thechromesource – Google Chrome and Chrome OS News and Resources

thechromesource Daily: Links for 7/19/10

Posted on 19. Jul, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 1 Comments

Chrome OS tablets will lead to disruption in the IT market, causing Microsoft to shift its focus to enterprise, according to ASPE.

Google is increasing its spending on data center infrastructure; the amount doubled in Q2 over Q1 at $476 million.

All public activities are now available for developers in the Google Buzz API, this new feature has been named firehose.

eWeek’s Clint Boulton makes the case why Google should keep the government at bay when it comes to its search algorithm.

Chrome is getting smarter: it now can tell you if others are experiencing problems with a website.

Surprise – Google Recently Surpasses Yahoo in Time Visited

Posted on 13. Jul, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments

Silicon Alley Insider’s recent chart showing the amount of time spent on major sites displays a strong push for both Google and Facebook, while the previous (shocking) champ Yahoo is experiencing a steady overall drop.

Yahoo and AOL are in steep decline, while Microsoft is simply staying afloat, most likely bolstered by spending hundreds of millions on marketing their Bing search engine. Apple, which is rumored to be preparing for a more cloud-based approach, isn’t even on this list.

Facebook has really pulled up close with Google, but co-founder Sergey Brin recently said the company is unfazed by Facebook’s growth.

“The indications that we have show that when Internet users become Facebook users they actually do significantly more searches on Google,” Brin told Reuters in Sun Valley, Idaho last week.

But Google isn’t resting on their laurels in regards to competing with Facebook. That would explain this recent release of a huge 216 slide presentation by Google UX researcher Paul Adams on the problems and opportunities of social networking.

Activision: Let’s Use PCs Instead of Consoles

Posted on 12. Jul, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 1 Comments

A major publisher of games doesn’t like being limited by the console market.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick is not appreciative of the walled console gardens that make up Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. He says it would be better if games were just played on PCs instead of having to navigate through proprietary processes in order to publish popular games. Kotick laments about the fact that those who play Activision’s games online don’t pay publishers for the experience, but the console makers.

“We’ve heard that 60 per cent of (Microsoft’s) subscribers are principally on Live because of Call of Duty,” Kotick told FT. “We don’t really participate financially in that income stream. We would really like to be able to provide much more value to those millions of players playing on (Xbox) Live, but it’s not our network.”

He also goes on to say that the company would fully support PC manufacturers’ efforts to create a device that hooks up to a television and allows gamers to play via that method.

This sounds familiar. It almost relates to what Google is trying to do with manufacturers such as Dell and HP for Chrome OS. The problem with Activision is that they don’t provide an open platform to play games on; the majority of PC games are still played on Windows. Possible solution? Work on the Google TV project selling higher-end set top boxes built with special graphics cards for gaming.

Webapps Vs. Native Apps – A Battle of Control?

Posted on 08. Jul, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments

Yesterday’s launch of the new YouTube Mobile site (just go to m.youtube.com) further reiterates something that has been in my thoughts ever since the explosive growth in mobile apps started. This has really led to another way for large technology companies to wall off their users, much like Microsoft has done over the years. Even though it’s great that you can have a mobile application for virtually anything that you want in your pocket, there are some inherent limitations to these native applications.

TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid makes a good point in his look at YouTube Mobile that the video quality is fantastic – better, he says than the native application that came with Apple’s iOS for the iPhone and iPad. That may have something to do with the fact that the webapp is built in HTML5 and optimized for the current wireless networks that devices use.

“Video on the HTML5 app looked much better, and was snappier to boot”, remarks Kincaid in his write-up.

All the more proof that giving browsers the ability to use the web as a platform to utilize applications is the future of computing, whether it be via a smartphone or a laptop. The idea of Chrome OS or other web operating system simply doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

One of the reasons that web applications have a clear benefit over native ones is interoperability. On the web, diverse applications are able to access and communicate data between one another in order to provide a seamless ecosystem. Think about Twitter, where users allow web applications such as HootSuite access to their accounts to better understand the underlying data. Or, as Kincaid remarks, the simplistic convenience of auto-fill in the YouTube Mobile app.

But what’s wrong with the way things are done now? We’ve seen both Apple and Google take take direct control of users’ devices. Even Amazon has removed books from its Kindle e-reader, citing copyright problems with a publisher. With the new browser technologies like HTML5, a third party cannot take away something that is on the web; and no developer or group of developers is dependent on an outside partner for its applications.

