get food stamps and government checks instead of AMEX and dividends, but they're going to spend what little they do have somewhere.

Last I checked, online stores don't take food stamps or government checks. They also won't let the local "regulars" run a tab until "welfare day". This demographic has been studied to death. On-line merchants avoid them like the plague for a reason.

Would You Use a Free Netbook From Google?

[chord.wav]

Sure, as I'm still using my CueCat

Yes.

[Mister LinOx]

Of course I would. It's opensource, by Google, and it's a close relative of Linux. Sure it may not be the best, but it would be free. Sign me up!

Re:You obviously never worked in the search indust

[cenc]

yea, what a stupid idea. How did those guys on free commercial driven TV ever make money at it?: Those shows cost millions to make, and are for more of a shot in the dark if they ever convert a 30 second advertising spot to a real customer. No way poor people would ever be convinced to spend money.

Read the fine print

[ClosedSource]

Yes, I have a cheap pay-as-you go phone as well, but it's still tied to a single vendor who will recoup the cost or cancel my account for not buying minutes often enough.

Possible...heck I do it every day!

[MsGeek]

I have a 600X. It runs Xubuntu. For a 600E, Debian would be your best bet, because you can tailor-fit it to your needs. XFCE is such a good window manager I even run it on more powerful systems because it's lightweight and goes fast.

The easiest way to get sound out of one of these machines is to use a USB sound card. There are three chips inside a 600 and a 600e that look like sound cards to Linux. The 600x is better on this score, and so is the T22, but it's way easier to work around the elderly sound circuitry with a USB stick in all of these cases.

Actually another distro you should look into is Tiny Core Linux. It is idiosyncratic, to say the least, but it is the lightest Linux in a long, long time.

Re:You obviously never worked in the search indust

[Penguinisto]

You may want to expand your scope beyond mere online stores. For instance, how much would Southland (7-Eleven) pay for targeted ads on this netbook? The folks who make (insert 40-ounce cheap beer brand)? The idea is to lure folks to their brand/store/product/etc instead of the competition's.

Why Stop There?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why stop there? Why not go after anyone who has

1. A low I.Q.
2. born in the U.S. and still lives there today.

Then the gene pool will be purified with no USians to contaminate it.

Signed,
The Rest of the World.

Re:You obviously never worked in the search indust

[tomhudson]

yea, what a stupid idea. How did those guys on free commercial driven TV ever make money at it?: Those shows cost millions to make, and are for more of a shot in the dark if they ever convert a 30 second advertising spot to a real customer. No way poor people would ever be convinced to spend money.

TV is broadcasting. Web advertising is narrowcasting. Broadcasters spend a lot of money on market research to make sure their message gets to the right demographic. And a lot of those advertisers on commercial-driven TV didn't make money, and are no longer with us. With narrowcasting, you select your audience. The users of free netbooks (welfarebooks) are a terrible demographic for almost every advertiser. They're better off using their ad buys towards a better market demographic, since, unlike broadcasting, they can pick and choose who sees their ads, based on geography, time of day, platform, etc., so they can avoid these users quite easily.

Re:You obviously never worked in the search indust

[gbarules2999]

Exactly. Three words: credit card companies. They want the customers who can't pay anything off; they get the most money from those people.

Re:You obviously never worked in the search indust

[tomhudson]

You may want to expand your scope beyond mere online stores. For instance, how much would Southland (7-Eleven) pay for targeted ads on this netbook? The folks who make (insert 40-ounce cheap beer brand)? The idea is to lure folks to their brand/store/product/etc instead of the competition's.

Not even a tenth of a cent per impression. They already have that option with some search engines (yes, at that price - a tenth of a cent), and they don't do it, so why would they do it for that netbook when it's just not profitable. It's not just a question of "getting the word out", but doing so at a profit.

Heres how the Google Commercial should go..

[azbrat3]

Google Labtop, cost, $0. Google Docs, cost, $0. Google tracking cookie, cost $0. Saving your identity for generations to come... Priceless.

Was the lesson of CueCat not learned?

[erroneus]

Does anyone not remember or know about the cuecat? It was this neat barcode scanner thing that would be used to scan items in advertisements to send users to web pages for product information and such. The CueCats were free and all over the net appeared discussions and howto-s on disabling the encryption/serial number information so it could be used as an ordinary barcode reader.

