Slashdot Mirror
First Chrome OS Notebooks Due This Month
adeelarshad82 writes "According to recent reports, a Google-branded Chrome OS notebook will be launched by Inventec later this month. Acer and HP will be launching theirs a month later, in December. This report is also backed by a source close to Google stating that the company is still on track to launch its Chrome OS by the end of the year, as well as its Chrome app store."
So, this Taiwan-based company gets their product to market first, before acer and hp. I wonder why?
This is going to go straight for Microsoft's jugular.
Apple has pretty well innoculated themselves with a strong tablet (touch) and ultralight notebook (full OS) offerings.
If this comes with net access it will pretty much eat up the remaining netbook fervor.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
I've got a Nexus One and i'm quite happy with it, but i have no interest in a Chrome OS device in any format, notebook, netbook, tablet or anything else. The cloud can be convenient i'm sure, but i'm not enamored of an entire OS designed around the idea. I do not want to be dependent on internet access to run my apps and access my data.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
I don't think they're going to compete with Microsoft. But what they are doing is trying to invent a new class of computing device, which I think is going to fail. Maybe in another ten years having a constant internet connection will be a given, but right now... I'm just imagining people trying to type a document while riding on the subway: "Whoops, lost my internet. Oh, it's back again... let me re-open my session..."
I'm not sure Chrome OS will be a big success, but I think Google would have taken such connectivity issues into consideration.
I'm not sure why they have both Android and Chrome OS -- they seem to intersect and overlap awkwardly.
I'm really hoping that this thing is super cheap. That's the only way I can really justify something that has so little capability. Some of my primary use cases - handling photos, video, etc. are just not well suited for non-native applications right now. So this would really truly be a limited device. However if the price was right - and I'm talking max $150, preferably $99 - I could really go for it. As in, I'd have them all over the house, just for convenience. But if this thing costs $300 or more then it's in iPad territory and there's just zero reason to buy it over an iPad.
"Whoops, lost my internet. Oh, it's back again... let me re-open my session..."
Don't forget, Google has been investing heavily in HTML5 with features like offline storage and other capabilities for apps to run offline. I doubt this tablet is going to be unusable the minute the cloud goes away.
You would think so, but then again, there are a huge number of people that think that pro-privacy things like NoScript are stupid on this website. Google-analytics isn't blocked by AdBlock or FlashBlock, but whatever. Those that set it in hosts are excluded from this sentiment, but I don't think that is too big of a percentage.
If this comes with net access it will pretty much eat up the remaining netbook fervor.
Do you know what Chrome OS is? Its a browser for an operating system, without net access it may as well be a brick.
How did this get promoted?
I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter
SSC
Gears or HTML5 allow for offline use of apps that will sync with the cloud once reconnected. Gears has been used in google docs for years.
To me the advantage of Chrome OS is an easy, cheap, secure computer. It would be great for my parents who seem to get a incredible amount of viruses just from browsing the web. Granted it wont replace their current PC.
Hi,
As somebody who just lost a bunch of data due to faulty backup disks, I for one welcome this.
I've yet to lose data stored on Google's cloud *touch wood*...lol.
Having data in the cloud, as well as cached/accessible locally seems like the best option. And to those talking about going underground on a train, I'm fairly sure Google's accounted for that - either through Gears, HTML5 Local Storage, or another local caching mechanism. I have a Google Nexus One, when I'm underground, I can still access all my email (that's been synced), my contacts, my calendar etc.
And having all my contacts synced online, along with all my Google Talk logs, is *awesome*. I'm a bit anal-retentive when it comes to storing things, so knowing that it's all stored, and available, and won't get lost due to filesystem corruption or something equally idiotic is good news to me. And look, worst come to worst, I lose my phone (hopefully not...lol) I'll get another, login to my Google Account, and voila, everything is synced again.
And people seem to over-value their privacy, at least to corporations. Seriously, most of you are pathetically mundane. I for one am not so insecure that I can't admit I am too. I mean, jeez, trawling through my personal emails you get...err...a bunch of emails between me and mates talking about work, me arranging lunch with my parents, and me buying stuff on eBay. Big whoop de doo. I'm happy to admit I'm a fairly boring individual, and I'm sure statistically I just fade into the background. If I was the Pope, or Jason Bourne, or I was trying to overthrow the Australian government, I suppose I might think differently. But as it is, I'm just another random guy. I doubt anybody at Google really cares, except to display targeted advertising.
The government spying on me, yeah, I have issues on that. Serious issues. A teacher at uni. Absolutely. A colleague, sure. People I know IRL, yeah. Heck, if this was Sony even, I'd have issues, seeing as they're a bunch of immoral corporates, who have no qualms about installing malware on consumer's PCs (I bought into MiniDisc ok...lol, I have a right to be bitter). But some analytical algorithm, trying to figure out which ads I'll click on? Pftt, who cares.
Google has tried to hide what they do - they display targeted ads. It's not like they've every tried to cover that fact up, nor have they been really been caught out on a privacy breach. (I'm going to discount the technical incompetent idiots who don't understand what unencrypted wireless communication is, or who can't be bothered to read what they're clicking on before they click it, a la Buzz).
