Previously,  we had shown you how you can install chrome OS on notebook, desktop PC using bootable USB and install Chrome OS on Virtualbox, vmware, this is the step further in that direction bringing full hadware support to MBA with nightly builds of Chromium OS.

Warning: This method does a clean install, you would lose all your data, make backups before proceeding.

How to Install Chrome OS on Macbook Air [Chromium OS]

Step 1: Download Chromium OS from hexxeh’s site here and extract it.

Step 2: Using dd, burn the download image of Chromium on a USB (check this guide)

Step 3: Plugin the USB and boot your Macbook Air along with OS X install drive.

Step 4: Hold the “C” key on your keyboard and simultaneously press the power button, moment you see the apple logo, you can now leave the “C” key.

Step 5: You would now enter wizard that guides you through installation. When done with language selection, you would enter the wizard.

Step 6. Click “Utilities” from top menu and select Terminal.

Step 7: Type the commands:

dd if=/dev/rdisk1 of=/dev/rdisk0 bs=4m count=512

Step 8: When done, hold down the power button till it powers off.

Step 9: Unplug the USB drives and now power on your Air. Wait for few seconds and you’re done.

What’s broken:

• Boot times are not as good as REal chromebooks (22 seconds vs 8s)
• Bluetooth doesn’t work (Coming soon)

Related: Try chrome OS features in Browser

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Google has, quietly, made the necessary upgrades to its webpages to support the new SPDY protocol reducing the page load time of Chrome for pages on its own servers by a stunning 50%. In effect, Google sites should load much faster in Chrome than in any other web browser.

SPDY incorporates features like multiplexed streams, request prioritization and HTTP header compression. To demonstrate the productivity. To be more precise, it’s 64% faster made possible as SPDY allows many concurrent HTTP requests to run across one TCP session and to make SLL the standard transport protocol.

Most of the shortcomings of HTTP were identified back in 1995, but little has been done to improve speed. As a result of that, both TCP and HTTP have evolved into a bottleneck of data downloads. HTTP is especially criticized for latency issues since HTTP can only fetch one resource at a time and servers cannot communicate with a client without a client request – and even then it can only support six connections at a time in most browsers. Apart from that, HTTP also uses uncompressed and redundant request and response headers.

SPDY Speed Improvements in Chrome
SPDY supports unlimited connection streams, with provision to proritize certain SPDY requests over others and even allows blocking overloaded channels. It also supports header compression and allows the server to communicate with a client without a client request.

SPDY is not much different, it still uses HTTP methods, headers and “other semantics.”, still using TCP.  The difference is in connection management and data transfer formats.

How to Benchmark SPDY Improvements

You can always see speed improvements by calculating pageloading times. But there’s another way to measure it navigate to chrome://net-internals in a Chrome and Click on “View live SPDY session” to see all SPDY connections.

Google would open source the complete implementation of SPDY, as soon as all looks baked.

In case you wish to test SPDY out, Download any Chrome browser (stable, beta, developer, canary, nightly build) and point it to any Google site, it should be significantly faster.

More on SPDY [official whitepaper]

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While having a Chrome OS Tablet was bit obvious, it was not sure that what would Google come out with first: Chrome OS Tablet or Android Tablet.

As per the latest leak, DownloadSquad reports that Google is building a Chrome OS tablet. The hardware is being built by HTC, leading to another OEM partnership with HTC after Nexus One.

Since  Chrome OS is a thin-client OS, a Browser, more precisely, it would heavily rely on internet usage being connected all the time. And that’s why they plan to offer it in conjunction with Verizon — Now we know what that Net neutrality move was all about.

Launch Date: Google plans to unveil this gadget on Black Friday – Novemebr 26th to be precise. No doubt, this would be the best day to  launch  a shiny new tablet with nation’s most reliable wireless network – Verizon.

Pricing: Its hard to say how much exactly, but, Google Chrome OS tablet will be heavily subsidized, with a Verizon data contract. It can be as low as $100.

The Hardware: As per the rumors, it will be powered by NVidia’s Tegra 2 platform that would power smooth HD videos and blazing graphics rendering for both gmaes & heavy, Rich web content. The display would essentially be a 720p (1280×720) multitouch display feeding on  2GB of RAM, & will posses large SD card starting all the way from 32GB SSD.

On the connectivity front, It would feature WiFi 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1, 3G EVDO/HSDPA 7.1 Mbps connectivity. There would be a good GPS, camera. The hardware would be good enough to amke everyone happy enough, just like they did with Nexus One.

But will it succeed? Most users would never leave native apps for the web apps? But who knows if google has something really awesome being cooked under the hood. Their acquisitions like BumptTop can bring 3D desktop environment to this tablet.

Even if it doesn’t I see good reasons to hack it to install Android 2.2 Froyo, Ubuntu Netbook Linux & may be Ubuntu 10.10 Multitouch in the future.

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How to Try Chrome OS Apps, Features in Chrome Browser

Step 1. To begin with,  add these command line switches to your Chrome shortcut, without the “quotes”:

“–enable-apps” : turns on extension apps, otherwise you’ll get an error when you try to install them.
“–apps-panel” : (optional) instead of loading the new tab page, Chrome will display a floating panel above the current tab

Step 2. Next we  install  some Google apps:

They’re hiding in a folder called resources — which you’ll find in your Chrome profile folder.

• On Windows, they reside in %localappdata%\Chromium\Application\6.0.428.0\Resources.
• Linux /opt/google/chrome/resources/.

Step 3. Head to your Google Chrome extensions tab (chrome://extensions) and make sure you see the developer mode buttons above. If you don’t, click the plus next to the text to reveal them.

Step 4. Now click “load unpacked extension” and browse to location you found in step 2. Click into the folder of the app you want to install (like gmail_app), then click OK. If the install is successful, Chrome will refresh your Extensions page and you should now see the icon for the app.

Step 5: Loading app: Open new Tab and click one. There you have it — the new tabs that  use full-color .PNG images which are packed with the apps. Overall, the Google apps seem to work the same as a pinned tab — just with nicer icons and ease of access. You can try the same for other apps.