The problem? The devices were free. Once they entered your possession, you could do anything you want with them. Same would be true of a free Google Netbook.

Nope

[k8to]

No. I would not.

Sure...

[Anonymous Coward]

as long as I can log in as "Anonymous Coward".

WebPlayer and iOpener

[meehawl]

Ah, advertising frothiness. I recall in the early noughties getting a "free" Virgin WebPlayer (in return for allowing it to run ads within its sandboxed browser). It made a nice little MP3 player (using Win 98) and, later, Debian. A friend I worked with got an iOpener instead. He now works for Google. I doubt Google would make the same mistakes as Netpliance.

Yes, but show us how hard you defend us first.

[unity100]

defend against FBI, NSA, CIA, RIAA, DOJ, whatever.

show us how hard you defend our privacy, nomatter what, and it can be considered.

It's free?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I can have my Beowulf cluster of Google netbooks!

Dear tin foil hat crowd,

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody cares what you do on an hour-by-hour basis.

It may stroke your ego to think you are that interesting, but, sorry, you just aren't.

Sincerely,
Reality.

I would if:

[johnkzin]

1) convertible tablet netbook, 10.1" screen, pref. multi-touch, with the ability to do automated screen rotations based on the hinge orientation and accelerometers. At least 1024x600, pref. 1280x720. And, preferably a PixelQi hybrid display.
2) Dalvik apps, with the "with Google" Android experience (Android Market, Android Gmail, Android Calendar, etc.)
3) 1GB+ RAM, internal storage options (local media, caching data even if the rest will be stored in the cloud, etc.). 2-32GB options are good. And add full size SDHC card slot for more storage. They can omit the internal storage if they put in two full size SDHC card slots.
4) 2 or more USB host/otg ports, support for Keyboards, mice/trackpad/trackball, storage, USB-VGA/USB-DVI/USB-HDMI adapters, printers, etc.
5) If no USB-VGA/DVI/HDMI support, then a DVI-I port (if no DVI-I port, then there has to be at least 3 USB host/otg ports)
6) GPS with Google Maps turn-by-turn navigation (easy if it has #2)
7) Internal 3G module, either optional modules for the carrier of my choice (I pay) or an included module with the carrier of Google's choice (Google pays)
8) At least Wifi b and g, possibly n
9) If no Dalvik apps, ssh app with port forwarding
10) If no Dalvik apps, VNC app that will work through #10's port forwarding, and has VNC password support
11) I think I heard Chrome already has these, but just to be sure: local media player for local audio files, local video files, e-book reader apps
12) Google Gears for working with Google Docs and other things when in a 3G dead zone
13) Full support for Flash in the browser ... full support for sites like Hulu, Rhapsody, Pandora, Youtube, etc.
14) Netflix streaming player support
15) Google Apps sites that are BOTH mobile AND full-featured (ex: all non-Mobile Gmail features, but in a finger friendly presentation; all non-Mobile Google Reader features (add/edit tags, etc.), but in a finger-friendly presentation; etc.)
16) Charge and sync (like a phone) via USB-client (so I can use/access the data on the SDHC cards (and/or optional internal user storage) via my desktop system, while the device recharges).
17) Something like Privoxy to block ads and bad HTML on _NON_-Google ad sites. I understand that the trade here is that I have to see Google Adsense stuff. But I don't want to have to put up with ads/pop-ups/etc. from _anyone_ else.
18) LOTS of battery. Probably be most effective to use an ARM CPU (TI OMAP 3? OMAP 4?)
19) Free hardware upgrades as new versions come out. 12-36 month cycles (obv. I'd prefer 12 months, but I can understand if they need 36 months).
20) Since Google Apps have the option to avoid ads by paying for the service, I'd want that same option with the device. If I pay a monthly or yearly subscription, then the subscription includes: the 3G service (assuming it's the "google pays for it" option from above), no ads (not even from Google's services), and the hardware upgrade cycle.

Give me all of that, and yeah, I'd take a free device and not do anything to block the ads. Not sure whether or not I'd pay for the subscription option or not, but I definitely think the subscription option needs to exist.

It depends...