They also freely list all the data they store on you:
https://www.google.com/dashboard
And they also don't try to lock you in to their system - they provide open exports from most of their systems.
http://www.dataliberation.org/
I find that really awesome, and a refreshing change from every other corporation that tries to lock you in, hand over foot. It also speaks volumes about their confience - they're confident enough in the technical superiority of their solutison, that they dont' ened to resort to lock-in to try to desperately cling onto their customers.
Cheers,
Victor
...will keep your google document alive offline today.
If battery life approaches or exceeds iPad and current netbook class while providing instant-on and a keyboard, it will sell.
I don't WANT windows and all it's security issues and bulk for lightweight browsing, and I'd like a keyboard sometimes (which the iPad doesn't have).
At the right price, this will make a value proposition that takes the base of netbooks
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
A Large Grey Area has just appeared in the land between Notebooks and Netbooks. Neither side have commented yet, and both seem hesitant to lay claim to this grey area.
A company, Google, has claimed responsibility for creating this large grey area. In a press conference earlier today, the company made some comments about "not being evil" and "don't worry".
The first migrants to this area are already en route, and are slated to arrive before the year is out.
I don't think this will compete with much of anything; there's no real market for Chrome OS, and I doubt there ever will be. As I understand it, the target audience is people who:
For the most part, anybody who types enough to need a laptop with a built-in keyboard is also somebody who uses apps like Office and isn't going to be satisfied with a web substitute. Anybody who doesn't type enough to need a built-in keyboard would probably find a tablet (either iPad or Android-based) easier to use (not to mention more capable due to native app availability), and since you can use a keyboard with most of those devices for when you need to type frequently, it's hard to imagine why anyone would choose a web-only device like these.
I'd expect this to be even less popular than Linux-based netbooks, which is to say, remarkably unpopular. I really can't imagine why anyone would be interested in this, frankly. It's basically the computer equivalent of Palm's WebOS, and we know how well that has worked out....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
With pretty long battery duration (15+ hs?) and very low cost (not a lot of local storage required, no software licences, etc... maybe less than US$100?) it could have an edge. Ok, maybe more than an edge, a 3g, as probably cellphone companies could bundle them for close to free with data contracts.
I for one welcome a 4th operating system on the market. Sure took long enough. (I know I know, some people are going to say "what about VMS? I still use it", etc.)
No, without any native app support, it's going to be unusable long before the cloud goes away. :-D
And it's not a tablet. It's a notebook.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Google (google gears) and Mozilla (prism?) experimented with such a offline layer some time ago for normal browsers, and such a offline cache is part of the HTML5 spec. They have also included a file manager and media player, iirc.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
.. there are a huge number of people that think that pro-privacy things like NoScript are stupid ...
It's true, though. If you have nothing to hide, privacy is a total non-issue.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
Every time there's a Slashdot post about ChromeOS there's immediately a rush of posts complaining that it won't work offline.
Slashdot is supposed to be news for nerds, not recent history for nerds ... but SOME OF YOU GUYS ARE NOT PAYING ATTENTION. Listen up.
This is not 1999. You can come out of your bunker now.
Google introduced offline Web functionality in in 2007. Google Docs supported Google Gears, which made it possible to use the Google word processor on an airplane with no network connection at all. I've done it. It worked fine. When I reconnected, everything synchronized with the cloud.
This concept has been reworked and is a part of the HTML5 standard. See http://www.w3.org/TR/offline-webapps/
In 2010-2011, you can write highly functional applications using HTML5 and Javascript, make them installable on your web browser, and have them work offline. Please stop assuming the Web is as it was when you were in junior high.
Apple doesn't directly compete in this market - they have no computing devices this cheap except for the iPod Touch - but that doesn't mean they're immune. The market for the iPad could be eroded by this, for example. I still have trouble understanding the market for the MacBook Air (I've seen a lot more iPads than MBAirs, despite the difference in how long each has been out) so I'm not sure whether they'll be any impact there.
MS definitely has reason to be concerned, of course, though they've been very successful at getting Windows on netbooks. The first netbooks almost exclusively ran Linux, these days you have to hunt specifically for a Linux one. Chrome OS may manage to oust Windows (mostly Win7 these days) in that market, but I wouldn't count on it.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
That's why you have HTML5 Offline Apps.
The market is all those people who only use Gmail and Facebook anyway and whose tech savvy relatives are tired of fixing their malware ridden Windows installations.
Dilbert RSS feed
the real story here is that there are going to FINALLY be ARM netbooks for sale!
now if only they could get the sense to make a full laptop with them.
"A Google-branded Chrome OS notebook will be launched by Inventec, with Acer and Hewlett-Packard following suit thereafter, according to a report."
It's Google branded, meaning Google probably chose that manufacturer for launch devices. With the run in the mid-tens of thousands, it seems to be a kick start for the platform, not a major brand.
Maybe if someone SRWare Irons out the Google spyware, I might consider one.
Sadly, this is almost certainly doomed to failure like every smartbook preceding it.
What a feature!
That really compares to being able to also watch movies and play games offline.
Chrome OS is going to bomb, I don't care if it runs Linux. If anything it will give Linux a bad name by having low sales.
It's true, though. If you have nothing to hide, privacy is a total non-issue.
The problem is everyone has something to hide: passwords, bank details, religious views in certain contexts, genitalia, their company's trade secrets etc.
We have a large local organisation that has been a rock-solid windows shop for ever. I've occasionally had dealings with their IT manager, and never got any interest in moving to linux. So I just about fell over when he told me he was planning to switch as many workstations as possible to ChromeOS and Google Docs as soon as it comes out.