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As we know, Chrome OS is essentially Google’s Chrome web browser running atop a Goobuntu flavor of Linux (Ubuntu). It will not run local applications other than the browser itself. All other apps will be accessed inside the browser. Of course having a browser optimized from kernel level will give out exceptional performance.

Read more: Chrome OS Factsheet, Why its Relevant and Irrelevant

Now as per the latest update form one the Google employees, Chrome OS will provide remote access to “legacy PC applications” through a mystery process the company calls Chromoting.

In a message posted to Chrome OS Google groups, He wrote “We’re adding new capabilities all the time, With this functionality (unofficially named ‘chromoting’), Chrome OS will not only be [a] great platform for running modern web apps, but will also enable you to access legacy PC applications right within the browser.”

Gary, the author, calls this an “official” statement.

Neither Google nor Gary has responded to requests for comment. He’s been at Google since 2006, before which he was with Microsoft.

Chromoting would be “something like” Remote Desktop Connection, the Microsoft Windows service that gives you real-time access to distant PCs. Presumably, this means that Chrome OS will let you access applications running on your existing Windows, Linux, or Mac desktop.

The OS is not due for official release until the end of the year, when it will debut on netbooks.

Chromium OS source code includes references to a “chromoting plug-in,” and Gary mentions chromoting code during recent Chromimum IRC discussions.

Some other clients like Logmein.com, etc do something similar in the browser. Presumably, Google will include this sort of mini-client with Chrome OS as a plug-in, and you’ll then download a larger client on your existing desktop PC in order to access its Remote desktop & applications.

With Chrome OS, Google is intending on keeping everything inside the browser. Apart from what Google says, its a financial interest in moving more activity and more data onto the net: more web activity means more web ads, which mean more revenue.

Recently, we saw Remote printing from Chrome OS by routing jobs through its servers and back down to normal desktop PCs that, unlike Chrome OS, run print drivers.

Apart from Chromoting, Google had bee testing NaCl (Native code execution) by dynamically  compiling javascript, html, css into native code and pump up execution. This could boost web applications to perform as good as desktop applicaitons.

The Native Client called  NaCl is an open source initiative that targets on running x86 native code in web apps. Now Google has taken a  step further by integrating  NaCl into Chrome. Google has blessed the browser space with a unique feature that could pave future of Chrome OS, by running applications on the net.

Google intends to align web apps closer to native apps on a typical x86 operating system – Sincerely, I see this as the first step to Chrome OS.

> More at Google Chrome gets Native Code Execution with Native Client

Some might call this progress. Others might call it a workaround, we’ll have to wait a little longer before we can conclude.

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3D desktops can add a lot of utility to your multitasking. We’ve seen how we can get a 3D desktop on Ubuntu, Bumptop adds the third dimension to both Windows and Mac to make it look like a “Real world desktop”. You can create visual “piles” of files or stick notes to the wall, size design, layout everything is there after fully customizable. In addition, there’s also a cool search feature that’s invoked simply by typing.

Watch the video, Experience speaks for itself:

But wait a minute, What’s Google going to do with BumpTop?

Google hasn’t said anything about the deal yet. The most likely area seems to be its upcoming Chrome OS or even Android operating system for smartphones and more evidently the upcoming Chrome OS/Android Tablet PC.

BumpTop can give facelift to Android/Chrome OS’s interface giving it a step ahead of Apple’s iPad and iPhone.

BumpTop raised $1.65 million in funding.  The acquisition price was probably between $35 and $40 million, confirmed figure is still unavailable.

Ironically, BumpTop was also part of Microsoft’s BizSpark program, which offers free software and mentoring to startups.

[via BumpTop]

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From what analysts predict, Google can give a competition to Apple with it’s Tablet powered by Chrome OS or even Android, former being more evident.

Chromium project have created some impressive  mockups of what Chrome OS would look and feel like on a tablet form factor.

These mockups were put together by Glen Murphy, Google Chrome’s designer, but it’s not an official google thing. But, there’s a good chance that the final version of Chrome OS will resemble this.

Checkout the Concept video after the break:

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How to Install Chrome OS [VMWare VirtualBox]

Tip: If you are totally new to chrome OS: What is Chrome OS – Everything you need to know.

If you have tried Virtualized version and doubted the speed, you must give the USB version a try:

Download [torrent]

Here’s how to Write the Image on the USB:

For Windows:
Unzip using WinRar, Download Image Writer and launch it, select the image (chromiumos.img) and your USB drive letter from the drop down box. Click “Write”. The install image will then be copied to the drive. Once it’s done, close the program and you can then boot from the USB drive.

For Mac:
Firstly, unmount the drive you want to install Chromium OS to. Place the downloaded file onto your desktop. Open System Profiler, click USB on the list at the side and then select the entry that represents your USB disk. Now look for the BSD Name column (http://bit.ly/5mG4WK). Remember what is written here. In my case, it is disk1, but in yours it may be different. Take care here as if you get it wrong, it could seriously mess things up. Once you have this, open up Terminal and
type the following commands.

cd Desktop
tar -zxvf chromiumos.tar.gz
cd chromiumos

For the next command, replace X with the name of the disk you found earlier, ie disk1.

sudo dd if=chromiumos.img of=/dev/X bs=4m

This command will ask you to enter your password (the same one you enter when installing
software for example), type it in and press enter. This command will take a while to run,
about 20 minutes for me, and then will give you your shell prompt back once it has finished.
Once it has, you can remove your USB drive and boot from it (but not on your Mac because
I’ll tell you now that won’t work, yes I tried it)

Troubleshooting:

If It says “Resource Busy“!, You forgot to dismount the drive. Do this, then retype the command and you should be fine.

For Linux:
Extract chromiumos.img and run the following command in the same directory as the file, where X is the device name of your USB drive.

sudo dd if=chromiumos.img of=/dev/X bs=4M

Once the command finishes, you can then boot from the USB drive.

[credits: hexxeh]

Whatever the case is, we now know that two upcoming technologies: Android and Chrome OS are going to converge at some point in the Future.

Photo credit: engadget

How to Install Chrome OS [VMWare VirtualBox]

Still, it’s hard to wonder where Android and its growing application base fits into Google’s long-term OS strategy especially after seeing several ARM-based smartbook prototypes running Google’s smartphone OS. Fortunately, Sergey Brin shed some light on this topic in a candid statement following the Chrome OS event.