[Anonymous Coward]

If the information I give to Google through the use of the netbook is worth $150

toy netbooks

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference between an Intel cpu and chipset and a cheap ARM SoC is about $28. (ARM11 SoC is $6.50 in volume)
A PMIC for an ARM is about $3, compared to a beefier power setup one you'd need for an intel system. A good PMIC can also control the backlight for you too. Figure you save about $9-13 there.
If you can get away with 800x480 LCDs, that is the cheapest and doesn't hog the bandwidth of an ARM11's shared video memory. It is about half the price of the nicer netbook LCDs.
Lower power means you can put less expensive battery pack in it. A sub-watt ARM11 netbook can run for 4 hours on a pretty puny pack compared to an Intel Atom netbook.
Don't get me wrong. In no way am I pretending a cheap ARM can perform on par with an Intel Atom. I'm just pointing out that if you build a toy system, it can be done for toy prices.

Netbooks have expensive parts in them still. Eliminate the need for those expensive bits and it becomes less expensive (duh). Also, you have assumptions about the market that you don't cite. "cut-throat business" is not a technical term I assume.

18+7+20+3+7 = 55.
18 for the lcd
7 for the SoC
3 for the pmic and other power parts
20 for the case, keyboard and battery
7 for pcb and other components

using prices for what was paid for on the last product, although I heavily discounted the case because it was forged aluminum back on my product. somewhere in the hand waving would be assembly, shipping, and other reoccurring costs to get to a final number. that's just my estimate for a BOM for a really cheap ass toy netbook.

iOpener?

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that, Google?

my take (not that you care)

[Nyder]

First, I'd like to say, free hardware? fuck ya!

Some peeps are saying they would lose money on them.

Yes, they would. But thats a marketing style. They are looking over the long term, not short term.

You get a google netbook. You'll most likely be running ChromeOS, so they just took a sale away from MS.
your going to use it as a browser, to use internet apps. Which is oddly enough what google is pushing.

This is a way of them locking down customers. and honestly, I approve.

You don't like the ads, don't take the device. Or if your into hardware hacking, nothings better then free hardware.

and people, netbooks are "net" books. basicly a modern terminal. These are not laptop replacements. I'm sure most of you realise that, but damn there's a lot of peeps who don't understand that concept...

freedom of information

[Anonymous Coward]

What I don't get is why people are so afraid of having their information stored on the cloud.
I mean, your information is everywhere, from a telephone book to the public offices. And everyone can get it. Anyone can find physically where you live by stalking you or by looking in some lost registry that has the name of your father.

Information wants to be free. All information. Maybe you can hide it, but hiding it in the cloud is the same as hiding it in your home computer or in your wallet. It can always be stolen. It can always be found.

Private information has its own laws to remain private; and Google follows those laws. If you say Google gave out IP's from some users (or maybe all users, it doesn't matter) in India it's because it is a law abiding company, and it did what every other company would do. If you can name one big company that cares about itself not giving information to the police, then maybe you can win the discussion about Google not letting you store your own data.

And let's not forget that it's not people that are having your information; computers own it. I trust computers more than I trust people I don't know (I mean, I trust more on the people I like than on computers, but that's just obvious) on this things, because they don't want to do evil. Just remember the good ol' days, where you gave all your personal information to the grocery owner. Was this a breach of privacy? Would you do it again? Even though the owner is a man you don't know more than the couple words you shared every day? I'm sorry, but I think computers are just better than him.

And yes, I understand that the machines are ran by people, that this can mean that computer cannot be trusted the same or more than a person, but technology is, thankfully, eliminating the middle man. No one knows where your information is stored, no one knows what they have about you, no one knows you. Get over it.

And, as the third to last paragraph explains, if the grocery owner can make my shopping more pleasant knowing my information, as Google makes my Internet browsing more comfortable by eliminating horrible necessary ads that I don't care about, I think we'll arrive to the conclusion that sharing information with a computer is better than sharing with a persona. But what do I know? I'm not Google.

Cheap?

[Anonymous Coward]

A 'google netbook' would be extremely cheap, because as other people have said the price of hardware has come down a lot.

They could ditch a lot of the hardware used in existing netbooks, and get the cheapest possible alternatives to the hardware they still need.

As for advertising, I'd be happy with a giant "GOOGLE" logo on the back, and even a non-intrusive advert (the thin text one) along the top or something?

It's a free netbook, if you want anything for free, you have to compromise. Netbook don't just make themselves!