Sure, there are motives behind the decisions above in the face of security and potential lawsuits. Possible hurdles abound with what could happen in a world where applications are easily installed with one click. But Microsoft led a tech space for years that allowed people to put whatever they want on their computers, and despite their flagging performance, they’ve been around for over thirty years.

thechromesource Daily: Links for 7/8/10

Posted on 08. Jul, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 2 Comments

Would it really take a decade for another operating system to rival Microsoft’s ninety percent share of PC dominance?

Downstream web stats made Google’s purchase of ITA Software a no-brainer, and it’s clear the next target is going to be games.

Ever had trouble with juggling multiple Google Accounts? Maybe you should try out the Quick Google Chrome extension.

The creators of Stack Overflow have launched a Web Applications version of their site specifically for cloud troubleshooting.

There’s so many Chrome and web-based platform news coming out that Microsoft has got to be a bit scared.

Schmidt on Chrome OS: The PC Industry is not Like the Phone Industry

Posted on 05. Jul, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 1 Comments

Everybody’s working for the weekend, so it kind of flew under the radar last week a quote by Google CEO Eric Schmidt about the reluctance to try another Nexus One-type branded phone, or say, Chrome OS device for that matter.

Speaking to the Telegraph, Schmidt said, ”we have a reference spec for Chrome OS, we have a couple of hardware partners all lined up and the open source is all out there. It’s on schedule and it will happen later this year. Let’s see how well those partners do first. My guess is we won’t need to. The PC industry is different from the phone industry. The PC industry is used to working with Microsoft, whereas the mobile industry was not used to working with software.”

Now the mobile industry is working with software, and that software called Android sure is working out well.

What Schmidt said is really the same thing that we’ve been hearing since Computex. Acer, HP and (although not listed as an official partner) Dell are the three most likely companies at this point to put out Chrome OS devices in Q4.

Back to the topic of software. Because the fact that we’re hearing that Google is ramping up its music and news services only seems to solidify how important user experience is going to need to be to make these Chrome OS machines an ultimate success. We’ve seen a bit already of Picasa adding some cloud computing functions, and there will be no surprise that we will see more of this as we move along the third quarter.

So, in its continued fight against Apple’s massive dominance in apps, Google keeps those Chrome Apps in an ever-evolving state.

thechromesource Daily: Links for 7/2/10

Posted on 02. Jul, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 1 Comments

Google is looking to close a $3 billion credit deal very soon, more acquisitions on the way?

One has to be convinced that Microsoft is afraid of Google’s App strategy.

Maybe this is already common knowledge, but has Chrome’s growth come at Firefox’s expense?

Eric Schmidt on entrepreneurs: “They’re drop-outs, crazy smart people”.

The Chrome stable channel has been updated – improvements to WebGL, sandboxing and CSS style rendering.

Who’s Going to Compete With Apple’s Tablet?

Posted on 22. Jun, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 1 Comments

The current state of the tablet market is pretty stale. And let’s not even go into the JooJoo.

I say this because when I was at Taiwan’s Computex 2010 conference less than a month ago there were some formidable competitors in terms of hardware, but the leading manufactures for these devices didn’t really offer a whole lot in terms of software.

Sure, the Acer tablet that allows one to flip the netbook-style form factor over to a table was impressive, but the touch functionality of Windows 7 for it was quite lackluster: I asked a product rep to reboot the device because there seemed to be a problem with the touch software, only to have the same problems crop up again once it started up.

Asus offered up a beautiful tablet design that had potential to compete with Apple, but they kept a product manager closely hovering over the device running a new version of Windows CE that looked surprisingly Android-like, but because of the people and Asus employees holding a close grip on the tablet, no one was really able to test the paces of Microsoft’s UI.

MSI had a winged version of a tablet running Android that seemed surprisingly comfortable in my hands, but we all know that Google’s smartphone operating system isn’t really meant for tablets – it just seemed like a supersized stock version of the OS. An MSI product manager also told me that the MSI Wind tablet was just a concept for now.

This is problematic. The reason why I say this is because since Apple has taken the world by storm plugging an already existing operating system with the iOS to a tablet form factor, that have essentially beaten the entire computer manufacturing market with the iPad. There is no one else that has an operating system that is fully compatible with touch on a tablet.

That’s not to say Android is far behind Apple’s touch-based operating system, but it is clear that unlike the iOS, there was no plan for tablets in its future. We’ve seen early on Google’s Chrome OS tablet concept, and we can only hope that Chrome OS will offer a stylishly-designed slate from the likes of HP, Dell or Acer in the coming months, hopefully something that is just as functional, open source for app developers and creatively designed mobile gadget that can compete with the iPad.

