* Google Chrome is Google’s open source browser project. As rumored before under the name of “Google Browser”, this will be based on the existing rendering engine Webkit. Furthermore, it will include Google’s Gears project.
* The browser will include a JavaScript Virtual Machine called V8, built from scratch by a team in Denmark, and open-sourced as well so other browsers could include it. One aim of V8 was to speed up JavaScript performance in the browser, as it’s such an important component on the web today. Google also say they’re using a “multi-process design” which they say means “a bit more memory up front” but over time also “less memory bloat.” When web pages or plug-ins do use a lot of memory, you can spot them in Chrome’s task manager, “placing blame where blame belongs.”
* Google Chrome will use special tabs. Instead of traditional tabs like those seen in Firefox, Chrome puts the tab buttons on the upper side of the window, not below the address bar.
* The browser has an address bar with auto-completion features. Called ’omnibox’, Google says it offers search suggestions, top pages you’ve visited, pages you didn’t visit but which are popular amd more. The omnibox (“omni” is a prefix meaning “all”, as in “omniscient” – “all-knowing”) also lets you enter e.g. “digital camera” if the title of the page you visited was “Canon Digital Camera”. Additionally, the omnibox lets you search a website of which it captured the search box; you need to type the site’s name into the address bar, like “amazon”, and then hit the tab key and enter your search keywords.
* As a default homepage Chrome presents you with a kind of “speed dial” feature, similar to the one of Opera. On that page you will see your most visited webpages as 9 screenshot thumbnails. To the side, you will also see a couple of your recent searches and your recently bookmarked pages, as well as recently closed tabs.
* Chrome has a privacy mode; Google says you can create an “incognito” window “and nothing that occurs in that window is ever logged on your computer.” The latest version of Internet Explorer calls this InPrivate. Google’s use-case for when you might want to use the “incognito” feature is e.g. to keep a surprise gift a secret. As far as Microsoft’s InPrivate mode is concerned, people also speculated it was a “porn mode.”
* Web apps can be launched in their own browser window without address bar and toolbar. Mozilla has a project called Prism that aims to do similar (though doing so may train users into accepting non-URL windows as safe or into ignoring the URL, which could increase the effectiveness of phishing attacks).
* To fight malware and phishing attempts, Chrome is constantly downloading lists of harmful sites. Google also promises that whatever runs in a tab is sandboxed so that it won’t affect your machine and can be safely closed. Plugins the user installed may escape this security model, Google admits.
This looks like a very interesting project, and I think it can’t hurt to have more competition in the browser area. Google is playing this as nicely as possible by open-sourcing things, with perhaps part of the reason to try to defend against monopoly accusations – after all, Google already owns a lot of what’s happening inside the browser, and some may feel owning a browser too could be a little too much power for a single company (Google could, for instance, release browser features that benefit their sites more than most other sites... as can Microsoft with Internet Explorer). For now, until Chrome is released in a testable version, how much of the speed, stability and user interface promises will be fullfilled – and how much of the interface you’ll be able to configure in case you don’t like it – remains to be seen.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Google introduces Android apps store
Google unveiled on Thursday its plans for a store where mobile users can find Android applications, a concept similar to the iPhone's App Store.
The Market will feature a feedback and rating system similar to that used in YouTube, Chu said.
Developers can add their applications to the market by registering as a merchant, uploading the content, and publishing it. Google expects to add features for developers after the initial launch, including a dashboard where developers can find analytics information about their content. Developers will also be able to upload different versions of their applications that might work better on different devices.
Android followers have wondered how Google might support application distribution. Its Android Market is a similar concept to Apple's App Store, but differs in some ways. For instance, because all iPhones run on the same software, developers don't have to create different versions for different phones. Android is open, and handset makers may decide to include different hardware capabilities or opt not to support all Android features, which has an effect on the way applications work.