This is just one sample of course. But if a conservative Windows-centric organisation is planning to switch so immediately, it doesn't bode well for MS's revenue backbone - all those corporate workstations running windows and office. A switch to ChromeOS would be disruptive, but not much more so than the Windows 7 upgrade that must be on 75% of IT managers' todo lists next year.
Don't get me wrong, MS will be around for years and years, but I think their Silverlight/HTML5 announcement shows they've recognised their supremacy is over and they can't assume everyone runs Windows any more. Interesting times ahead.
Do as you would be done to.
The way I see this is this is a business play. For a consumer like me, a castrated variant of a laptop I already own is not particularly exciting to me. As a small business, if I use Google Apps, this would be a huge money saver. You basically don't have to do much (if any) IT if you have this. Your data is always backed up. Your laptops never have any upgrade or virus issues - they upgrade themselves and system partition is read-only. You have endless amount of space for docs and email, and pretty decent collaboration features which will only get better over time. So for a business that can cope with the current limitations of Google Apps, there's quite a bit of value in ChromeOS.
This is going to go straight for Microsoft's jugular.
Apple has pretty well innoculated themselves with a strong tablet (touch) and ultralight notebook (full OS) offerings.
If this comes with net access it will pretty much eat up the remaining netbook fervor.
You say that like those are the only kinds of devices people want.
In the beginning, there was null.
Funny how any negative comments about Google get you trolled off the the page...
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
There are a lot of people that just use their computer for facebook and generally using the web, especially people looking in this price range. The kind of people that need to write documents on the subway would not be using this. I see it as more the 'laptop for the kids/casual use' which is probably 90% of what laptops are used for in the home. I myself have an expensive laptop which I just use for browsing the web and a desktop PC for doing work. In hindsight I would have been far better off getting the cheapest smallest netbook that could run a web browser.
I.O.U One Sig.
Schmidt said it himself about six months ago: ChromeOS is targeted as a thin client for businesses on Google Apps, and he compared it to the SunRays. Heck, my employer could go ChromeOS -- everything is a web app already, and we use Google Apps for the students (and Lotus iNotes for the teachers ... WTF?). I doubt very many people would whine if we switched.
Put identity in the browser.
I for one am so bloody sick and tired of the un-word "app". Can't morons just say APPLICATION STORE? Thank you, and have a nice day.
Probably. But who cares?
If Google can get it working now, it doesn't matter if the standards change over the next 12 years. Your data will be on a Google server, and the WebOS applications can be updated to support the standards over the next 12 years seamlessly (compared to other OSs, anyway).
Heck, Microsoft Office document formats just became a standard earlier this year, and they've been used for over a decade now without too much of a problem.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
*sigh* A goatse link after all this time... just like the old days, I'm all nostalgic.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Mine craft.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
I think it will compete with Microsoft in the market of people ready to move off of XP but not ready to shell out for a Windows-7 capable laptop to replace it. That's sure to be a small market, but with the right price point it's a big enough one to be interesting.
I want to point out, before that post gets modded to oblivion, that the link really was on topic. Goatse man REALLY has nothing to hide.
Get off my lawn!
you might be surprised to learn that keeping these things private online is much the same as keeping them private offline.
the problem is that people seem to be more free with their private details online than offline, maybe due to some flawed feeling of anonymity?
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
you seems to forget that Google is a proponent of the offline browser capability, look at Google gear for what they have in mind.
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
I believe the people you refer to are those who "have a life". Sure, people who dont know how to use computers well may be more likely to get viruses etc, but is it really their fault - considering it was computer geeks who originally wrote the buggy software...and other computer geeks writing the malware...??
If you think shutting ourselves up in a cave is the way forward for humankind in the modern tech era, then good for you.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
It already has native 'app' (was that a typo?) support. Apps can be locally installed (ran in browser), and take advantage of native code libraries. Hell, by all accounts it will even support some form of remote desktop (aka 'chromoting').
Did you really think Google was going to launch their flagship product without thinking about it for five whole minutes? How the fuck did you think non-WebGL games would work?
This is going to go straight for Microsoft's jugular.
Apple has pretty well innoculated themselves with a strong tablet (touch) and ultralight notebook (full OS) offerings.
If this comes with net access it will pretty much eat up the remaining netbook fervor.
hmmm lets see...Google? yeah I reckon it'll come with net access.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
How did this get promoted?
Probably as a test for html5 offline mode.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
I don't think this will compete with much of anything; there's no real market for Chrome OS, and I doubt there ever will be.
Well, thin clients will be able to use this for access to internet or network based apps, lots of people would like a simple 'internet appliance' that can send/receive e-mail (via a web app like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, etc), access the internet and maybe even send/receive SMS, and then there are many opportunities to use this as a front end for advanced interactive devices in cars, kiosks, vending machines that personalize items, etc.
... or use them for temporary workstations in a call center during seasonal peaks ... or use one as a dedicated 'terminal' to access a client's phone system.
Will it replace PC's? No, and yes. It is not really designed to replace a PC's functionality, so 'no'. But it's going to replace PC's that are currently used for the above tasks because the PC is overkill and these will just fit the bill (figuratively and financially).