I hold out hope on this, because only one successful tablet in the market does not bode well for innovation. What do you think? Which one of these PC manufacturers has the best chance of offering a tablet running Chrome OS that can compete with Apple?

thechromesource Daily: Links for 6/18/10

Posted on 18. Jun, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments

Dislike the new gray-themed Chrome? Here is a how-to on reverting your browser back too good old blue.

Google is going to make a ton of cash on its television project, and here is an analysis showing how they plan on doing it.

Interesting: Microsoft puts out “tips” for hardware specs on Windows 7 tablets; they look similar to those expected for Chrome OS.

The title of this article does all the explaining – Google is eating Microsoft’s lunch, one tasty bite at a time.

Sharing has become easier with a new update to Google Docs – visibility options have been added next to the title of every doc.

thechromesource Daily: Links for 6/17/10

Posted on 17. Jun, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments

There is a way to do encrypted searches from both Chrome browser and Firefox; here’s how.

Adobe’s PDF format will be integrated into Chrome browser, just like Flash already has been.

Google Docs collaboration has been made easier with some new features, no doubt just in time to compete with Microsoft.

The Chrome browser dev channel has been updated. Looks like it is mainly user interface issues.

It’s not looking good for Microsoft in terms of competing with Google Apps.

thechromesource Daily: Links for 6/10/10

Posted on 10. Jun, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments

Tutorialzine has a post up explaining how to make your first simple Chrome browser extension.

That homepage customization option that Google had launched sure did get killed off pretty quickly.

Lifehacker pits Google Docs against Microsoft’s Office Web Apps to see which one is the better application suite.

There clearly is a bet that the future of television will be social with Google Ventures’ investment in  Miso.

Want to use Google Apps in your business? Inc Magazine has an article up on how to do so.

Google Depends on Official Partners For Chrome OS

Posted on 07. Jun, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments

One of the things I have been thinking about after looking at the video I shot from the recent Computex press conference held by Google is that despite the confusion held by many in regard to how Chrome OS and Android will fit in with each other is that it is going to depend on the partners for each particular project.

It’s likely we are not going to see the same type of fragmentation that has surfaced with Android. Although some of these devices being made are not smartphones and thus cannot get on the current application market legitimately, some of the gadgets we’ve seen are giving us different ways to think about using Android.

Instead of a gadget free-for-all with Android that has happened, Google is officially partnering with a small group of companies to launch Chrome OS for a release in the fourth quarter. It remains to be seen whether the list of companies will at some point be expanded, but if the market is ready for a cloud-based operating system at the end of 2010, then there may be a ton of companies interested in Chrome OS. The question is, what will be required to officially release Chrome on a device? While it has been said hardware specifications, could that include the form factor as well?

All we know right now is that a 10-12″ laptop/netbook is in the works for the initial launch. That may perhaps be because touch functionality has not been completely figured out in term of user interface interaction, but I’m just assuming this point.

Anyways, it’s a different model than Microsoft, whereby they support so many different devices I can only assume that this sometimes drives them mad. Google would be keen to set certain standards for products that are released with Chrome OS. At the same time, being a platform that is going to be on open source software there will be innovative ways for the market to grow that could n0t happen with a Microsoft operating system.

Microsoft Dominates at Computex

Posted on 01. Jun, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments

So the first day of the Computex computer trade show has come and gone, and I’ve been confronted with a startling revelation: Microsoft really has command of this conference.

I spent a good amount of time today going from manufacturer to manufacturer asking about Chrome OS. While most of them are open to using it, there really seems to be an “in the future” mentality to using any operating system from Google. That also includes Android as well, with the sheer majority of tablets that I saw sporting a touch-enabled Windows 7.

Here is some of the reasons that Microsoft is such a force at Computex.

The Show is for Procurement

People come to Computex to make purchasing decisions for their companies on products that mostly come from Taiwanese manufacturers. As such, they want to see what they are going to be buying over the balance of 2010 and into 2011. Because of this, purchasers are looking at getting devices that run Windows 7 since it is here and now, ready for deployment and/or selling.

Windows 7

Windows 7 was launched not too long ago, and as such Microsoft is making a big push to sell its new operating system. Despite the software climate these days, Redmond still makes a ton of money on selling operating systems that are shipped on new computers. That would partially explain the reasoning behind so many tablets having a Microsoft OS instead of Android. With that being said, there was an open source booth that had some different commercial versions of Linux. I also got a chance to try MeeGo, and I have to say I was impressed with it.

