This article misses the point of the Google OS. It is a web-centric OS for devices that are used primarily for surfing.
Having said that, I think it is pretty clear that Google is betting on most of our applications living in the cloud in the future, and that is the trend they are banking on here.
The article is spot on in asking a critical question about exactly how capable Google's offering is in reality as an OPERATING SYSTEM. To say that Google's OS is to provide a distributed storage mechanism is to bypass the concept of what an OS actually is - the gateway to the underlying hardware so that you can perform the functionality required to complete a specific task.
If Google's goal is to provide us with a distributed storage mechanism, then a better strategy would be to provide a better interface to their web offerings on existing operating systems.
No matter how much we desire a web-centric user experience, there will always be a need for software that takes advantage of all the computing power available in as small a foot print that is right in front of you. The question is will Google's OS provide this ability equally as well as Windows or Mac OSX can in order to be considered a "complete" operating system that has additional advantages.
I would agree, but it appears Google is banking on a lot of what we do on the desktop moving to the web in the next few years, and that is where they are hoping this will poise them to get a foothold.
That's the whole point of "cloud computing": the computer in front of you doesn't have and doesn't need much computing power. This is not a new idea; the "dumb terminal" concept has been around for decades.
what an OS actually is - the gateway to the underlying hardware so that you can perform the functionality required to complete a specific task
This is exactly correct. But in the case of Chrome OS, the real underlying hardware is the server youre connecting too, not your local machine. So photoshop (or similar photo editing software) will run on Chrome OS, but it's going to run in a network connected piece of software using server resources.
This minimizes the need for expensive local equipment, and dramatically increases the demands of the server. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if sometime in the future Google plans on renting their server resources based on the number of CPU cycles you use!
> So photoshop (or similar photo editing software) will run on Chrome OS, but it's going to run in a network connected piece of software using server resources.
I think what we're going to see is a way to hook into Chrome so that it appears like you're launching an application (rather than visiting a web site), but it runs within the Chrome engine using HTML/JS. With Native Client, even complex operations could be done within Chrome without performance worries.
Essentially asks "why isn't it everything for everyone?"
Apple's OS/hardware isn't that either, they seem to be doing very good. Why do you want creative features in a consumerist OS? It seems to be a sort of a "TV 2.0", not a UNIX workstation, even if it runs on Linux (kernel).
Let's wait to find out what they actually have in mind, and then jump to conclusions.
I think that the Google OS will be great even if I only boot to it occasionally. If it really only takes a few seconds to boot, it will be useful to use when on the road or when I just want to check email.
It's a little like using Chrome instead of Firefox. I use Chrome when I actually want to use the web like a normal person, but when I want to do real work and development, I use Firefox because it is so much more powerful (WebDeveloper, Firebug, TamperData, etc).
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 38.3 ms ] threadHaving said that, I think it is pretty clear that Google is betting on most of our applications living in the cloud in the future, and that is the trend they are banking on here.
If Google's goal is to provide us with a distributed storage mechanism, then a better strategy would be to provide a better interface to their web offerings on existing operating systems.
No matter how much we desire a web-centric user experience, there will always be a need for software that takes advantage of all the computing power available in as small a foot print that is right in front of you. The question is will Google's OS provide this ability equally as well as Windows or Mac OSX can in order to be considered a "complete" operating system that has additional advantages.
This is exactly correct. But in the case of Chrome OS, the real underlying hardware is the server youre connecting too, not your local machine. So photoshop (or similar photo editing software) will run on Chrome OS, but it's going to run in a network connected piece of software using server resources.
This minimizes the need for expensive local equipment, and dramatically increases the demands of the server. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if sometime in the future Google plans on renting their server resources based on the number of CPU cycles you use!
Like, say, Aviary.
2. Aviary (http://aviary.com/home) will likely run fine on it. :p
Apple's OS/hardware isn't that either, they seem to be doing very good. Why do you want creative features in a consumerist OS? It seems to be a sort of a "TV 2.0", not a UNIX workstation, even if it runs on Linux (kernel).
Let's wait to find out what they actually have in mind, and then jump to conclusions.
It's a little like using Chrome instead of Firefox. I use Chrome when I actually want to use the web like a normal person, but when I want to do real work and development, I use Firefox because it is so much more powerful (WebDeveloper, Firebug, TamperData, etc).