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Google Portables Software Hardware

Why You Should Worry About the Future of Chromebooks 216

dcblogs writes "PC manufacturers may try to corral Chromebook, much like Netbooks, by setting frustratingly low hardware expectations. The systems being released from HP, Acer, Lenovo and Samsung are being built around retro Celeron processors and mostly 2 GB of RAM. By doing so, they are targeting schools and semi-impulse buyers and may be discouraging corporate buyers from considering the system. Google's Pixel is the counter-force, but at a price of $1,299 for the Wi-Fi system, reviewers, while gushing about hardware, believe it's too much, too soon. The Chromebook is a threat to everything, especially PC makers, as its apps improve. Compare Tweetdeck's HTML5 version with its native app. Can you tell the difference? It might be a year or two before Adobe delivers Web-only versions of its products, but if it doesn't it will be surrendering larger portions of its mindshare to users of Pixlr, Pixel Mixer, PicMonkey and many other interesting and increasingly capable tools."
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Why You Should Worry About the Future of Chromebooks

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  • Yes (Score:5, Interesting)

    by errandum ( 2014454 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @06:15PM (#43342745)

    And then when it fails to bring money it gets discontinued. And you have a very expensive paperweight... Google Reader was an eye opener. Depending on a third party for core functionality is something I'll be avoiding from now one, since you never know...

    • Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)

      by houstonbofh ( 602064 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @06:33PM (#43342883)
      Other than Chromebooks can run full Linux. So it will never be totally worthless.
      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by peragrin ( 659227 )

        Instead of chromebooks why not run a Android gain a touch screen screen and add a bluetooth keyboard and be done with it.

        when chromebook concept first came out it was good. it just took 3 years longer to get to the market than it should have and android tablet can beat it in every way.

        • Re:Yes (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Tacticus.v1 ( 1102137 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @07:57PM (#43343593)

          Because android isn't that nice at providing a good desktop environment.
          the chromebook with normal nix running on it would allow much better interaction.
          I say this as someone with a very nice nexus 7 and an android phone.

          Though take the arm chip out of the nexus 10 and give me a linux laptop with the chromebook pixels monitor\keyboard and most importantly battery :)

      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by Hadlock ( 143607 )

        You must have a pile of money you're just aching to get rid of if you need to keep investing in things that are only "mostly worthless".

        Google can go fuck themselves, free email is pretty awesome, but if you can't rely on the services that connect to it to be around in five years, there's no reason why I can't privatize my email on a portable cloud instance somewhere else. I don't even use Google Reader, but it's clear that the idea* that "you can trust your data with Google forever" is dead. Spendi

        • by gagol ( 583737 )
          Gmail and Google Reader are two different beasts. Gmail is used as the primary authentication of many, many Google services and provides its parent company with much more detailed profile of users than what feed you read... Just saying.
          • Re:Yes (Score:5, Interesting)

            by Shoten ( 260439 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @08:02PM (#43343633)

            Gmail and Google Reader are two different beasts. Gmail is used as the primary authentication of many, many Google services and provides its parent company with much more detailed profile of users than what feed you read... Just saying.

            Actually, the authentication system used by Gmail is the primary authentication of many, many Google services. That's a whole different animal from Gmail itself, and it's very easy to cut loose a massive email system but keep the authentication infrastructure, especially when you developed both of them to begin with. You have a point about the detailed profile of users...but that's a double-edged sword. Google has been, I feel, under a level of scrutiny that I think is out of proportion with how they actually treat private data. All that it would take is a scandal (either at Google or at some similar service) and all of a sudden that one value they get out of Gmail could be taken away from them. Then what?

            Anyone here remember Juno? Just saying.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      If you think Google Reader's cancellation is in any sense a useful indicator of the future of Chrome OS or Google Drive, you're not really paying attention.

    • by jaymz666 ( 34050 )

      tweetdeck for chrome is lacking many features of the AIR app for windows. Such as a list of trending topics as a pane you can select, so you can see them all the time. How stupid

    • Well, I am not so sure the future is quite the same.

      I think that, first of all, Chromebooks should be running or have available to them, Android apps. A quick google search shows this is presently not the case. (I did not look any deeper than the first few responses) And, of course, they should have touch screens to support Android better.