According to CNET, Brin said that Android and the Chrome OS “will likely converge over time,” noting the common Webkit and Linux foundation of both operating systems.

On the contrary, listening to Google CEO Eric Schmidt attempt to explain the difference between Google’s operating systems in a recent CNET interview leaves us wondering if the correct message is delivered within Google itself. I might be wrong at this but they don’t seem to have a clear idea of its target markets as smartphone and laptop functionality continues to converge across devices.

Schmidt affirms that it’s too early to tell how the OSes will be used and prefers not to “prejudge the success” of each. “The future will unfold as it does, and the open-source community will determine the natural fit.” Indeed, I loved that answer more than any other. Let Open Source world do it, their own way.

Checkout the video:

What do you think ? Does he have a point there?

What is Chrome OS – Everything you need to know.

Now the curiosity rises to try the OS yourself. As Google announced, it needs special hardware which will be available at end of next year. For the meantime, you can Virtualize the OS and run it under VMware or Virtualbox.

You can either download the source (Download) and trying building it (if you are an developer) else download binaries directly and run them under VMWare/Virtualbox.

Step 1. Download The Image from this torrent or this one. You can also try out the build that GDGT has uploaded. The former way needs registration.

Step 2. Download VMWare Player or VMWare Fusion or VirtualBox and run it.

Step 3. Unzip the downloaded image. In VMware/VirtualBox and create a new virtual machine. One of the options will be to use an “existing virtual disk.” (In VMware Fusion, this is the last option below, “use operating system disk” and “use OS disc image file.”). Make sure your VM is set to use bridged networking, rather than NAT.

Step 4. Login to Chrome OS with username and password which is nothing but  your Google account!

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Chrome OS will come a year from now. So,  Here’s what we know:

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks” and “most of the user experience takes place on the web.” That is, it’s “Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel” with the web as the platform. It runs on x86 processors and soon on ARM processors too. It’s more secure than any Browser has ever been.

What Exactly it is

• Basically, just a browser: There are no native applications, everything is the browser. It’ll be based around preexisting web services like Gmail, Google Docs, and so on. There are going to be no conventional applications, just web applications—nothing gets installed, updated, or whatever. Seriously.

• Runs web apps, only: It’s going to integrate web apps into the operating system deeper than we’ve ever seen before, meaning that a) they’ll seem more like native apps than web apps and b) they’ll be able to tap into local resources more than a typical web app in Firefox, for example. They’re web apps in name, but they’ll have native powers. If you run some hardcore apps like Photoshop, Eclipse, VisualStudio, forget chrome os.

• How, exactly?: With HTML 5, and other marvelous features of Chrome. This is the next version of HTML, which gives the browser more access to local resources like location info, offline storage—the kinds of things you’d normally associate with native apps. More on that here.

• “Chrome” Experience: The user’s experience with Chrome OS will basically be synonymous with their experience on Chrome Browser. Technically speaking, Chrome OS is a Linux-based OS, but you won’t be installing Linux binaries like you might on Ubuntu or some other Linux distribution. Any “apps” you have will be used within the browser. Chrome OS is effectively a new version of Chrome, that you can’t leave. There are a few reasons Google’s pushing this, which we’ll get to in a bit.

• And as you’ve probably guessed, it’s super-light. It starts up in a matter of seconds, and boot straight into the browser.

• Normal hard drives not supported, just solid state storage. Hard drives are dying, sure, but this is pretty bold. Hardware support sounds like it’ll be pretty slim, because:

• Chrome OS Hardware: You might be able to hack this thing onto your current machine (atleast for now), but you won’t just be able to install it to replace Windows, or opt for it on your next laptop, for example. You’ll have to buy hardware that Google approved and consulted on. With a small hack, we would be able to run chrme OS on VirtualBox.

• For now(atleast), it’s for dedicated netbooks. It’s not intended for desktops, to the point that Google is saying that the first generation of Chrome hardware will be secondary machines. But a hack will make it possible on any device.

The User Interface

• It looks like Chrome browser—specifically, like the leaked shots we saw before. As in a browser, you have tabs—these have to serve as a taskbar as well. To the left of the tabs, you have a sort of start menu, which opens up a panel full of shortcuts. These are your favorites. These are your apps. (Get used to this weird feeling, btw. That Google whole point here.

• You can pop-open smaller windows integrated into the main window like chat windows or music players, to sit above your tabs at all times. Just like you do it in GTalk web chat

• Apart from Tabs, you get virtual desktops. This means is multiple “windows” of Chrome OS to switch between, each of which is a different set of tabs.

When

Google’s on talking about dates yet—it’ll be sometime next year (mid or late). Executable builds will start appearing online, soon and for the time being, it would work in a virtual machine app like VirtualBox.

Verdict

With Chrome OS, Google is taking (or forcing) the operating system to go totally online in the Cloud. The idea here is to make the browser powerful enough to render the rest of the operating system, and its native apps.

It’s more pure than a lot of people expected: When Google said that Chrome OS would be centered around the web, I think most people just assumed it be a lightweight Linux distribution with deep integration for Google web services. It’s not that. It’s nothing more than a browser for a normal user.

But it’s a browser that runs different processes for each tab, that will have access to local OS resources, will to some extent work offline with caching. It’s not really a “browser” in the sense that we use the word. More verdict after a break.

[via]

What do you think ?

Google is hosting a press event at  its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters to update the world on its plans for world domination via the release of its second operating system (after Android), the Google Chrome OS. Google VP Sundar Pichai and Engineering Director Matthew Papakipos will reveal technical details and launch plans, and will have demos. Google will be streaming the announcement.

Webcast starts: November 19, 2009 at 10:00 AM PT

WATCH NOW or If you are on Windows Click here to Open in Media Player

After a long wait since July, this is company’s first talks over Chrome OS. The potential plan is to lay some technical background and excite the community with demos.

Google’s VP of Product Management: Sundar Pichai,  and Matthew Papakipos, will be seen as the engineers on stage.

From the last week, we had been hearing about Chrome OS launch this week. This still may be the case at this event, but it looks for now that the more complete launch will in fact take place next year. And if they are holding this event now with a complete overview, you can probably expect beta launch to be sometime on Jan or Feb.

