Here's and interesting development, Google has branded chrome OS notebooks: Chromebooks

http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2011/...hromebook.html
VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVqe8ieqz10

Read more propaganda here:
http://www.google.com/chromebook/#

Is the market ready for such a thing? Will it take off, or flop?

Here is a rundown of the new Chrome OS features:
http://lifehacker.com/5800863/chrome...s-new-features

Some of them include:
File management support
More offline app support (google web apps)
Media playback support (floating window)

Quite interesting. If this thing could do multiple panes (eg. two windows on the screen at once) it would dramatically increase its usefulness.

While I can't conceivably do all of my work on the web, I wouldn't HESITATE to recommend such a tool to my girlfriend, mum, or less computer savvy friends. What's easier than navigating the web? This is even more true that everything they do can be done via the web.

IMHO, the only(and biggest) down-side is no connection, no computing.

cheers,

Aaaand. Here is the first 'chromebook' pictured:


http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/11/s...ome-os-laptops

• 12.1"
• 1.66GHz dual core Atom
• 8.5 hours usage
• 1280x800 resolution
• $429 ($499 w/ 3G)
• 2 USB Ports

Quite good looking!

Personally, I wish they would ditch Atom for a decent processor -- or at least a good GPU. While Atom is perfectly acceptable for most sites, it starts to fall short with some of the upcoming WebGL/Flash11 content that demands more competent hardware.

Expect quad-core Cortex A15 in the next round. This thing with a Mali T604 would be simply incredible, and likely last 10-12 hours on a charge.

That's actually not entirely accurate. HTML5 has a manifest which allows apps to run offline by locally caching key files. This allows developers to create apps that will work offline in the complete absence of an internet connection.

The article lists that Google Docs will be upgraded to allow for full offline access. Certain other apps also work well offline.

In any case: these days, no connection is less of a concern. The internet is increasingly becoming a utility as power; which I might add is even more indispensable as it is 100% required for app usage -- no power, no apps!

The main benefit to this over a computer is that there is no upgrading, downloading, installing, etc, required with such a tool. This is great for users that just desire to get things done, but less so for hackers that demand control.

The main con? Less control. Depending on your usage, you may vote yay or nay.

I just tried out angry birds, and it's 100% faithful to the handheld version, nothing terribly special, but fun all the same. I was going to dock marks for not being able to zoom out, but the mouse scroller (or touchpad) works perfectly for this function.

It doesn't seems as if the implementation is in flash, as it's far too smooth. I fully expect that the implementation is WebGL. I'm very interested to see if more casual games make it over. It's an exciting prospect.

For the record, I am using Ubuntu Linux running Chrome.

Chromebook pricing revealed.

$28/mo for business users, $20/mo for students:

http://www.droiddog.com/android-blog...ng-for-chrome/
http://www.google.com/chromebook/bus...education.html

These are great prices that I'm sure will go-over very well in their respective industries.

I think that for business use, chrome OS is a god send. This should simplify IT and increase security across many industries. It should also usher in new and superior tools, and begin to ease the strangle-hold that MS has had on the industry with their ultra buggy 'enterprise' apps and OSs.


Here's an editorial from Engadget
http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/11/e...ns-might-have/

unless I have the concept wrong, to me cloud computing means that everything are done by the server-in-the-sky and with your local client displaying the results. Making the local client to have the ability(or some); is sort of redundant. Furthermore, how would you draw the line(in terms of giving the client machine) the ability to do computing? If you give little; then you may as well not to give anything. If you give a lot(as a result, you have to match your machine with greater power); then why do you want to setup the cloud to begin with?

It is more useful to deploy the cloud on an internal company wide basis for business where connection are always there.

Not so.

The offline capabilities depend upon the app, and the data the app is working on. Offline mode wouldn't work very well for something like a music player if your songs existed in the cloud, but would work fine if you had tracks cached in storage or on an SD card! For a game like Angrybirds*, it would be just fine -- assuming that the cachable data was small enough to be saved as well as the game itself.
* as it turns out, angrybirds will in fact work offline.

Where you draw the line, as you say, depends entirely on the app developer on a per-app basis.

For example, if I was coding up a text editor, I would cache recent documents (up to a point -- say 1MB), undo lists, user settings, and of course the application. This would allow people to continue to write text even if there was no internet connection. However, the major benefit is simply this: the next time the users hops online, they get the latest version of the app, and their data (if it's part of the application) is synced to the private server. They never need to update, install, maintain their app. This would come as a relief to casual users!

Other uses of offline apps include: vector map viewers, office suites, development IDEs, drawing/art programs, casual games, productivity apps (eg. todo lists), recipe viewers, ebook readers, etc. This would even be useful for pretty much any mobile app you can think of that doesn't rely on the internet. They typically are small and operate on small data sets.

To reiterate: offline capability must be specifically designed in the app itself and as such will be included if the developer sees value in offering it. The app cannot rely on the internet for functioning in this mode. It turns out, many applications are both small themselves and operate on a small data-set to garner offline support.

This is a feature of HTML5 and not chrome specifically. Firefox, Safari, Opera, and the upcoming IE all support HTML5 offline apps.

Here is the entire Chrome keynote! Online for your viewing pleasure:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiYND_zvIc0