      This makes it a tablet with a keyboard... which is not a tablet but still, you get the idea. Then the low specs won't mean as much and people will want them more.

      Yes,

    • Re:Yes (Score:5, Funny)

      by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @07:59PM (#43343609)

      You bought Google Reader Hardware?... and now have an expensive paperweight?
      I'll buy it from you to put in my museum.

    • Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Qwavel ( 733416 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @08:35PM (#43343833)

      Comparing Google's Chromebooks to Reader is silly.

      For one thing, Chrome and Chromebooks are central to Google's future.

      And for all the fuss about Reader (i'm a heavy user myself) switching away from Reader has been dead simple since it is just a viewer based around a standard protocol. Google turfing it was annoying at most, and no indication that they will kill off their core initiatives.

  • Lighten up people. The world isn't going to fall into some permanent software as a service hellscape.
  • by thetoadwarrior ( 1268702 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @06:19PM (#43342767) Homepage
    Sorry but web apps could be 100% perfect. That's fine but only if you have a web connection. Yes, some apps at least have an offline mode but you get minimal storage even on Google high-end chromebook which is even more off-putting because you're paying macbook prices for something inferior to a macbook (no a touch screen doesn't add anything of real value). There is still a lot of real work, like development which seem impossible to do on a chromebook. Some businesses do use them but from what I see they're throw-away devices used for people only really need to write "word docs" on google docs and email. I don't think anyone would trust it for much else and I don't blame them. It's like a handicapped version of linux.
    • by Capt.DrumkenBum ( 1173011 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @06:32PM (#43342875)
      I think it is the price that is the problem.
      I have looked a couple of times. (Planning on dropping a real Linux on it.) But every chrombook I have seen was at least $100 too expensive for what you get. For the same money, or in some cases less, you can get a real full laptop.
      I freely admit to being a cheap bastard.
      • by McGruber ( 1417641 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @07:20PM (#43343261)

        But every chrombook I have seen was at least $100 too expensive for what you get. For the same money, or in some cases less, you can get a real full laptop.

        I consider my $250 Samsung Chromebook was money very well spent. I fly a lot for work --two roundtrips per month-- and am usually stuck in tiny "economy class" seats. I can open up the chromebook and actually type on it while sitting on a plane, even tiny regional jets. I usually can't open my regular notebook computer up on a plane because it is too big to fit between me and the seat in front of me.

        The Chromebook also came with a dozen free Gogo passes. Gogo passes currently cost $14 each, if I buy them prior to my flight.... so the dozen free passes are woth $168 to me.

      • by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @10:35PM (#43344421)

        Chromebooks are awesome for non tech folks. Buy one for your parents and you'll never get another tech support call. I'd call the $249 Chromebook a deal for what you get. Yes they do have slots for more storage including USB. Stop trying to cram Linux on something just because you can. Great you installed Linux, now what? Meanwhile people are using them for their intended purpose. If you want a real laptop then buy one. I'll never understand the Chromebook hate on here.

      • by jon3k ( 691256 )
        Compared to a $250 Samsung Chromebook [amazon.com] ? You think that's only $150 in hardware?
    • by jon3k ( 691256 )
      What kind of development? Personally, all I need for development is ssh and a web browser.
  • by MrEricSir ( 398214 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @06:19PM (#43342775) Homepage

    Just because something is new doesn't magically make it better. HTML5 isn't a silver bullet that magically makes everything better; in fact Adobe makes desktop applications because that's what makes sense to do, *not* because it's the latest fad.

    At any rate, have fun uploading 20 gig videos to the cloud before editing them. I'll stick with Final Cut on my Mac, thanks.

    • MrEricSir, this is clippy I see that you are editing your video. In your video our algorithms have determined that you were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Would you to like to: a) report it to the police, b) pay us 1 million dollars to forget what it just saw?
    • by jon3k ( 691256 )
      You're not the target market. If no final cut use ever bought a Chromebook they could still be wildly successful. We didn't need video editors to buy iPads for them to take off. You represent about 0.001% of the computer buying public. Seriously, stick to your Mac, that's what you should be using (obviously). These devices are not designed for you.
    • by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
      Yeah, we all want to edit our photos, videos, documents in the cloud. Why the fuck would I want to do that? I've got a workflow. I've got versions of Photohhop, Acrobat and Illustrator that are quite old, but I know how they work and they all can work together smoothly.