Google first announced Chrome OS in July, but gave very few details about it. It seemed the idea there was more to drop a nuclear bomb on Microsoft, which was just about to announce its online free version of Office. In the subsequent months, interest has remained high for Chrome OS, but about all we’ve seen is what the OS’s browser may look like.

Chrome OS Factsheet, Why its Relevant and Irrelevant

The Verdict – The Future of Chrome OS and Windows.

Meantime get a glimpse of all our posts on Chrome OS under “suggested reading”

We’ll update you with more details on Thursday. So don’t forget to subscribe to us below:

Google Chrome with it’s latest dev version 4.0.220.1 is loaded with a number of expected fixes and surprisingly new innovative feature: the Native Client on x86 Windows OS.

The Native Client called  NaCl is an open source initiative that targets on running x86 native code in web apps. Now Google has taken a  step further by integrating  NaCl into Chrome. Google has blessed the browser space with a unique feature that could pave future of Chrome OS, by running applications on the net.

Google gets dual benefit from this- Developers can play around with the code and possibly add their contributions as new ideas, bug fixes. On the other side, they form the root of their OS that is already being innovated by the internal team. All in all, they get best of the worlds, the true spirit of Open Source.

Currently, the Dev preview version of the Chrome browser comes witht this functionality which is switched off by default, and needs a command-line switch added to enable NaCl when Chrome is launched.

How To Enable:

Navigate to the chrome folder and run chrome.exe with following arguments:

Windows 7: C:\Users\taranfx\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application

XP: C:\Documents and Settings\taranfx\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application

>chrome.exe –internal-nacl

For the rest of the guide on how to run the native code via browser, follow the google’s guide here. ]]> http://geeknizer.com/google-chrome-native-client-code-x86-windows/feed/ 6 http://geeknizer.com/hands-on-jolicloud-wants-to-be-chrome-os-runs-on-netbooks-based-on-linux/ http://geeknizer.com/hands-on-jolicloud-wants-to-be-chrome-os-runs-on-netbooks-based-on-linux/#comments Sun, 20 Sep 2009 17:12:10 +0000 Tarandeep Singh http://geeknizer.com/blog/hands-on-jolicloud-wants-to-be-chrome-os-runs-on-netbooks-based-on-linux/ Read more »]]> Chrome OS is scheduled for next year but we see some mocking done by Jolicloud, and to our surprise it’s good.

The current release of Chrome – 3.0 is not extendible or much developer friendly. Which beats Chrome way back as compared to Firefox. Google is brining the next big change in Chrome 4.0, that will accelearte the adoption.

Era begins with the Bookmarks synchronization service that comes as part of Google Accounts(released few days back). That service makes its first appearance today with the first Dev build of the browser to bear the number “4.” The announcement that Google’s open-source Chromium team had developed a library for hooking into Google Bookmarks came just two weeks ago.

Of course, that “4″ is not supposed to mean anything specific. Like a child who finishes cleaning his room the moment he shouts, “I’m finished,” there’s no specific reason for us to assume that Chrome 3, the subject of both the Dev and beta channels, will necessarily drop into the Stable channel anytime soon. When that happens sometime this week or this year, Chrome 2 users will wake up one day and find Chrome 3.

For now, the first Chrome 4 bears little difference from the previous developer build 3.0.197.11 except for continued acceleration (more on that in a moment) and the option to enable Google Bookmarks for testing. It requires a command line launch, as in chrome –enable-sync (Windows XP users can invoke Run from the Start menu); from there, the Sync my bookmarks command appears on Chrome 4′s Tools menu.

In typical Google fashion, the program ascertains as much as it can without asking the user what she wants. All the tool requires is the user’s account name and password. If bookmarks already exist in the account, then Chrome 4 imports them; if they don’t, the browser exports the bookmarks that already exist, into that account.

One more addon arrives that makes web users’ life easier – Xmarks Browser sync. This si the famous bookmark sync plugin on firefox, and now arrives to chrome, making  inter-browser syncing possible.

Step Towards Chrome OS

Google is demonstrating how it’s tailoring its browser to netbook users. They won’t be using their portable netbooks full-time, and Chrome may or may not be the browser they use on their PCs. Currently, the Google Toolbar on Internet Explorer and Firefox are capable of performing browser synching functions, provided you save your bookmarks in the Toolbar and not the browser (or import them into the Toolbar from the browser). Typically, these users will prefer to use the same brand of browser on their netbooks as on their main PCs, though an easy method to sync bookmarks between the two browsers automatically could compel netbook users to try Chrome instead.

In initial tests of the first Chrome 4 on our physical Windows XP SP3-based test platform, the browser scored a record 20.09 on our Betanews performance index, representing over 20 times the speed of Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista, running on the same machine. Improvements in JavaScript execution this round were only minor, but rendering speed continues to improve, although the latest Apple Safari 4 browser remains the fastest renderer in our test suite (4.53 versus 4.48).

The Chrome browser continues to lack some of the other features found in Firefox - the extensive Addons. However, we get the impression that we may start to see more of those features in the new Chrome 4 development track, and the unlimited Addons just like Firefox has today. These addons will fidn a good future for the Chrome OS.

Are they REally Real? I don’t know, but I`ll confess I like them – it looks like a simple web-centric experience.

A Dock at the Top which looks AJAXy in every way from the poitner at the bottom to the search box at the right.It could be REAL. or atleast the mocking is very close. I don’t care…they’re cool, and we’re only gonna keep prodding Google until we get to see the real thing.

All the apps in the dock — Browser, Gmail with IM, RSS, Maps, Calendar, News, Youtube makes sense. But what about Google Apps like Docs, Spreadsheets? Fishy.

Also, why isn’t any maximize or minimize button on chrome window? May be it maximizes by double-clicking title and minimizes from Dock.or may be it’s fake.

Following images are via Mashable.com

Palm is the most developer friendly mobile environment I have ever seen. Previously we mentioned Palm says, Feel Free to Jailbreak Palm Pre. That was the best example of why this is something different from what we have seen in the past. What’s more? Palm Pre MOJO SDK is very powerful and yet welcoming.