Is there a market for these devices? There sure is. I may not be the target but I'd happily use these to replace workstations in a client's warehouse that's only being used to access a web based app running on their in-house server
From January, The comment is here.
Google is selling this phone because it advances the technology and their phone partners wouldn't sell it. Expect them to sell an Android + Snapdragon slate for the same reasons.... I doubt Google even wants to sell phones - I think they just want to get the new good technologies adopted so that people can get used to Internet everywhere quicker. This serves their bottom line because when most people use the Internet they use Google services, which Google sells ads on. You can't very well sell Internet ads to be viewed by people who aren't close to a browser. [me]
It links to this interesting article where the CEO of Asus was backing away from the Android smartbook they had recently pulled in mid-computex.
"Currently, I still don't see a clear market for smartbooks," said Jerry Shen, CEO of Asustek Computer, during an investors' conference in Taipei.
So he pulls the Linux Snapdragon smartbook and shows up a few days later at an investors conference - just before the W7 launch - flanked by reps from Microsoft and Intel - probably glancing cautiously from one to the other hoping nothing bad happens to his precious W7 netbooks (little does he know...). And he gives a carefully prepared speech about how Intel and Microsoft are going to crush their enemies, see them driven before them, hear the lamentation of their women...
And now world & dog sees Microsoft as a fading power, Apple mobile platforms - and mobile platforms in general - as the next generation of user interface, and suddenly now he sees a future in it again. Intel is driving as hard as they can to be the thing that gives people what they want. Microsoft? Let's just say the KIN didn't work out and WP7 has a steeper hill to climb than it might have. What a difference a year makes.
I love my Samsung Epic Android phone, but obviously I know I would not have any such thing if both Apple and Google had not dared to bring us change, each in their own way.
That article was about Google's Nexus 1 phones. Remember that Google shopped its candybar phone to every phone vendor and they wouldn't take it, so Google made it, sold a grip of them, and ushered in all this sweet tech we enjoy today. If they had not done so when they did, we'd not have seen the first good big-screen Android platforms until after WP7 launched, if ever. And now those phones are selling 20M units a quarter in the US alone, giving 44% market share, driving every phone vendor that builds it into profitability or record profitability, giving US non-AT&T networks a phone to sell that isn't absolutely pathetic, and putting money in the pockets of a vast economy of app developers and advertising buyers (and of course, Google).
The message is pretty clear. If Google gives you a reference platform, Run With It! Refusing is not going to keep them from bringing new tech to market. They don't want the manufacturing and retail money because they want to leave that business to their partners. It's a messy customer service business with low leverage. It's not their strong point. But if their partners won't give us progress, they aren't averse to bringing it directly and reaping a few billion in hardware revenue along the way. Microsoft and Intel used to be able to prevent progress, to prevent "cannabilization" of their established markets. But now those days are done. Vendors used to be able to hold off the releases with "tomorrow, tommorow" and "any day now". Any more? No. That's not going to fly. We'll have progress now whether the established hardware vendors are ready to give it or not. There will be no stalling any more.
/this is me agreeing with you.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
OK. So you are not afraid of Google spying on you, but you would be afraid of government agencies spying on you? Have you thought about that the government agencies may ask Google to hand them over your data set once they get interested in you? I just checked the dashboard. I agree that's not what you are afraid of. What you are afraid of is the data that can be generated by doing a sophisticated search on the complete data base. For instance the one that is a time profile of you telling what you did every minute you were using a computer or you had your android phone switched on. This one will tell which web site you surfed (=google-searched) from which IP address at what time and where you were (GPS in your phone) every minute. I am sure the search could be carried out using many different interesting parameters.
I admit I am guessing a bit here. Correct me if you know more details. But I think this kind of fantasizing will be important to assess how dangerous or not dangerous this data eating of companies like Google is.
Is there a market for these devices? There sure is.
In this very house I have two notebooks that only run a Web browser. This is because they are used to access news, Web-based email and nothing else. You can do a lot today with just a browser.
I'm sorry, you must be confused. This is Slashdot. We only tolerate one of any sort of device for all uses. Therefore, if a web-browsing only netbook appears, that means that all computers henceforth will be just like this. Gone are the days of building your own PC, running an OS of your choosing. All computers will be running ChromeOS by the end of the year. So, let's pile on with a thousand and one use cases where this device isn't appropriate. Only then can we stop it and maintain the status quo in computers.
Let's see. Astronauts. I don't see astronauts flipping around in space using ChromeOS. If the ISS were run on ChromeOS, everybody on board would be dead in three seconds. Antarcticians. Last I checked, there wasn't very fast broadband available on Antarctica. ChromeOS cannot overtake the industry until they get FIOS to the penguins down south. My great-grandma in the ICU on a ventilator can't be checking her Facebooks with this thing. They don't even want me to wear a watch in the room with her! Clearly, ChromeOS just isn't ready for primetime. Until they resolve these and many other ridiculous things I can come up, nobody should touch it. Please, for the sake of my gram-gram, don't go near ChromeOS.
I've been shopping myself and in the process have discovered something. I want an ipad. given that I won't settle for anything else unless it's just no-brainer cheap. that is, I find myslef looking at the $169 android 2.2 pads and thinking-- boy I bet these will be below $100 by January and I can wait. Then that would be worth buying. But if I'm paying more than $200 then I'm going to go all the way up to an ipad.
