Tag Archives: Chrome OS fast boot
Chrome Event is Live!
Posted on 07. Dec, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 
3 Comments
See it here in livestream. We’ll be updating developments here, just refresh your browser.
-VP Sundar Pichai on stage. In six months gone from 70 million users to 120 million Chrome users.. developing countries important to growth.
-Brian Rakowski is showing off Instant in Chrome.
-Working on making the integrated PDF reader really fast! Nice.
-Showing off WebGL examples. I have posted this in the past here.
-Google Health demo of smooth GPU processing in the browser. Layers of the human body. Emphasis on fast, and Brian leaves the stage.
-Pichai is back on stage. V8 JavaScript engine is improving immensely. V8 is getting enhancement called “Crankshaft” with adaptive compiling. 100x faster than original Chrome.
-Chrome team is constantly looking at every pixel in the browser for simplicity in the UI.
-Chrome sync is being shown. “Same Chrome experience everywhere”. Makes browser simpler.
-Talking about security. Many, many layers. Auto updates. Sandboxing. Plug-in sandboxing.
-Working with Adobe on Flash sandboxing.
-Chrome Web Store!!
-It’s hard to monetize apps. Users don’t trust unknown developers. This will be solved with Chrome Web Store.
-Showing off Sports Illustrated Snapshot webapp.
-Games are the top thing in app stores.
-CloudCanvas productivity app. Has monthly fee, but users can try it for free.
-NYTimes for Chrome webapp being shown by Mark Frons, CTO NYT. You can read this app offline, somehow.
-COO of EA John Schappert takes the stage. Showing off game called Popit. Now showing Chrome version, very fast. Full HD as well.
-Popit Embedded in Chrome 9…
-Amazon’s Eva Manolis and David Limp on stage. Showing Window Shop for retail-like experience. Something called CakePop.
http://chrome.google.com/webstore is the link to Chrome Web Store.
-Boom. Pichai talks Chrome OS. People live on the web. How do most PCs work today? Complexity is in operating system before web existed. Let’s rethink this. Chrome OS is nothing but the web. Chrome running on hardware.
-Showing login process. Asks for picture. Most people do not like this.
-Resume from standby should be instant. They show it comes up right away. They are now showing how installs/syncing between browsers is really easy.
-Now showing off sharing. Incognito mode for browsing on shared machines. Pichai says everything is private.
-Displaying collaboration in Google Docs. It will all work offline. Again, no explanation, but likely cached.
-Every Chrome notebook will have data connectivity!?! Yup 3G. Pichai says it works really well.
-Partnership with Verizon. Pay as you go! Modem by Qualcomm. 100 MB of free data every month for two years. You can pay for a plan, which starts at $9.99 for a day pass. He says no contracts, no activation fees, no overage fees or cancellation fees.
-Security. All user data will be encrypted. Startup will have digital check.
-Talking about Chrome OS for business. This intrigues CIOs. Too much money spent on lower level activities like updating software, etc.
-CIOs suggested to work with Citrix. Partnership with them on Chrome OS. Fast and responsive. Applications off machines and in datacenter.
-After you buy a regular PC, it gets slower. Pichai has been using Chrome OS for six months, and it gets faster.
-Time left to go on consumer device. Partners will be Acer and Samsung. Middle of 2011.
-Thousands of Googlers are already being used. But there are bugs. Real user program coming. Today, Chrome OS Pilot program.
-Name is Cr-48 for testing the software. 12.1″ display. Full size keyboard. 3G built in. Dual band wifi. 8 hours of active use.
-Jailbreak mode is a feature!!
-Businesses will have pilot programs. American Airlines, Kraft, Logitech. Call centers. Department of Defense!
-Consumers: New tab page will have an application form.
-Limited number of users.
-Eric Schmidt hits the stage. Problems with cloud computing in the past laid out.
-Chrome OS will become the third viable platform in IT.
-No word on when CR-48 will ship.
The Secret To a Ten Second Boot: Eliminate BIOS?
Posted on 28. Jul, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 1 Comments
Do you ever find yourself sitting around waiting for your computer to boot? While I always seem to hear about the newest computers having faster boot times, I never have perceived any sort of difference in speed. Along with using solid state drives, the next generation of computers is supposedly going to eliminate the decades-old BIOS startup system which is essentially software that talks directly to your hardware prior to operating system startup.
Witness this test by some Lenovo engineers. As far as I can tell, no special effects were involved, although one may consider that to be the case since this laptop boots up so fast.
The technology is called UEFI, which stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface and one of the earliest OSs to support it was – surprise – Linux. While the Chromium site has no reference to UEFI, it sure is certain that the team is working on a custom BIOS. That means, according to this video, moving hardware initialization from the firmware to the kernel, among other optimizations.