After all the reviews and opinions, I fell, The Pre isn’t a bad phone, but it’s simply not worth the $200 to $250 premium over the BlackBerry Curve, the T-Mobile G1, and the iPhone 3G.

One  close friends grabbed a Pre on June 30th, but it wasn’t until July 16 that I figured out where Pre, and Palm’s WebOS platform, actually fit in the market for professional mobile devices. On July 16, Palm released the SDK for WebOS, a set of tools and documentation that Palm had, inexplicably, withheld.

- Why, I wondered, did Palm want to keep the SDK out of power users’ and developers hands when the WebOS platform was all about the ease with which new applications could be created in JavaScript?

- Isn’t this something similar to what Google is thinking of in Chrome OS?
Is there a Mojo?
By theory, part of WebOS’s appeal is that a Pre user can edit script, HTML, and style sheet files to adapt the device to their liking, and the Web-based approach reached all the way up to the top level of the GUI.

If you look carefully, the idea is same as what Google had be touting about in Chrome OS.

The applications are written in web based languages, and they run inside your OS via browser like engine.

There had been alot of arguments who literally consider the idea of web languages to design applications to be flawed.

Wait a moment, think about it. Your web-based applications will give you certain features which you never imagined you can get –  Portable, Light-Weight & more Open Apps. I liked this idea, not just for individuals, but for broad corporate or organizational deployments of devices. I was OK with the Pre’s consumery feel, knowing it wouldn’t take much effort to clear out the gimmicks that cast a cheap pallor on the phone and make a professional user’s experience uneven.

Palm shipped Pre with a stable of 500 handpicked WebOS developers working under NDA, and Palm expanded the secret developer program twice, and yet, at the six-week mark, Pre’s on-phone App Catalog has not grown beyond 30 apps. Why weren’t these developers, working in easy JavaScript, cranking out all kinds of useful apps?

On the other hand, for other platforms, Web applications are easy to develop. I’m not talking about the handwritten or frameworks like DOJO, what I want you to consider is Toolkits like GWT (Google Web Toolkit). If you have no idea about it’s power, have a look at Google’s upcoming WAVE, which will transform the way you knew about Emails, IM, Social Networking, collaboration.

Going back to the mobile-WebOs platform, Palm’s proprietary WebOS JavaScript SDK, with standards-tracked HTML 5 as it’s being implemented across mobile and desktop browsers. I think that HTML 5, especially as implemented in Apple’s open source WebKit engine, on which WebOS is based, is now credible as a runtime for stand-alone applications. I need to take a hard look at Mojo to see whether and to what extent Palm reinvented the JavaScript application foundation that’s built into post-Safari 3.0 builds of WebKit.

Limitations and Target Market

I hear the silly arguments all the time, web based applications can never be as Graphic-Rich and powerful as Native-Desktop apps. I know that. It’s never a war between Desktop and web-based applications. IT’s about getting a new market, that we don’t have today. A new scope that will encourage a “Normal user” to use the applications more openly and freely with higher portability leveraging the Cloud-computing.

What does a normal user/business user need?

Email, IM, Docs, spreadsheets, Multimedia: HD Video, audio, Web tools, normal-graphics-games.

All that is possible via WebOS like Chrome OS. If you havent seen the Graphics magic in AJAX applications, have a look at ChromeExperiments. (works good only in Chrome). Future could be something like Nvidia TEGRA netbooks running Chrome OS. you ever thought about that? A low powered though highly capable Netbook running a Open Web OS, making battery life no longer an issue.

Open the World – Open The Gates
The Mojo SDK is all about creating, installing, and debugging locally hosted Web apps. But an unexpected part of the SDK kicks Pre into Developer Mode, which opens Pre’s Linux to remote login. Once in the Pre’s command shell, you discover how robust and open the Linux OS at WebOS’ base really is. I think that once Pre developers get into the SDK, they will fall prey to the allure of the command line, shell script, and C. There isn’t another mainstream mobile phone that is as effectively rooted at the factory.

On the Desktop side, GWT is capable of producing portable apps (via upcoming HTML 5 standard) to leverage browser based applications to run on native desktops. In a normal GWT project you write all the UI and logic in pure POJO Java, without worrying about the compatibility of browsers that you are often concerned about when writing with other frameworks.

But why Am I talking about GWT alone? why not other Toolkits? DOJO isn’t bad either

I never said other toolkits are bad. Others that exist today are fairly immature as compared to where GWT stands today. The SECRET is: GWT would be the base for applications developed for Chrome OS. Today Google just wants to experiment and commercial application (Google wave) and tomorrow there will be more.

Talkin about Pre – Competitors will probably be all over Palm’s (current) policy to permit Pre users relatively easy privileged access to the phone’s Linux. I think Palm handled it well; the Pre is invulnerable to remote access unless its owner follows a somewhat tedious process to activate Developer Mode, and Palm made locking the phone back down a one-touch operation.

The Future

Pre as a smartphone,  is the right price for an open mobile platform. I understand now why Palm was reluctant to let the SDK go public, but Palm’s little secret turned out to define Pre’s niche in the market. similarly google’s GWT was once looked with suspicion of being a java based UI development. And today, Wave’s demos has made it go beyond a normal user’s expectations.

I look forward to a more Open World where MOST of the basic applications we see Today would run Openly, proudly on the Web. The Future, is Open, portable and more Green-Tech. ]]> http://geeknizer.com/palm-pre-chrome-os-the-most-open-platforms-using-web-applications/feed/ 5 http://geeknizer.com/nvidia-steps-into-netbooks-with-its-tegra-platform-chrome-os/ http://geeknizer.com/nvidia-steps-into-netbooks-with-its-tegra-platform-chrome-os/#comments Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:32:45 +0000 Tarandeep Singh http://geeknizer.com/blog/?p=1458 Read more »]]> Nvidia Tegra was targetted for Smartphones, Why am I seeing a Netbook?

Tegra is a huge strength for portable gadgets like the upcoming Zune HD, and series of other portable gadgets demoed last year. But in a full-sized Netbook, it’ll have a hard time running media or multitasking. OS is a problem too—does anybody actually like Windows CE? Running Windows 7 or XP won’t be possible since they don’t have ARM distros.

What would have made more sense would be a Linux distro or Chrome OS, but even that’s kind of limiting the scope of the platform.

