chrome OS, discussion and a good ad

J Davis

J Davis

Veteran
I just wanted to start a thread about google's radical idea to replace the operating system with a browser.
I've been following this since they first announced it 10 months ago.

You can see a bit about it in this pretty funny ad where they destroy the beta cr-48 ...


The ad is cool and kitch and fun and strangely reminds me of how apple used to be 10-12 years ago. Remember the 'not beige' ad campaign? Anyway, apart from
talking about google's videos it seems pretty clear to me the face off is apple vs google in the realm of cyber power.
 
Last edited:
Also wanted to post an objective review that I read covering the good and the bad and odds and ends. LINK
(sorry about the annoying between page ads, they are not there if you use an iPad)

In a product world where new products get snazzy names, Cr-48 is a little out of the ordinary – except that it fits right into the way Google does things. We asked a Googler why it was called Cr-48, and we were told, "Cr-48 is a reference to a particularly unstable isotope of Chromium. Cr-48 has a half-life of 21 hours, which we thought was a good representation of the pace of innovation we expect from our team and the platform."

Interestingly enough, the internal codename for the Cr-48 was "Mario," which can actually be found on the model stickers in the notebook's battery compartment.
Click to expand...
 
This is a terrible, terrible idea. If there's one thing that should ALWAYS be within the user's direct control it's the operating system. Having not only your data, but the applications you rely on (and the entire OS) reside on someone else's equipment is insane. Moreover, cloud computing based software like this is only one very simple step away from becoming subscription-based.

Imagine you running your business off of a hosted solution which starts off free -- then one day you turn on your PC and find that if you don't pay $150 a month, you can't access your data. No thanks.

If you want to run a Free (as in freedom, and price) operating system, run one of the many GNU/Linux distros that has everything installed locally.
 
Agree with TwistedLincoln on this. A couple of other things I don't like about this:

1) Last night my internet service went down. Came back up this morning. I would be F&^%$*ed.
2) Not to turn this into politics, but the US Government needs a search warrant to search your HDD at home. If your stuff is in the cloud, they don't. They just have to lean on the company. And we've seen many times in recent years, companies will pretty much always cave. This is something that should concern every American citizen regardless of party. I will not put my stuff up there until the law catches up. I think there's a basic issue with relying on so many private companies for what are becoming essentially public services.

That said, I am a huge fan of Cloud products, and use Amazon's services quite a bit. Though I don't put my personal stuff up there, only for business and products I'm developing. Also, Rackspace has a nice cloud product you can either host with them, or just buy and host yourself.
 
Just read an interesting comment by Dion Almaer who observes that Google is now backing two different operating systems fot the web.
Chrome OS and Android. Merge likely?

Also take a walk back to April earlier this year when Google bought BumpTop (link and link)
I'm waiting for that one to resurface as part of either Android or Chrome OS or dare I say it ... Chrome Android
 
Wow... smart idea, not so smart to add your own element of creepy with the hazmat suits and their poor direction (in my humble opinion) when people are already worried about the creepy big-brother implications.

We'll see. I think it makes sense, that way the upgrading, recycling, and optimization of storage and processing power can be a bit more effective when handled in large numbers. But we need to develop internet law, and create entities in ways that can make it easy for everyone to trust. Non-for profit, democratic, something... Call a couple of sociology Ph.D.

This sort of step will certainly be an enzyme for taking exiting sociological steps... growing pains are in the horizon.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top