Which is funny to me since I did not know that would be come so clear to me. It's either ridiculously cheap or an ipad. aything with the similar or even better specs than an ipad has no interest to me if the price is within $300 dollars. I know from experience that the apple experience is well worth $300 in non-wasted effort. THat is apple products are things you use not things you dick around with trying to make work. On the other hand $100 is just fun money and the chance to dick around and make it work would be more of a fun hobby.
It's the in between prices that are have no appeal no matter what the specs. There is this dead zone between cheap fun and luxury.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
And THIS is why we won't be using Chrome OS for any of our company's private data. No, we aren't in Google's RADAR (yet) but we are a rapidly growing company, growing close to 100% this year, and with all indications of accelerating growth in the future. At what point does this privacy suddenly matter?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
It seems that half of Slashdot would have no problem with Google taking over the world as long as their mind control servers were running Linux.
Obviously it will have wifi but integrated 3G would raise the game.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
As a concept I do not think it is going to fail - even in Podunct Tennessee (of which many places I am around certainly qualify, though I live in "metropolitan Tennessee" as much as it exists) you pretty much have total coverage. Yea I have relatives without electricity, without running water from municipal pipes, and all sorts of "primitive things" but they *choose* to do so in nearly every case. I can't think of any of them that could not go someplace that had those modern conveniences if they truly wanted and, frankly, the ones that rig up DC generators, an array of car batteries, and have homemade dc/ac converter to run their TV and computer (which gets a cell phone tower) understand those mystic things called "computers" better than their so referenced more advanced relatives. Indeed it is amusing to hear them talk - a rare mix of truly uneducated and truly knowledgeable.
If internet connectivity is the make/break part of this it is there good enough - after all it isn't like this is the first or only device to rely on the "cloud". It doesn't take a PhD in Computer Science to figure out how to cope with the example you give - indeed apps do so today and it is part of the standards of any technology that relies on cloud computing.
The bigger issues are why? Android and iOS do pretty much everything one would want on such a slim device - why go with *another* software stack like ChromOS? Yea, it "does" more but then there are netbooks which are 105% harder to lug around and do 150% the tasks. Of course I have to add I still find tablets to be in the same boat - the few people I know that love them have all the issues I do lugging a laptop around yet have none of the benefits - yet they think they are grand. I'll wait and see - however the occasional disconnect is *not* going to cause the issues you describe even on current products. Nor is coverage that spotty either.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
As somebody who just lost a bunch of data due to faulty backup disks,
Wrong, wrong, wrong!!! Never admit to have lost data. NEVER!
Always hold your head high and pretend nothing ever unsettles you. Seem so absolutely self-assured to make people puke from envy.
Learn from me, learn.
You could secretly move to a corner to hide and sulk for awhile. It releases tension and you probably will feel better. But the data remains lost forever.
(I might know a person who did exactly this.)
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Well, yes and no.
Chrome OS, yes, only support apps that run through the Chrome browser. But one of Google's focuses with the Chrome browser, even before they announced Chrome OS, was to enable browser-hosted apps to do things that, at the time Chrome was introduced, only native apps could do. Browser based storage (now part of HTML5), pushing javascript execution speeds, Native Client, and all the other features Chrome have pushed have been about enabling the browser as a full-function application platform.
Yeah, if you don't need a keyboard, a tablet is more useful than a netbook (of course, a number of vendors are putting together Chrome OS-powered tablets, too.) As far as capability, what can native apps do on iPad or Android that Chrome OS apps can't do?
A netbook is a much more convenient form factor than a tablet + a separate keyboard if you have to type frequently. As for web-only, well, perhaps that will be a limitation that impacts some users, but, again, Google has been working hard with Chrome and Chrome OS to reduce the distinction between the browser and any other application platform.
Comments like this getting modded to 5 show the general ignorance of slashdotters. First, you've never seen the device so you have no idea how it will work. Second, even if it were web service based, Google has already released apps and software components (e.g. gears) that work without connectivity. It's called synching folks
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
It is what it is; geeks (for better or worse) may be responsible for creating the technology, but in an era dominated by computers even people who "have a life" need to have an basic awareness of computer security practices. The problem is that people are lazy, afraid of change, or just plain stubborn. Every new technology has a breaking in period, but computers have been in the home for over thirty years. It's time people get with the program.
Jesus loves me, he loves me a bunch, because he always puts Jiffy in my lunch.
IIRC Mozilla Prism only allows to load web pages ("applications") in a seamless window (what a bunch of CEOspeak).
That is, it provides a browser window without any controls (only the frame and title window) that can be used to load specific web pages as "apps".
I use it to load a specific Office.live.com excel sheet for logging my daily activities.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
I for one welcome a 4th operating system on the market. Sure took long enough. (I know I know, some people are going to say "what about VMS? I still use it", etc.)
I'm holding out for the HURD notebook
but I like to flaunt my genitalia online?
I have to agree, even though I see it the other way around.
The problem is not that everyone has something to hide, the problem is that there are entirely too many asshats that think that they are entitled to access to your secrets.
~men are from earth. women are from earth. deal with it.~
Well, its more or less the definition of a troll post. No content. Just a derogatory remark. It doesn't mater if he's right or not, its how the post was written.
If he believes it, it's flamebait. If he doesn't believe it, it's a troll. Both are negative mods so the penalty for misapplication is pretty low. Go forth and moderate with an understanding of the language, grasshopper.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
why is parent modded flamebait ?
