Google's Chrome OS: The Fight Begins
Google made an announcement on July 7, 2009, – an announcement that almost 30 million users were eagerly waiting for. Google’s Chrome OS. Yes, they’re finally talking about it, and so is the close-knit technology user community.
An excerpt from the blog post iterates Google’s vision. “Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at Netbooks. Later this year, we will open-source its code, and Netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we’re already talking to partners about the project, and we’ll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now, so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.”
Popular belief dictates that Chrome OS is set to make a dent in mega-vendors’ (such as Microsoft) OS businesses; however, although we’d like very much to believe the same, practical scenarios dictate otherwise.
Our sister concern, Biztech2.com spoke to technology research company Gartner’s principal research analyst Diptarup Chakraborti regarding the new OS. Chakraborti said, “Google’s Chrome OS, from what we’ve seen so far, is touted to be a Microsoft killer, However, a simple analogy is due here; Google Chrome is no more a Windows Killer; than Google Docs was an Office Killer. I don’t particularly see it as a threat to Microsoft’s business, primarily because all said and done, Microsoft has already built its entire business and strengthened it using its retailer and partner network.”
Although Google has mentioned that the Os will initially be released for Netbooks followed by an OEM x86 release; however, analysts believe this to be somewhat ambiguous.
Google Ocean Shows The Effects of Climate Change
The same satellite technology that allows more than 500 million users to view everything from the Grand Canyon to a neighbor’s backyard is now helping them glide through the depths of the ocean, track a whale or compare reviews of their favorite dive locations.
The developers of Google Ocean – built using visual satellite images, sonar waves bounced off ships and data pooled from scientists and individuals – say it could also help highlight the effects of climate change on the seas.
But three months after its launch, the site has high resolution images of less than 5 percent of the sea – much of it from around the United States and Japan, where research facilities are collaborating closely with Google.
The site has time-delay photos that show the melting polar ice caps, Google’s chief technology advocate, Michael Jones said Friday on the final day of the World Ocean Conference in Indonesia.
Jones said the company is still recruiting teams to collect content that will improve nascent efforts to map the underwater world. He urged governments, scientists and divers to upload reviews, photos and even video footage.
“Those kinds of visualizations help people – not just a fellow scientist but everyday people – develop a certainty about the importance of changes that could affect their lifestyle or their ability to live at all,” he said.
Next to nothing has been uploaded on, for instance, Southeast Asia’s coral reefs, the largest and most biologically diverse in the world, which experts warned this week could be wiped out by the end of the century as water temperatures rise.
“If we help people see (the ocean) by helping scientists to show it, then people can at least have a dialogue about it,” Jones said.
Has Google's G1 Handset Undergone 'Plastic' Surgery?
Personally, I’m not a fan of Google’s first Android handset, the G1. However, it seems like others had the same opinion and reports are in that the G1 is heading for a rework. An image of this revised edition of the Android powered smartphone, being called Bigfoot, has been making rounds.
The new handset is built on the original design of a touchscreen headset with a slide-out QWERTY keypad. The handset’s lower portion or the “chin’ as it was called has been done away with (thank goodness). I was beginning to think of it as the Jay Leno of the mobile world. Since the image seems to portray a slimmer, sleeker device we’ll have to wait a bit to find out if the handset will still incorporate all the features like the 5 megapixel camera etc. so stay tuned.
Sony Reader Taps Google's Public Domain Books
Sony Corp is making available public domain books from Google to users of its electronic book reader, Sony said on Wednesday, vastly increasing the amount of available content on the device.
In the latest round of a budding digital book battle with Amazon.com Inc, Sony said that more than a half a million classic titles will be free to users of the Reader, which allows consumers to read books and newspapers on a hand-held device. That will boost the available titles in Sony’s eBook Store to more than 600,000, Sony said.
Sony sells two versions of its Reader, which competes directly with Amazon’s Kindle. Kindle users can access over 245,000 titles plus newspapers, magazines and blogs. Whereas Amazon touts its relationship with publishers and access to a wide range of best-selling titles – which generally cost $9.99 – as a selling-point for the Kindle, Google has sought to make its collection of public domain books widely available. Public domain books, whether Jane Austin’s "Persuasion" or Leo Tolstoy’s "War and Peace", are no longer protected by copyright. Last month, Google announced it was making the collection easily accessible to mobile devices such as the iPhone, and Amazon has said a similar move was afoot at the company. Sony Reader users will be able to read the Google books on their devices, or download a PDF file to read on a computer. The books are already accessible over the Internet at http://www.books.google.com.
Google Updates Chrome to Boost Speeds
Google released a new version of its Chrome Web browser on Tuesday, as the search giant continues its efforts to get a foothold in a market dominated by Microsoft Corp.
The new Chrome represents the first major update of the software aimed at the general public since Google entered the browser business six months ago. It offers Web surfers faster performance and a handful of new features, such as auto-filling of personal information on online forms and a new way for users to drag around tabs of different Web pages within the browser window.
Google was a distant No. 4 in the browser market, with 1.2 percent share of the worldwide market in February, according to market research firm Net Applications. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer dominates the market, with a 67. 4 percent market share in February, while the Mozilla foundation’s Firefox browser had a roughly 22 percent share. Apple’s Safari browser had an 8 percent share. Last month, Google officially joined the European Union’s antitrust case against Microsoft, describing the browser market as "largely uncompetitive." The EU has charged Microsoft with abusing its dominant market position by bundling its Internet Explorer Web browser with its Windows personal computer operating system.
According to a post on Google’s blog on Tuesday, the new Chrome beta loads certain types of Web pages 25 percent to 35 percent faster than the current version of the browser. The new features were previously available to programmers using the "developer" version of Chrome, but Google has now packaged all the updates together into a more reliable beta test version that is available for download. Google also has a more polished, so-called stable version of Chrome, based on the older beta version.