      I don't need to send gigabytes of data back and forth to Adobe to do every edit. I don't have to worry about the interface changing overnight when I have a deadline. Or not being able to do anything because of a "temporary" service interrupt

  • Broad controversial claims ... popcorn munching time.
  • If we have learned anything from the contemporary atomosphere it is that privacy is not just important it is the most important battle in our time. Chromebook is a threat to everything that is good about privacy and about personal computing. Imagine every little aspect of your computing experience being reported to Google all of the time. That's the future Google wants, and that's a totalitarian nightmare even worse than what we have currently.
    • Were you see threat, i see opportunity to explore new ideas. There is always going to be someone slurping up private data, learn to know your enemy, instead of shrinking away.
      • by epyT-R ( 613989 )

        Once the data is collected, it can then be used by others to misconstrue your intentions/character/viability for future opportunities. Forever. The only way to prevent this is to prevent it from being collected in the first place.

        Knowing your enemies is only part of it. Having control over information and intellectual process is where the real power is, so, of course, assholes have come out of the woodwork in the last 10-15 years proclaiming privacy as dead/having never existed. Without privacy, such exp

    • Re:Run.. run away (Score:5, Interesting)

      by wierd_w ( 1375923 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @07:05PM (#43343115)

      The decision that "privacy is dead" happened over a decade ago. Or, do you not remember Scott McNealy, former chairman of Sun Microsystems, who in 1999 said, "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it." And the observation by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison: "The privacy you're concerned about is largely an illusion. All you have to give up is your illusions, not any of your privacy." ??

      Privacy gets in the way of money, and money is a means of attaining and exercising power. Throw in the alarming statistic about CEO psychopaths [time.com], and you have what ails our world today.

      Government has no incentive whatsoever to intervene here, because they also directly profit from stomping on privacy. Look at this editorial for instance. [wsj.com] Unless the politicos are themselves harmed by the loss of privacy, they have no incentive to protect it, and every reason to trample all over it instead.

      The cleary proscribed solution to this problem is to exploit the fuck out of this surveylance society they are working oh so hard to make, and put THEM under the spotlight. It is the only way to get the retractions on positions and rulings required to halt the slide downhill. The leaders are only concerned with themselves, as is true of all psychopaths. You have to make them feel the fires too to get them motivated to do what is right, and they will bitch mightily about it the whole time.

      Amusingly, that's what orgs like wikileaks aimed to do. We saw how that's worked for the likes of Assange. (Yes, he is the very definition of douche, but a douche that exposed a lot of dirty dealing, and pissed in a lot of cheerios, which is exactly what was needed, and is still desperately needed.)

  • Wait 10 Minutes (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Goody ( 23843 )
    Google will drop support for Chromebooks when the next shiny thing comes along and people figure out this is a modern day Wyse terminal.
    • by jon3k ( 691256 )
      Yeah that whole "internet" thing is just a fad. Web browsers are the new dumb terminals. Or maybe, technology continues to evolve forever and that doesn't make it wrong today? I buy a new laptop about every 2 years, pretty sure nothing google could do could make it stop working within that time period.
    • "Google will drop support for Chromebooks when the next shiny thing comes along and people figure out this is a modern day Wyse terminal."

      GOOD. More cheap Linux machines for me.

      Oh, and "modern day IOpener" would be a better analogy.

      Of course enterprising folk put Linux on used thin clients too, Wyse included:

      http://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/hware/hardware.shtml [parkytowers.me.uk]

      http://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/index.shtml [parkytowers.me.uk]

  • Ah, yes, Tweetdeck. (Score:4, Informative)

    by PhxBlue ( 562201 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @06:29PM (#43342851) Homepage Journal

    Compare Tweetdeck's HTML5 version with its native app. Can you tell the difference?

    No, because I'm still using Tweetdeck 0.38.1. I tried the newer version, but every so often it just decides it doesn't want to pull updates anymore.

    • "No, because I'm still using Tweetdeck 0.38.1. I tried the newer version, but every so often it just decides it doesn't want to pull updates anymore."

      By the end of May, support for the older API will be pulled completely, and you won't be able to use it anymore.

      The Web app is nothing at all like the old Tweetdeck. Yes, the web app is comparable to Twitter's version, Twitter's version sucks.