Read radical news here
Nice thought, but I'm afraid unless they have changed things you CAN'T "SWare Iron" out the nasty, because it has both signed key and hardware checks "for security purposes" to insure you don't run a "hacked" OS. If you would like to read more here is the only thing I could find that wasn't just more press releases. Allow me to quote some of the relevant bits "If unsigned software is about to be launched, the OS halts and is restored to clean state." And from the looks of the diagram they have the signatures are used before anything but the firmware, so my guess is jailbreaking one will be quite difficult without bricking it.
If anyone has more info please post it, as looking for anything chrome related just came up with mounds of press releases for me. Also where does this leave Android? I've seen more and more small devices running ARM powered by Android, and this seems to be in direct competition at least on the ARM front.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
can it evolve to a competitor for ms oses on pc platform in future ? i would very much prefer to have an os that supports all open standards, doesnt lock features (like directx10-11 business), and lightweight (without all those drm shit).
Read radical news here
Maybe I'm not understanding TFA, or maybe I'm just muzzy in the head at 4 AM, BUT if a Chrome OS notebook is being released this month (Nov.), then how can it be said that Google is releasing Chrome OS in December?
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
I moved away from XP about 4 years ago. I wanted a laptop that just -worked-, and the low quality buggy, virused windows machines definitely weren't it. I didn't want to tinker forever with linux, so had to wait until the business could afford a mac (http://www.gamersloot.net , get your Cataclysm key early to beat the rush ;) ). Burning crusade came out, business was good, and off I switched.
Have loved my mac ever since, great support, and the software pretty much just... works. But. I am worried about the direction Apple is heading in. Picked up an ipod since there wasn't(isn't?) much else out there. However when phones came out, I couldn't justify the lock-in of the iphone. Bid my time and jumped on the Nexus one when it came out. Love it.
Interface ease of use is pretty much the same as my gf's Iphone (yeah I know, i'm a reformed geek... don't wanna tinker with linux and have a gf!), yet I don't need to worry that google is going to take away functionalities from it. (And for books, sorry but nothing beats the Kindle. Still using my 1st gen and loving it =b)
Enters Chrome OS. I'm guessing it'll be a -whole lot- cheaper than a macbook/pro and that... it'll work. Employees in the philippines will be able to use those without worrying about the ubiquitous viruses passed on by friends and anyone that plugs in a USB.
The question is, (similar to Android's speedy rise?) how long before Chrome OS is popular and mature enough that all basic/popular programs are available on it? (YM, Skype, image/video tools, games etc). Couple years?
Not in a hurry to move from my M.Pro, but heartened to see Google entering the space. I expect it's just a question of time. While it's easy to criticize, I sure have appreciated Goggle's approach to most things a whole lot more than Microsoft, or even more recently Apple.
--
http://www.gamersloot.net/
Yes, now go drive in reverse on the highway and when you hit someone tell them it's the car manufacturers' fault. A very advanced piece of technology like a computer requires some learning. If the person refuses to learn, I refuse to fix their computers for free.
Getting malware has (usually) nothing to do with buggy software. The software is performing what it was designed to do: run the programs the user tells it to run. It's not the program's fault the user is ignorant. (Yes, I'm excluding drive-by malware where the user only opens a website to get it to install. From my experience, these are extremely rare).
Dilbert RSS feed
(subj). That is all I need to know
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
that's why people put up with itunes.
The first thing I do when I update AdBlock / NoScript etc is check that G-analytics and other default-whitlisted sites are still removed, as I did when I first read about them being whitelisted.
Knowing is half the battle.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
I for one welcome a 4th operating system on the market
Wait, isn't ChromeOS basically an application running on top of Android? To call an application running on a Linux distro an OS is a kind of an overstatement. Wait till the Debian bunch start calling it a GNU/ChromeOS.
Chrome OS is probably not intended to stay on smaller devices like netbooks forever. It looks as if its more lined up to compete against Windows and Apple on desktops eventually.
They overlap somewhat between tabs and netbooks but thats not really a problem.
HTTP/1.1 400
Do you know what Chrome OS is? Its a browser for an operating system, without net access it may as well be a brick.
Do you know what a netbook is? I'll give you a clue: there's a hint in the name. Without net access you may as well buy a decent computer.
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
For a brief lesson in how to read a comment out of context and make a totally stupid reply, please see the above comment.
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
Please, for the sake of my gram-gram, don't go near ChromeOS.
Shit, I just installed it in a virtual machine (Parallels has a menu item, "Download Chrome OS").
I hope your gram gram is ok!
music lover since 1969
I'm tired of those people as well. I can't help but understand computers as I use them. I'm annoyed if I don't understand how to fix something I broke but more annoyed at other people who refuse to care to look into their reality and see how the shit they use works. That's why I got them to use Macs... Harder to accidentally click fuck your computer to death; it's like there is a dummy condom on Mac's. I believe the people you refer to are those who "have no brains". I have a life, it's got nothing to do with that. If I lived in China for 10 years or more, I sure as shit would pick up speaking Chinese ! Those assholes who don't learn the native language and walk around like fucktwits are the ones with no life.
You think google is that stupid? Really?
You don't think apps will be cached locally and then the cache synced w/ cloud when connectivity returns.