Anyways, Let’s look at what Nvidia has to offer with their powerful Smartphone Platform:

The Size: The “computer” itself is the size of a DIMM memory module and the Idea: Use powerful handheld technology to drive a Netbook experience. The Result: Ultra-thin form factors and an uber-long battery life expressed in days, rather than hours.

Overview of What you would get:

• HD movie playback
• Ultra Small computer platform
• Utra-low power
• Runs on Windows CE (Android is on the horizon)
• Full support for Internet Graphics

“Days of battery life”?

Yes, NVIDIA claims that its Tegra platform can play an audio file continuously for 600 hours (25 days!) assuming that the display is turned off.

Other smartphone-based platforms like Snap Dragon from Qualcomm would last only 60 hours, says NVIDIA.

The current proposed model is 13.3″, but expecting smaller in future won’t not wrong.

The Purpose: (Why Smartphone Platform on Netbook?)

Imagine things like real Instant-ON computers, just like you would get from a phone. That would work because the computer is never actually off. It consumes so little power that you can leave it in standby mode for a very long time. The whole computer system consumes 1W (cpu, graphics, motherboard), which is really small compared to even Netbooks, more of a comparable to gadgets like iPhone(if you include LCD too).

Of course, most of you would not expect to experience the same level of performance than you would from more familiar computers. It’s partly true. From what we’ve seen, application can load slower and overall, the early prototype seemed slower than a Netbook, but in some ways, the Tegra platform is more powerful than Netbooks.

The graphics sub-system is capable of playing 720p and 1080p movies at full speed a feature that only another NVIDIA powered Netbook can do. Most importantly, this graphics muscle is used to accelerate Adobe Flash, which is a critical component of a good web experience.

The only bad part, it runs Windows CE, which is arguably no one’s first choice, rather the last one. Because you cannot install Windows apps, NVIDIA presents Tegra and Windows CE as a web-apps friendly platform. Android and Android market might alleviate this situation later, but that’s far away (Android does not support high-resolutions like 1280×720).The prototype that I have seen runs Firefox with full Adobe Flash support. I have not had time to test some apps, but at the moment, I will assume that this version of Firefox can handle it.

If you rely on many desktop apps, this will be a serious issue.

NVIDIA is betting that the “low-power” value will outweigh the inconvenience of not having a “first choice” OS like Windows XP or OS X (Linux Netbooks have staggering customer return rate).

To help overcome this, the price will be very low: $199 range.

Questions: We will see how this will behave in the real world, where the display consumes many times the power than Tegra. How long will the battery life really be when tested in the field? Is the speed good enough? Is the experience good enough? Can we live with Windows CE?

Chrome OS: May be this is the best combination with Chrome OS. First developer test versions of Chrome OS will land around October end, just around the launch date of Tegra netbooks. If Chrome OS runs on Tegra ARM, it would be a remarkable success. When you get the best grpahics, Multimedia architecture for Chrome OS, the combination could be a Other-Netbook-killer.

Currently as per the Facts we know about Chrome OS, we don’t know if there be any support for ARM, specially Tegra ARM. But I heard that Nvidia would partner with Google for Chrome OS for Netbooks, we can’t really say what the plan is, but atleast Nvidia will get it running on their Tegra, after all Google is serious on getting the popularity that was once just hyped

Some Blogs like Gizmodo totally rejected the idea, quoting:

“Hey, Nvidia, just keep the Tegra in the industry where it suits the best, smartphones! “

But I would rather be positive, as the platform is promising. Chrome OS could make it a GO.

Yesterday It was no surprise to me when he Blasted on Google for Chrome OS. This time it was at Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans, he made his first public comments about Google’s Chrome OS — and to no one’s surprised, he’s not really moved by it. (P.S. He cannot be moved by a bulldozer too )

Here is a complete transcript of Ballmer’s comments as in Microsoft’s video of the conference based on Betanews:

First of all, I will be…what’s the right word?…I will be respectful. Who knows what this thing is? To me, the Chrome OS thing is highly interesting. It won’t happen for a year and a half, and they already announced an operating system. I don’t know if they can’t make up their mind or what the problem is over there, but the last time I checked, you don’t need two client operating systems. We tried it before – Windows 95 and Windows NT. It’s good to have one. So I can’t, I don’t really don’t know what’s up at Google.

Let me comment, though, about our own situation: What we really do understand is that the model of the future brings together the best of today’s rich client Windows-style applications and some of the things that people consider the best of the Web. People like the deployment model, you click on a link and you get your application deployed. People like the notion that, kind of, the globe from an information perspective, and a people perspective, is built in. And people like the richness and visualization and responsiveness and offline characteristics of the Windows applications. So as we talk about where we’re going, we don’t need a new operating system. What we need to do is to continue to evolve Windows, Windows applications, IE [Internet Explorer], the way IE works in totality with Windows, and how we build applications like Office, like the stuff we showed here, and we need to make sure we can bring our customers and partners with us.

The truth of the matter is, there’s good data that actually says that about 50% of the time, somebody’s on their PC, at least 50% they’re not doing something in the Web browser. So what we need is an operating system that brings local richness together with the Internet, and Windows is the operating system for the job.

There is an Irony here. This last comment is from the company who had at one time professed the “Fusion” of the Web browser with “Everything you do.”

Now if google does this first, Ballmer hates the concept. Now that was expected.

Taking a step ahead, let’s take a look at the few Facts we know about the Chrome OS at this point.  Later, we will look at the reasons why it can Matter for you and the reasons why it may turn out to be Irrelevant for rest of us.

Fact List:

• Segment Targetting: It will be Targetting primarily at Netbooks, and eventually, Notebooks, Desktops in later half of 2010.
• Architecture: It will run with a Linux kernel as its core. On boot, it will directly go into the Chrome Web browser
• Platform: It will run on both x86 and ARM processors. On the Graphics side, Nvidia is excited about it & AMD’s ATI Graphics support/interest is still unknown.
• Key Features: The Top 3 Features will be 3S Strategy. “Speed, Security and Simplicity”. It will encourage cloud, and will not probably need to have local storage i.e. diskless, thin clients. All the user data/docs will be stored in the Google cloud. Small local SSD may though be used.
• Developers: Google will not entertain software Native Application Development on Chrome OS; Rather, they encourage developers build Web apps that will run on any web based browser.
• Release Dates: Google will release the software to the open source community near the end of 2009
• Partners & OEM : Google’s announced Chrome OS hardware partners: Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba and Platform partners like Intel.