  • Time Travel (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MLCT ( 1148749 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @06:32PM (#43342877)
    We are about to begin the process of travelling back in time. Back to a time when PCs were for experts: people who coded, people who needed specialist tools and people who wanted to tinker.

    The good news in this transition is that we may get back to buying a PC that is geared to what we want rather than being full of junk that tech-illiterates need (specifically in the OS). If MS don't want to provide that experience (and evidence suggests that they don't) then we will just all wipe the machines and put linux on them.

    The bad news is that we will also travel back in time with the price of a PC. Inflation has ran at 3-5% for the last 25 years (give or take a couple of years), yet the cost of a baseline PC has more than halved in that time. That scale only comes with the addition of the tech-illiterate (& Chinese assembly) - once they buy pixibooks and tablets we will be left to pick up the full price for our dedicated high power PCs. The only possible depression on prices is corporate buying, but it can't be too long before they create a stable lightweight environment to get the bulk of corporate work done instead of buying a workstation for every desk.
    • Oh yay. I cant wait for the day when i have to install an OS that provides subpar functionality for home computing. I will devote my days to scouring forums for hours to get anything to work 80% right. And will have to turn to windows emulation to do anything. A dystopian future indeed.
      • by epyT-R ( 613989 )

        It won't be subpar to the web only corporate/government approved thinclient, esp when such thinclients won't run the software you need.

    • Re:Time Travel (Score:5, Interesting)

      by epine ( 68316 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @07:07PM (#43343137)

      once they buy pixibooks and tablets we will be left to pick up the full price for our dedicated high power PCs

      Time travel? Looks more like space travel.

      Most of the decline in price in desktop systems results from chip-scale integration. I can't even figure out what you mean by "pick up the full price". We've been paying less? This is news to me. The only reason the price will bounce upwards is further consolidation of the market, as we saw with Seagate and Western Digital.

      The largest overhead in the PC business stems from the design cadence. Every shrink is more expensive than the last one. I wouldn't be the least surprised if Intel's two year shrink cadence begins to stretch out, which might slow the investment cycle and reduce prices in the short run, but publicly Intel seems to think not.

      From Intel Has 5 nm Processors in Sight [tomshardware.com] -- September 2012 by Wolfgang Gruener

      According to the company, future production processes down to 5 nm are on the horizon and will most likely be reached without significant problems. Following the current 22 nm process, Intel's manufacturing cadence suggests that the first 14 nm products will arrive in late 2013, 10 nm in 2015, 7 nm in 2017, and 5 nm in 2019. A slight adjustment has been made to include different production processes for traditional processors and now SoCs. The company previously indicated that SoCs will be accelerated to catch up with the process applied to Intel's main processor products.

      Looks like the underlying cost structure is largely shared.

    • once they buy pixibooks and tablets we will be left to pick up the full price for our dedicated high power PCs

      No. One of the main things that allowed PC's to become so cheap over time was economies of scale re: mass manufacturing of commodities like RAM. Even if "Desktop PC's" become ultra-exclusive items (doubtful), they'll very likely be packed full of ARM cores and memory chips as you're likely to find in a portable device, just a lot more of them. Certain things (chipsets, high-end GPU's) are another story... but even now, those things aren't commoditized to the same degree that more common parts are (i.e. they

    • Re:Time Travel (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jedidiah ( 1196 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @08:05PM (#43343661) Homepage

      Your argument only works so long as you completely ignore any thing that isn't a DOS clone. Once you allow consideration of things that weren't DOS clones, the price situation doesn't seem nearly a grim.

      It was the PC that dragged it's feet with a GUI, a real OS, and even reasonable pricing.

      My first non-PC cost me 1/3rd what a cut rate and inferior clone of the time would have cost.

      Once you stop fixating on secretary terminals, the history isn't quite so grim.

  • Bah, humbug... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by theVarangian ( 1948970 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @06:52PM (#43343031)

    The Chromebook is a threat to everything, especially PC makers, as its apps improve. Compare Tweetdeck's HTML5 version with its native app.