I think the advantages of Chrome Os are for a completely different class of computer than Windows, or even iOS or Android.
Let's use for base hardware the Apple TV. It has the same processing capabilities as the iPad and considering Apple's love of high profit margins, is probably way cheaper to make than $99. This means that you could probably release equivalent hardware with a wireless mouse and keyboard for about the same price. What that adds up to is if you have a HDMI compatible screen, you could add Chrome OS to it for less than the price of a Windows license.
To the people who think of Chrome OS as a useless, stripped down OS:
Sure, Chrome Os probably won't see much life on a modern desktop, but the potential this has to bring the internet, simply and securely, to almost every other screen in a home is something I won't dismiss so easily. Having spent more on some adapter cables than the hardware this OS could require, I am curious to see how the final product turns out.
An ARM version of Windows won't let you run third-party binary exe-s compiled for Intel CPUs.
If I had to guess GP is probably referring to this: http://www.compukoko.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/kohjinsha-dz-610-x-320-300x157.jpg
You do realize the majority of those "Windows" printers, webcams, mice, keyboards, and joysticks will also work with another OS?
Google has ChromeOS. Google has Android. What the hell are Google doing releasing two disparate operating systems like this? It confuses everyone and I suspect it's the result of two camps within Google fighting a turf war. It certainly doesn't seem like a coherent strategy whatsoever. For the life of me I can't understand why the touted features of ChromeOS (e.g. webapps) couldn't be integrated into Android. It's not like Android is some bloated legacy OS - it would be perfectly suited to notebooks with relatively modest changes to address the different form factor & inputs.
Im not sure what your point is, the levels of sarcasm elude me. The OP clearly has no knowledge other than from the summary but is making market predictions. It may as well be gibberish.
Also netbooks are currently better than my laptop from 5 years ago, which was definitely worth the money.
They are made of paper.
A laptop computer, otoH, could.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Their only use is print publications.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I'm annoyed if I don't understand how to fix something I broke but more annoyed at other people who refuse to care to look into their reality and see how the shit they use works.
Yes, I say that no-one should be allowed to drive unless they can strip a car down to its component parts and re-assemble it to better-than-factoy specification.
Also, only carpenters should be allowed to use wooden desks and tables, and if you're not both an architect and construction worker, you shouldn't be allowed to live in a house.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Well, its more or less the definition of a troll post. No content. Just a derogatory remark. It doesn't mater if he's right or not, its how the post was written.
If he believes it, it's flamebait. If he doesn't believe it, it's a troll. Both are negative mods so the penalty for misapplication is pretty low. Go forth and moderate with an understanding of the language, grasshopper.
So what you're saying is that in any Google-based topic, any criticism of Google is automatically either flamebait or a troll even if it's correct?. Funny how that doesn't work if it's a Microsoft-based topic, isn't it?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Why is this modded as a troll?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
(I have it running on an X41 which permanently sits by my pillow. Great when you wake up at 3AM and just need to look at a site or fire off an email)
Or alternatively, you could get a life.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The benefits that ChromeOS touts boil down to fast boot and web apps. I don't see either as things that couldn't be integrated with Android.
Your analogy's are like rebuilding the kernel or hex editing. I'm talking about when you are stuck because your car broke down or tire blew. And you don't even know how to use a jack or what a spark plug is. You apparently can't even grasp a simple analogy so, there is no wonder you defend the stupid. My native language understanding analogy was about functional use not about writing poetry or arguing philosophy! You can't drive unless you understand what a tire is at the least! These moronic computer illiterate are lazy; Like a driver who doesn't want to know what a tire is or how to fill it, never mind road signs. If it wasn't for licensing there would be morons out there like that! So STFU with your useless inaccurate, cross analogies because they only highlight your stupidity.
No surprises... the average Windows laptop sold last year for about $550 in the USA.... probably close to $500 once the numbers are tallied for 2010. And that doesn't include Netbooks, which were tracked as a separate class. That says something about the functional price of things like ChromeOS and non-Windows Tablet systems. Ok, sure, Apple has a fairly large zombie following who will shell out far more for a glorified iPod, but I would be surprised if the price on these things didn't settle in at or below that of a typical Netbook.
-Dave Haynie
Since Google's CEO has openly stated that the long term strategy is forAndroid and ChromeOS to converge, I would expect that there it is not by accident that every feature and advantage of one is something that could be integrated in the other.
How the fuck did you think non-WebGL games would work?
By being rewritten line-by-line in JavaScript using WebGL.
heya,
Lol, this was personal backups which mean a lot to *me*, but I doubt to anybody else. I have very critical stuff backed up on Dropbox, this was some periphery stuff that happened to be in $HOME, and I hadn't moved across.
Annoying, and I'm kicking myself, but s*it happens.
And I don't have so much hubris that I'm not afraid to admit I make a mistake. *shrugs*. Maybe you're that arrogant ? I don't know.
Also, at the end of the day, I have neither the budget, nor the time, to make sure the harddisk on my laptop is real-time synchronised to redundant storage in multiple datacentres. Dropbox provides that to an extent (it's based on Amazon S3), and Google provide it in a different way (they get you to use their full application stack).
My lesson is this - I hear enough about SANS and heavily replicated storage systems via work (I work for an IB, so let's just leave it at that). Outsourcing my personal storage needs to a company, that's supplying it for free for targeted advertising is, at least to me, a good value proposition.