Google explains Why we need to switch the context of current OS to a world where we leverage the Cloud computing. Official explanation of the problems that Google is trying to solve with Chrome OS are:

People want to get to their things on web instantly. Things like quick applications, email, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot and browsers to start up. They want their computers to always run as fast as when they first bought them. They want their data to be accessible to them wherever they are and not have to worry about losing their computer or forgetting to back up files. Even more importantly, they don’t want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates. And any time our users have a better computing experience, Google benefits as well by having happier users who are more likely to spend time on the Internet.

Why it Matters

1. It’s from God of Web (Google)
Google is god of the Internet. Because of its brand strength and star power, it’s always a big deal when Google enters new markets. Nothing that Google does will go unnoticed or fail simply because it didn’t get enough exposure.

2. Chrome OS will be Free
Google has confirmed that the Chrome OS will be open source and will not have any licensing fees. That will enable Chrome OS-based netbooks to be cheaper than both Windows-based netbooks and ARM-based smartbooks. Plus, once we start talking about nettops, it’s entirely possible that we could see a $100 PC (without monitor) running the Chrome OS. Also, they have partnered with Intel for Atom based netbooks.

3. Because Windows deserves Better Alternatives
Nearly two decades after Microsoft Windows conquered the PC, very few real challenges have been mounted against its dominance. Long-time rival Apple Macintosh has recently had a resurgence, but it’s still hovering at less than 10% of the total market. This market is ripe for innovation and a new competitor. In many quarters, Windows fatigue has set in, especially in the notoriously price-conscious consumer market and in light of the Vista debacle. The virus, spyware, and security troubles of Windows are its biggest weaknesses and Google is wise to target those soft spots with Chrome OS.

Why it’s Irrelevant

1. Chrome OS runs on “another” Linux
Every year  is supposed to be an attempt claiming “The Year of Linux on the Desktop.” So is google trying this again for 2010?. It hasn’t happened and it’s not because it was an idea ahead of its time or it needed a stronger champion. The consumer mass market has rejected Linux on the desktop. Linux is easy, but it takes a genious to understand the simplicity. Today, Linux is nothing more than a niche OS loved by a group of highly technical users phrased as “Geeks”. the current Desktop trend, even Google can’t change, unless it’s prepared to write Linux device drivers for all of the world’s peripherals which would never happen.

2. It’s too late
By the time Chrome OS is released, Windows 7 will be everywhere (at least in the consumer market) and Mac OS X Snow leopard will be faster and simpler. If Google really wanted to make a powerful entrance into the OS market, the time to do it would have been mid-2007 when it was obvious that Windows Vista was a failure and it would take Microsoft a couple years to fix it. The opportunity for an OS to make a major impact on the PC market has passed. The OS just isn’t that important anymore. Windows and Mac both do a pretty good job of making the OS get out of the way as quickly and easily as possible. Chrome OS probably won’t be able to do that because it will start out with massive device driver incompatibilities with PC accessories and struggle with it for a year or so.

3. Google has no Experience on OS
Till Date, we haven’t seen a power packed OS from Google. Google hasn’t exactly knocked anyone’s imagination off with Android, its mobile OS. While Android has potential and still has time to develop, it feels like beta software in a market that demands greater “finish” and attention to detail when comapred to iPhone or Pre. Also, Android itself was originally interpreted to be a netbook OS. Therefore, the release of Chrome OS is a de facto conflict against Android, despite the fact that Google executives have tried to damp it. Maybe Google has realized that the Java software sitting on top of a Linux codebase in Android would have severe performance limitations on a PC. The fact that Google will have overlapping netbook operating systems does not inspire a lot of confidence that Google knows what it’s doing in the OS market or has a sound strategy, which I’m not sure if they have at this point of time.

4. It’s Targetting Netbooks
Netbooks have two simple and good features: They are more portable and cheap. Don’t be dragged away by two advantages. They also have two big drawbacks: They are terrible and a lot of consumers regret buying them because of the small screen and the smaller hardware which has no juice.

Certain consumers have already given up Netbooks.

Verdict:

Netbooks is a niche segment for the type of users who prioritize portability over all that is offered by technology. However, powerful Netbooks have started to emerge, we could see a strong wave in rise of Netbooks popularity again in the coming year.

Chrome OS targetting to redefine the portability has a market it can dare to capture. It may not be on the desktop, I`ll never see an application which can replace my native IDE like eclipse, tools like Photoshop, video editing, and Games and graphics like NFS etc; but yes, it’s for MIDs the long hyped gadgets of the future.

Now, sources say that Google approached Intel a while back to work together closely, to design Chrome OS suited for Intel architecture. The reason is but obvious, nearly 80% of the PCs/Notebooks/Netbooks are equipped with Intel processors.

Google has plans for release of Chrome Os in later half of 2010, with the first phase targetting to capture Netbook market, and eventually they will target NoTebooks and desktop PCs. On Netbooks, Intel Atom processor is a clear majority, capturing 97% of the market. So its pretty justified why Google chose Intel. Though there is a twist over this. Intel already had been working on a Portable computer OS called the Moblinfor it’s so called MIDs. Intel had been working over this OS for the last 6 months atleast. Intel wants to target Mobile devices. They are serious on getting Atom processor to the mobile platform.

Google made no mention of Intel in a blog posting earlier this week when it named companies already working with the Chrome OS. The list includes PC vendors HP, Acer and Lenovo and mobile phone chip makers Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and Freescale Semiconductor. Chrome OS  is being  developed as Linux-based operating system for heavy Internet users.

Today, most of the smartphones run on ARM architecture. ARM is good on battery power but limited in the processing side. With Intel taking Atom processors to Mobiles, they can pump the capacity of the mobile devices to run Typical “Desktop applications” on their phones.

Strategy from Intel and Google seems to be converging, and It’s quiet evident that their vision of MIDs can converge innovation that can lead to much more powerful portable devices for the future. What would we call it ChroIntel or Googintel ?