    It's a thin client. Chrome OS is not likely to put a dent in my plans to continue buying PCs until Google can guarantee complete network coverage everywhere and HTML5 apps are written that can replace complex native apps like Photoshop and the likes. There is a world of difference between Tweetdeck and really complex native apps. Then there is the issue of all my data residing on 3rd party data-center which might get hacked, data mined by the service provider without my permission, destroyed in an unseasonal flood disaster or just discontinued because the service failed to meet profitability goals. Nobody is going to discontinue the SSD in my laptop due to its failure to meet some corporate weasels profitability expectation any time soon and the same goes for my backup disks.

    • by jon3k ( 691256 )
      Ok, reality check: The vast majority of people use their computers where the Internet is accessible. That's just reality. People spend their time on youtube or facebook or emailing. That's the reality of modern day computer use. So for most people, the network coverage is already there. We don't live in an Apple commercial where we're all working from parks and the beach. Second of all, Photoshop users represent a tiny fraction of users. If no photoshop user ever bought a Chromebook it could still be
    • It's a thin client.

      Not unless you expand the definition of thin client to the point where its meaningless.

      Then there is the issue of all my data residing on 3rd party data-center which might get hacked, data mined by the service provider without my permission, destroyed in an unseasonal flood disaster or just discontinued because the service failed to meet profitability goals.

      Nothing requires Chrome apps to store data on a remote server (and there's even less reason for them to do so exclusively.) Obviousl

  • by Spy Handler ( 822350 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @06:56PM (#43343051) Homepage Journal

    Every few years there seems to be a push to get people to accept these ass-backwards computers. Apparently the software companies love the concept of users being held captive to them and requiring their permission just to run the simplest application. "Renting" software on a per usage basis is like their wettest dream.

    I remember back in the day, Oracle was pushing these "Net Computers" or NCs as being the future. Nobody needs to run software from their own hard drive, you can just get everything from the Net! Except for the fact people's hard drives were 4 orders of magnitude faster than their internet connection (and will continue to be so for any foreseeable future). Nobody ended up buying this shit and it went into the dustbin of history.

    But looks like they're trying it again, except now it's been renamed "cloud computing".

  • PC manufacturers may try to corral Chromebook, much like Netbooks, by setting frustratingly low hardware expectations.

    ...because unless Chromebooks are significantly cheaper than a regular computer running Windows/OX X or Linux, where's the point? When/if almost everything has moved to the cloud, Chromebook-type machines will make a lot of sense. In the meantime, a regular computer gives you the best of both worlds - you can run native applications and fire up a browser to use web apps.

    Chromebooks should be most useful in corporate environments where the cost of maintaining hundreds of individual OS installations is a bi

    • The point is having a relatively locked down device for my retired mom to use. Point, click, automatic updates, automatic backups of data, and relative immunity to hacks.

      Simpler and more secure has value.

      • by epyT-R ( 613989 )

        yeah.. until it starts doing something she doesn't like, or stops doing something she does like..then she calls her son who cannot do a thing about it. Yay for consumer powerlessness!

        • My mom, and many other users, have limited needs that google will more than cover, even when they make changes. They do this for a living, and seem pretty good at it.

          I would probably find it too constraining for everyday use, but I've been using computers for a few decades now.

        • by jon3k ( 691256 )
          You win red herring of the day! A vague fictional scenario where somehow the laptop isn't working correctly without any details. Are you a Microsoft astroturfer?
    • ...because unless Chromebooks are significantly cheaper than a regular computer running Windows/OX X or Linux, where's the point?

      For many users, the simplicity and low maintenance overhead of ChromeOS's browser-centered design, and the easy hardware replacement (no concern about transferring files and programs) of the cloud model have value. Sure, for other users, the flexibility and independent local storage model of a traditional OS have more value, but not all users are alike.

  • history repeating (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bloodhawk ( 813939 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @07:08PM (#43343145)
    The same broken concept of crippled terminal type computers seems to have been repeated so many times over the past 30 years (time I have been in IT). The chromebook is just yet another attempt at a concept that consumers have shown repeatedly they don't want. I really expect (and hope) chromebooks also end up on the trash heap of bad ideas just like all the previous versions, the concept seems more aimed at what software and advertising companies want not what users need or want.
    • Sadly, the trend seems to have reversed in the past decade. :(

      Look at facebook and pals. People seem hell bent on throwing their privacy into the hands of shysters for something shiny. Apple is already on the way this direction with siri, which is exactly this kind of application. (Siri runs on servers owned by apple, the app is just an interface to the big iron.) I don't imagine apple will find siri's adoption "discouraging".