The Microsoft-Manufacturer Connection

One product manager I talked to for a leading manufacturer told me that there are some financial incentives to help them put a display on at Computex if they follow certain standards for showing off Microsoft products. I was a bit surprised by this fact initially, but it makes sense. The relationship between Microsoft and Taiwan manufacturers is very tight-knit whereby Microsoft offers a platform that works with an array of hardware that the manufacturers design and produce for a good price.

Bottom Line

The most intriguing dynamic to all of this is the fact that it was reported by CNET today that new Google employees can no longer choose a Windows solution for their workstations. Future Microsoft implementations at Google will only be for testing purposes, or specially approved. This report, which was rumored but not confirmed until now, comes at the same time we are seeing a boatload of Microsoft-loaded products at Computex.

It will be interesting to see how this may change over the course of the next year, with Google exerting more dominance in the market. This is a telling sign that IT purchasers do not have Google platforms in their sights as of yet.

Google Knows that Their Growth Requires Outside Developers

Posted on 28. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 1 Comments

The barrage of information that came out of last week’s Google I/O conference is still hard to swallow, but one thing is clear that developer conferences for Google are going to become a focal point for the company going forward. Giving away the new Sprint HTC Evo phone certainly shows where they want folks to concentrate on, but anything that developers not employed by Google create is a win-win situation for both parties.

At one point, Eric Schmidt referred to the developers at the conference as customers, and rightly so. Not only are they customers, but they are part of the Google growth engine. What many naysayers who slam Google for their disruptive efforts don’t seem realize sometimes is that a great deal of wealth has come from what they have been able to do in search, advertising and most recently the mobile phone.

The fantastic business environment from creating new technology platforms that are less like Microsoft and closer to the Apple model is going to pay off for those who plug into them. Therefore, opportunity is beginning to trickle down into outside developers with all of the APIs that are being released by Google to allow for increased innovation, a level at which only those outside the company can foster for added growth beyond the company’s internal efforts to create new services.

That’s because being inside of a big company like Google now requires a lot of scrutiny and approval to get new ideas from within to the mass market. With the legal issues and public criticism the company has faced in 2010, don’t be surprised to see Google spend more time developing platforms and interfaces to develop upon as opposed to working on individual services/features that can now easily be done by those outside of the walls of Mountain View.

thechromesource Daily: Links for 5/26/10

Posted on 26. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments

Google’s Chrome OS user interface design team developer Glen Murphy talks to Lifehacker Australia in a brief Q&A session.

Early adopters are increasingly making a move from using Firefox to Chrome browser, according to an analysis by ReadWriteWeb.

It seems pretty clear that the Chrome Web Store will have applications that run code using Native Client.

An anonymous CEO from a public company tells Business Insider that Microsoft’s Outlook mail client will never be able to compete with Gmail.

Google VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra talks to TechCrunch about location based services and Google’s plans in the tablet market.

Inside Google? Really? Seems More Like Outside

Posted on 22. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 1 Comments

Consumer Watchdog, a non-profit organization whose mission is to fight on the behalf of “American consumers and taxpayers” has launch a blog called Inside Google where they intend to keep in check some of the privacy issues that the search engine giant has been encountering recently. From a few of the articles that I have read on the site, Inside Google clearly believes that the folks at Google need to be more open about the way they do business, and one of the issues highlighted is the way their search algorithm is calculated to bring back query results.

This is especially true when looking at the post fuming about the fact that the term “Inside Google” doesn’t come up on the first few pages of a Google Search, yet does when querying Bing. The opposite end of this is perhaps Microsoft should be asked if they are trumping up the Inside Google site while Google is giving it a representative ranking since the Inside Google site is very new; the domain was only registered three months ago and currently has no PageRank.

Plus, there is no update on this post since it was written to point out that searching the term Inside Google appears in the first page of Google Search, at least when I queried it today. Even when done in Incognito Mode or another browser with cleared history. Looks like the “lack of transparency” tag placed on these posts doesn’t apply to Inside Google.

I know that I have not always written rosy things about Google, and they still rank me well, probably because their engine is based on a specific system to return the best results for a query, not by humans directly manipulating search results.  Here are some examples of things I’ve written:

Concerned About Privacy? Scroogle Scrapes Your Searches
Do You Know Why Google Wants to Trade Energy?
Maybe Google Knows Too Much, GoogleSharing Can Help
Google Invests in Recorded Future

Inside Google is based on the foundation that because Google has seventy percent of the United States market of online search it should be investigated because it is a monopoly. But there are other competitors in the search market. In reality if Bing, Yahoo or Ask were actually better search engines than Google, I would use them. But they are not. Hence the reasoning behind the fact that I use Google Search as I’m sure others who read this post would agree.