Disclaimer: This is exact replica of original source. Copyrights reserved with networkworld.

I think a lightweight, browser-only operating system has been a long-time coming.  It’s the actualization of what the network computer dream has been; albeit with the predictable concessions that the network isn’t always available, and you need something resident on the machine itself to make it useful. But I was still surprised when I heard NPR lead off its Morning Edition newscast with Google’s “Attack on Microsoft.” Is it going to displace the Microsoft Windows desktops in most companies?  Is it a harbinger of a new computing model?  Here’s what I think we’ll see happen in the next 18-24 months:

Is Google the only one that benefits?
Google obviously benefits from having more users do more searches with Google. This is the “long tail” concept.  Even if a particular ad only nets Google a fraction of a penny, with enough of those fractions, those ads create significant income.  But others win, too. For hardware vendors, having a free operating system and browser that require minimal support, and come from a brand with a lot of consumer goodwill,  is a big win.  Consider how a PC OEM will feel if relieved of the support burden and associated costs (both material and to its reputation) simply to help new PC users “get started” with today’s operating systems.

Can Google be counted on to secure its new OS?
I think so. First, there’s the whole open-source-is-more-secure argument. More eyeballs on your source code theoretically means more people looking for vulnerabilities (and exploits).  Google could have a leg-up overall. The leaner the operating system, the less things exist that could be compromised.

Will the Chrome OS alienate Android developers?
If Android developers were under the impression that Android would be as available on netbooks as readily as Windows 7, then perhaps, but I think Google’s approach here is simpler.  Forget the OS, forget apps, do everything in a browser.  Android is when you need more than what a browser does.

Is this different than what other vendors have been doing with various Linux distributions for netbooks or similar devices?
Yes, because it boldly attempts to exclude everything except the browser (although clearly it will have to have some internals, such as wireless configuration, date/time configuration, etc., all no doubt rendered through the browser).

What advantages will the device user see?
Super-fast boot times: This is so long overdue.  Recycling my Windows machine still takes 6 minutes.  Recycling my Mac is much better (and I do it far less frequently), but lean manufacturing pundits would cite the time it take to restart or boot a computer as the epitome of “waste.”

Even cheaper netbook computers. Now an OEM needs to only worry about a nice screen, an input device of some sort (keyboard or pen or gestures), some resident memory and a robust wireless interface.  There is a big form-factor play here though; smaller keyboards can be frustrating for larger hands (dare I say for grown-ups?) but at the same time, since people come in all sizes, maybe it’s time that keyboards came in multiple sizes.  Add ruggedization, some fun colors (iPhone accessories clearly prove there is a market for that) and better battery life and I expect we’ll see Chrome OS devices for many members of the family.

The key question here though is “How cheap will they get?”, and what’s the delta between how cheap these devices get and the next device that runs Windows or MacOS.

Less bloated applications. I’m writing this with Google Docs and it is all I need.  I don’t need 1000 features in my word processor.  I need about 10.

Will the hardware requirement really be all that different?
Chrome is a great browser, but it still needs Google Gears (which it includes), which still needs local storage, and you’ll still want a lot of local cache for other Web assets.  So while the total memory footprint of the OS may be smaller, and boot times will improve dramatically; you’ll still need onboard memory (but it’s probably safe to say at this point we can forgo a local hard drive).

What are the obstacles to Google’s success?
Ubiquitous wireless is still a myth. Let’s also note that the data plans for the wireless carriers are still egregiously overpriced for the masses, so we’ll either need to see a dramatic price drop in cellular data plans, or more ubiquitous wireless, which will be great, but we’ll still need robust disconnected support.

Just because it will be open-sourced doesn’t mean it will be great.  Open source also doesn’t mean many features will actually find their way back into the OS for most consumers.  It does mean that OEMs will be able to extend the OS to support their own hardware, which is a double-edged sword because that can also lead to compatibility problems.

I was in an airport the other day and my iPhone automatically identified that there was a sign-in page for the airport wireless and cached the required fields so that every time I go back into Sky Harbor airport, it automatically signs me into the wireless.  There’s this fanaticism about usability that some companies espouse that I’ve not seen in the general open source community.

In the end, I do think this is good for Web developers. They’ll still be tasked with ensuring their Web sites work well for all browsers  (which will create opportunities for more development tools to help them), but let’s just say this …  it still boggles my mind how many Web sites were designed exclusively for IE.

Will the Google OS appeal to Apple’s customers?
I think there is a wildcard here with Apple.  OSX is a stellar operating system; and Apple’s ability to make elegant hardware is still heads-and-shoulders above anybody else out there.  And thanks to the iPhone, think of how many new OSX developers there are in the past year alone; If the company was to come out with an OSX-based netbook (and I still have hopes for an Apple game console based on OSX), and you had every one of the App Store developers now writing apps for a portable netbook and/or game console (or even an evolved AppleTV), I think you’d have an unstoppable combination.  Google would have to make the case that the browser experience can be just as good as the app experience, and find a way to let all of those “other apps” be cached.  I think that’s a big obstacle.

Will it displace Windows in the Enterprise?
Not any time soon.  Not enough corporate applications in most companies are Web-based, and in my experience, most users still have a document-centric view of the world.  They think that in order to create information,  the first step is to launch Microsoft Word.  Microsoft has spent the better part of the last two decades ensuring that people think exactly like this, and has worked feverishly to get SharePoint entrenched in every corporate account so that extricating oneself from this “information exists in Microsoft Office documents” becomes a nearly insurmountable task.

So I don’t think the Chrome OS will end Windows desktops in the next few years; I think it will add to the collective total number of Internet devices, and drive some of the changes that may make it possible after a few years to have productivity workers exclusively use a Web-based OS.  I still think Google will need several evolutions of the browser and years of re-education (which Microsoft will fight tooth-and-nail) of end-users to prepare them for this switch.  Some limited users and companies may be able to make the switch sooner (call centers, etc.) but this will depend on hardware manufacturers providing a support model that gives companies a level of comfort when making this switch.

The Verdict

So clearly, Chrome OS isn’t a windows killer, it’s a new generation of OS developed for diskless type systems and most suitable for MIDs (Mobile internet devices) and other thin clients.

Source: Networkworld