Cheers,
Victor
I do agree with you, however, reality being what it is, its just unlikely to happen.
expecting it to happen is therefore foolish.
that's my opinion anyway. we must work with what we have...
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
This "SRWare Iron is necessary to prevent evil spying" myth has been around for ages, and it seems like every time its mentioned, someone replies with a thorough rebuttal of that ridiculous claim. I would like to know, for example, why you would trust an unknown 3rd party's compiled binary-blob Chrome [ / OS] over Google's-- like your rootkits much? Why not just download and compile Chromium [OS]?
Suffice it to say Chrome with default settings is BARELY if any more intrusive than ANY other browser with its default search engine (suggestions anyone?). Chop off the malware protection, dns prefetch, and translation features, and youre on par with IE8, firefox, and any browser with yahoo or bing or google as default search. Not to mention that about 4 clicks turns off EVERY bit of communication to google that is not explicitly requested....
Perhaps joke is on me replying to an AC, but if it means (perhaps) another nail in the coffin of this stupid, overused, and wrong complaint, then its worth it to me.
hey look, I'm a software engineer and yes I fix my family and friends computers for free (because i'm nice and I care about them). but I understand both sides of the issue.
My point was that we can moan about clueless users when the other side to the story is that it is the IT "professionals" that are responsible for the problem in one way or another, either by flawed software or by writing viruses.
A certain level of education would help, but we cannot expect the public to gain an interest in computers like we have.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
The problem is that there is a distinction at all. ChromeOS probably offers a superior browsing experience but it will be horrible in most other regards. Android is a remarkably rounded device but is suffering from lack of support for a burgeoning variety of PMPs, ereaders, tablets, netbooks etc. which are trying to use it. Google's message is really confused. Arguably as confused or worse as Microsoft supporting Windows Phone 7 AND Kin. It's confusing to everybody. It's clear that Android has longer legs than ChromeOS and to an outside observer it looks like two rival camps inside Google are having a turf war. The CEO should be killing one project and moving the good stuff into the other.
Then I sure wish we would stop hearing of Microsoft blocking products with exclusionary arrangements. When the netbooks were just getting going, we started hearing of Microsoft supplying sales people to various retail stores and then how those stores would no longer carry Linux based netbooks or PCs. What about the head of the Taiwanese manufacturing association stating that their manufacturers are afraid of Microsoft on PCs but not so much on things not like a PC?
And don't forget, companies as large as Intel and HP have been threatened by Microsoft and gave in to there wishes of NOT supporting competing technologies.
These are not excuses, they are a reality and I sure wish the non-geek community would open their eyes to how the market has been tuned by the monopoly in the room for the past 20 years. IMO
I've also heard directly from a product manager who was told to shut down a Linux based project because of how Microsoft would react to putting that product on the market.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Android is not a device.
Android's target market might be evident from the fact that it is owned by the Open Handset Alliance.
Its a free-to-use OS so companies in other markets might can choose to use it even if the OHA isn't targeting the market they are in, and its an open-source OS so those companies are also free to customize it to meet the needs of their market, but generally they are peripheral to the strategy for the OS.
Android is a handset operating system. ChromeOS is essentially a notebook/desktop operating system with a buffed-up web browser as the standard graphical shell.
Unlike some OS vendors, neither Google nor the Open Handset Alliance are particularly interested in stopping vendors from using either operating system outside of the principle target market, but each has a clear principal target market.
I think its more like Apple supporting both iOS and OSX.
Its not confusing to me. It doesn't seem to be confusing to hardware vendors. "You" != "everybody".
I don't think that's clear at all; its clear that Android is far more well established than ChromeOS is (which is not the same thing.) Which is one reason why it makes sense for Google to release ChromeOS separately: why saddle the established Android ecosystem with baggage related to a peripherally-related target market? Shared components and other positive synergies are possible without that, and the time for convergence is once you've got both well-established in their respective niches and can converge them without breaking the momentum that either has.
I would say that says more about the outside observer's lack of vision than any problem at Google.
I can see where that might seem to be the case to someone grounded in traditional management practices, unfamiliar with lean software development, and unable to see why you would have one faily conservative project aimed at meeting clear, well-established immediate needs and a riskier (but bigger potential payoff), longer-term project aimed at meeting more distant needs in a related or broader market that might eventually subsume the immediate one, and why you might want to keep those separate from (though informed by) each other.
So someone who isn't any of these doesn't use any OS whatsoever?
I am not devoid of humor.
Offline HTML5 technology allows (or will soon enough allow) you to visit some of the cached websites offline, most notably GMail and Google Docs. It's not quite a brick at that point.
I am not devoid of humor.
That is exciting! I rather have something by google that is easy to use vs Microsoft.. that isn't as user friendly!
Now if MS had a windows version for ARM
Microsoft does sell a Windows brand operating system designed for ARM CPUs. I've seen a kiosk in a local mall selling Windows CE netbooks. Don't they run the same collection of apps as Windows Mobile PDAs?
To cache the website requires a net connection, or a lot of hacking. Though it can still be used as a short range flashlight.
To cache the website requires a one-time connection to the website. After that, you'll always be able to reach it offline (unless you delete the cache), so sites you visit commonly are at least available offline at that point. Kind of like using an email client offline, or developing a website on localhost.
I am not devoid of humor.