      Just turn the heat up slowly instead of all at once, and people will cease to reme

      • Siri is genius. Saves battery life for some bandwidth usage which is less of an issue over time than battery life. Audio recognition will eat up as much CPU cycles as you can throw at it and the software is still evolving. Placing such a feature on server farms and mainframes ensure the best experience and trouble free seamless upgrades. Eventually, it'll work well enough and fast enough to run locally.

        The intelligent features that leverage your personal information will provide an excuse to hand that i

    • by DragonWriter ( 970822 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @07:48PM (#43343511)

      The same broken concept of crippled terminal type computers seems to have been repeated so many times over the past 30 years (time I have been in IT).

      The Chromebook isn't intended to be a "crippled terminal type computer", and its concept is new.

      The reason people keep getting this wrong is that they think of it as an OS that is "just a browser", but refer to an outdated concept of what a web browser does that misses the entire point of Chrome (not just ChromeOS, but Chrome more generally.)

      • by jedidiah ( 1196 )

        You can try and dress it up and engage in flimflam all you like, we will still recognize it (Chrome) for what it is.

    • Re:history repeating (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Malenx ( 1453851 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @08:03PM (#43343643)

      A large portion of consumers have repeatedly stated the Chromebook is exactly what they want. It's cheap, handles basic computing needs (word processes, etc), handles online streaming, and is nearly virus proof with little to no learning curve. There is also no slow degrade of speed over time as your not installing any software. For a lot of non-techies, it's a dream come true.

      Looking forward to getting a few more bucks saved up to get my wife another as she's used her old Chromebook into the ground (the monitor is literally held on with tape as it was a beta product and she's a rough user).

      You may not agree, but I find it hard to believe you formed your opinion on the realities of what the common computer user wants.

      • Why not use a harvard based system then? Seprating program ram from data ram would fantastically limit the options of malicious asshats attempting exploits. Trojan horsing an executable payload in the data portion of the stack and jumping execution simply wouldn't work on harvard.

        Designing a device that can do all these things is not terribly difficult. There is really no reason for the "OMG! It has to have all the things, and ON der interwebz!" Other than becaue doing so eases central management. "Central

      • If they are EXACTLY what the consumer wants then why are they selling so badly? they have certainly been advertised and pushed, they got huge amounts of press, yet from all the recent articles it seems even the relatively low selling MS Surface tablets are outselling them and that is pretty bad for something supposedly all these consumers want.
  • Android does everything Chrome does, plus lots more. At least for the consumer: I understand the need for .Corp , .Gov and .Edu to have dumb clients, but Consumers can benefit more from a more independent OS.

  • The next step will be HTML6 that can be downloaded and can run offline like a normal application. Then someone will start build a web browser in HTML6, and try to sell it as something "new" and in the "cloud". That will be a HTML6 extension HTML7.

    No really, WTF? Finally we reached the technology that any mobile phone can be faster then anything 20 years ego. But noooo, now we need to put everything on the web. So it will run 100x slower, tied to a browser, and if the Internet connection goes down, so go you

    • by jon3k ( 691256 )
      What web based application is 100x slower? I find pretty much every web based app I use is much faster than a compiled client version (gmail vs any email client) and you get the advantages of being able to access the application (and more importantly, information) from anywhere and any device.
  • Chrome is a technology looking for a problem to solve, at least for me and for most people. Yes, Google (and maybe some other companies) would be happy if they were constantly controlling the apps you were using, but I so no advantage in that approach to me. (And I see serious disadvantages.) I have a MacBook Air that I'm very, very happy with. It's simple to use and manage. It's small and light. Why would I possibly be better-served by comparable hardware running a browser-based OS? It makes no sense from
    • Google (and maybe some other companies) would be happy if they were constantly controlling the apps you were using, but I so no advantage in that approach to me.

      No one is "constantly controlling the apps you" are using on a Chromebook, any more than on a traditional desktop.

       

  • The Chromebook detractors don't have one.

  • Our laptop standard is an 8GB quad processor barely sufficient to run Linux and Windows emulation.