If serious privacy or security issues arose that Google was not willing to face or to make amends for, I would be all for going after them, as would a great deal of others. In that regard perhaps Inside Google is on the right track with what they are doing but some of these articles posted on the site seem, well, a bit angst driven for some reason.  Is there a motive to why Inside Google feels like they’ve been left on the outside? Possibly because its journalists were formally a part of the once dominant print media industry?

Nexus One Availability Shows a Shift for Google to Retail Stores?

Posted on 16. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments

Well, at least the Nexus One web store experiment was interesting.

The recent announcement from Google’s Andy Rubin, VP of Engineering that the Nexus One will slowly migrate to retail outlets still shows us that they are not afraid to take risks in market disruption. It was a test worth watching: could Google single-handedly upend the traditional mobile phone market by selling phones through their own channels? Initial complaints with the web store were that when problems arose with the Nexus One, there was no real way to get customer support on the phone. This coupled with low sales numbers made it really hard to expect this model to work on a mass-market scale.

But there is a unique twist to all of this and one that bodes well for future hardware that runs on Google’s operating systems. Instead of having an online store, the idea is to replace that with a showcase-type web portal where people can get a handle on the different devices that run Android. In the future, that will also include devices that run Chrome OS whether they may be netbooks, smartbooks or tablets.

But a showcase can only display pictures, videos and specifications. What is really needed are physical stores.

Let’s not forget that a major engine of growth for Apple in the past decade has been their entrance into the retail market with their own stores. Even Microsoft now has their own retail shops in some test markets. The reality is that people who are early adopters in technology (like the Nexus One) don’t need to go to a traditional store to check out gadgets, but a large majority of people want to be able to see, touch and interact with a device before they buy it.

With Google, there are already so many Android smartphones available from a large swath of companies that it makes sense to have a showcase, quite possibly with their own branded locations. Eventually they will also have Chrome OS devices on display as well and at the same time will need to compete with Apple and Microsoft in this space, who are already ahead of them in this regard.

Chrome OS Screenshots Highlight Google’s Apps

Posted on 14. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments

When Chrome OS does finally make it to market, it is obvious that it will highlight the vast array of Google’s service offerings.

You can see from the screenshots that the folks over at TechCrunch recently found that not only will Chrome OS feature browser functionality, but perhaps also another type of window that is being called Panels. Many of them will likely house services such as Google Chat, Voice and Gmail among others. There really is no way around it: one of the reasons that Google is doing this is to increase its visibility with all of the applications and services that have been developed.

I can now see why Google also want to have a business version of their operating system as well. The Google Apps Marketplace would fit nicely into this, allowing for more productivity capabilities than Microsoft on its own is able to offer. Plus, nothing has to be downloaded or configured. It just works, which will save corporate IT departments time and money that could be better allocated to other resources.

The interface design that we are seeing in these screenshots are different from what the current Chrome OS builds have. So while it needs to be polished up a bit, I suspect that some of these Apple-like design concepts will be added on to the final commercial product. At the same time, Chromium project builds will continue to focus only on make sure that the system works, has the right security elements and is compatible with certain hardware standards.

Will Google Buy ITA Software?

Posted on 13. May, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 6 Comments

Speculation abounds that Google is thinking about purchasing ITA Software. I first heard about this company when I was flying somewhere, and for good reason: ITA offers a superior way to search for the cheapest flights over anyone else. They give you the gritty details on flights like no one else will. Plus, anyone (for the time being) can use their search engine to find the least expensive routes to wherever one’s destination may be.

And that brings Google into the picture. A quick search for the query “Google travel” brings nothing promising back. This is indeed one area where Google could expand its business. They are trying to get into many different markets, so why not the travel industry? Their main search competitor, Microsoft’s Bing, has tools to help travelers find flights, hotels and cars. Bing even has a unique twist: its Farecast technology gives you insight on when to buy airlines tickets when they are at the lowest prices.

Today, Google managing director for Travel Rob Torres said, “Google is seeing that mobile hotel queries have grown almost 3000% in three short years”.

Could Google do Bing Travel one better? Sure, with all of their innovative technology and data they would be able to offer something that is different in this market, and possibly superior. They could do it on their own, but acquiring ITA Software would be beneficial for flight information. Already ITA is used by many other travel companies to find the best fares. If Google owned ITA’s technology it would most likely open up its API for all sorts of creative things, something that Microsoft likely won’t do.