  • by trdrstv ( 986999 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @09:24PM (#43344091)
    I'll be honest, I never understood why Google keeps pushing ChromeOS. The 2 devices where "It needs to be connected to a network in order to be useful at all" (Phone and TV) they decided to go with Android so really why bother ? It's like someone high up in Google is stuck in the 1970's/ 80's mainframe mentality where client hardware is weak and expensive and connectivity to the server is cheap, when in fact we live in the opposite world of that.
    • ChromeOS is deeply tied into Google's infrastructure so they use the collected data to further their core advertising business. Android is too independent for that as it is possible to use an Android device without ever "phoning home" to mother Google. It was put forward as an impulse rush to get something to compete against iOS fast and maintain mobile mindshare.

    • by jon3k ( 691256 )
      Connectivity to the server is cheap, and ubiquitous. It's called the Internet. The point of Chrome OS is to see if we can build a functional computer using only web based applications. And to be honest, we're getting pretty darn close, considering the majority of people spend all their time on their computers on facebook or youtube.
  • Yeah, most of us will sneer at a machine that has all the limitations of iPad with none of its chic factor. Chromebooks look as dory and antidiluvian as a netbook. And it works only when there is a connection to the net. But ...

    Most people are not like a typical slashdot reader. They have been plunking down cash for tower cases and expansion bays and 99% of the tower cases finish their life without the users ever upgrading/expanding anything. Most people use a puny 4 inch screen to get to the net via mob

    • Most people use a puny 4 inch screen to get to the net via mobile phone networks.

      I remember arguing once with a cell phone salesman in the mall with something similar to this. This was back in the days when flip phones were the general fancy phone. Anyway, this guy was trying to sell me one of his service's phones and I asked him if I would be able to use the phone to get internet access to my laptop. His reply completely baffled me at the time (remember, flip phones). He asked, "Why would you want to get on the internet with your laptop when you could just browse it on your phone?"

      At t

    • Netbooks still have a large core audience, check the prices on Ebay.

      They were killed off because they ate market share from more profitable systems.

  • by sootman ( 158191 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @11:01PM (#43344555) Homepage Journal

    > It might be a year or two before Adobe delivers
    > Web-only versions of its products

    LOLOL. Fucking A. The day Adobe stops shipping native apps will be the day when the bandwidth between adobe.com and my house is as high as the bandwidth between my CPU and my RAM, and as reliable. Which is to say, FUCKING NEVER.

    What MORON doesn't see much difference between between editing 140 MB images and reading 140-character posts? That's literally a million-to-one difference right there. (1,048,576 to 1, actually.)

    In other news, the head of a company with a BILLION users said moving to HTML5 was his biggest mistake. [techcrunch.com]

  • by slashmydots ( 2189826 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @11:48PM (#43344739)
    For the first time in human history, Microsoft may break their "every other product sucks" cycle by releasing two crappy OSes in a row. So they're just in time for massive non-MS tablet and phone adoption where everyone and their grandma knows how to operate an android interface. Apple already doubled their market share during Vista time. Ubuntu is (debatably) getting more useable by the average Joe. Now Chromebooks come in a non-toy, actual business-use device that's cheap. Thin terminals are an incredible, unbelievably, immensely stupid solution but a monitor and terminal is like $200 so tada, call centers and places run by cheapos use them. So Chromebooks at $250, most people know how to operate one, and it runs useful apps? The tipping point is when 3rd party mega-suites start releasing alternate OS versions of their client software. Right now it's basically VPN/RDP or native Windows for CRMs and stuff. But Driven and Fishbowl and Quickbooks all have Android apps so, bye bye MS.
    In reality, they have the money. They'll fire every other person in charge of UI design and planning and make something their customers actually want by Windows 10. I just hope, FOR ONCE, they learn their lesson permanently! Considering the every other cycle is since Windows 3.1, that's doubtful.
  • Remember netbooks? They got to be rather good under-$300 laptop computers before the industry killed them off for not being expensive enough and not requiring any expensive or intrusive "cloud service".

  • What are you talking about? I have a Samsung XE500C21, which is fast enough for surfing the web and running an ssh client (which is also all it does), has 8.5 hours of battery life, and is easy to carry.

    It is a threat to everything except doing things by visiting websites or logging in to *nix machines to do real work, which happens to be what I and a lot of other people have been doing for years. It's also fairly close to what smartphones and tablets do.

    I also see no signs of manufacturers making things wo

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