Historically, the mobile market has struggled with how to best sell and distribute mobile applications. Prior to the iPhone, the best way for an application to become widely used was for a developer to convince an operator to pre-load it onto a phone, a challenging accomplishment. Mobile phone users only very seldom download applications to their phones
The Market will feature a feedback and rating system similar to that used in YouTube, Chu said.
Developers can add their applications to the market by registering as a merchant, uploading the content, and publishing it. Google expects to add features for developers after the initial launch, including a dashboard where developers can find analytics information about their content. Developers will also be able to upload different versions of their applications that might work better on different devices.
Android followers have wondered how Google might support application distribution. Its Android Market is a similar concept to Apple's App Store, but differs in some ways. For instance, because all iPhones run on the same software, developers don't have to create different versions for different phones. Android is open, and handset makers may decide to include different hardware capabilities or opt not to support all Android features, which has an effect on the way applications work.
Historically, the mobile market has struggled with how to best sell and distribute mobile applications. Prior to the iPhone, the best way for an application to become widely used was for a developer to convince an operator to pre-load it onto a phone, a challenging accomplishment. Mobile phone users only very seldom download applications to their phones
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Monday, August 4, 2008
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Microsoft prepares for end of Windows with Midori
With the Internet increasingly taking on the role of the PC operating system and the growing prevalence of virtualization technologies, there will be a day when the Microsoft Windows client OS as it's been developed for the past 20-odd years becomes obsolete.
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Microsoft seems to be preparing for that day with an incubation project code-named Midori, which seeks to create a componentized, non-Windows OS that will take advantage of technologies not available when Windows first was conceived, according to published reports.
[ InfoWorld's Randall C. Kennedy says Midori is a pipe dream at best, and shows why in his blog. ]
Although Microsoft won't comment publicly on what Midori is, the company has confirmed that it exists. Several reports -- the most comprehensive to date published on Tuesday by Software Development Times -- have gone much further than that.
That report paints Midori as an Internet-centric OS, based on the idea of connected systems, that largely eliminates the dependencies between local applications and the hardware they run on that exist with a typical OS today.
The report claims Midori is an offshoot of Microsoft Research's Singularity OS, which creates "software-isolated processes" to reduce the dependencies between individual applications, and between the applications and the OS itself.
With the ability today to run an OS, applications -- and even an entire PC desktop of applications -- in a virtual container using a hypervisor, the need to have the OS and applications installed natively on a PC is becoming less and less, said Brian Madden, an independent technology analyst.
"Why do you need it?" he said. "Now we have hypervisors everywhere."
Madden suggested that a future OS could actually be a hypervisor itself, with virtual containers of applications running on top of it that can be transferred easily to other devices because they don't have client-side dependencies to each other.
And while he has no information about Midori beyond the published reports, he said descriptions of it as an Internet-centric system that provides an overall "connectedness" between applications and devices makes sense for the future of cloud computing and on-demand services. Microsoft likely recognizes the need for this even if the actual technology is still five or more years out, Madden said.
"They're preparing for the day when people realize we don't need Windows anymore" and thinking about what they will do to remain relevant, he said.
Indeed, Microsoft has been emphasizing its virtualization strategy, based on its new Hyper-V hypervisor, beyond merely virtualizing the server OS. The company also is moving full steam ahead with plans to virtualize applications and the desktop OS as well.
Using virtualization in these scenarios would eliminate the problems with application compatibility that are still giving headaches to Vista users, and that have made the OS a liability rather than a boon for some Windows power users and enterprise customers.
If Midori is close to what people think it is, it will represent a "major paradigm shift" for Windows users and be no easy task for Microsoft to pull off, said Andrew Brust, chief of new technology for the consulting firm Twentysix New York.
He said challenges to an OS like Midori would be both technological complexities and the "sobering compromises" that must be made when a product moves from being a research project into commercialization. "I would expect those in abundance with something of this scope and import," Brust said.
Though he has not been briefed by Microsoft on Midori, Brust said the idea makes sense because Microsoft needs to drastically update Windows to stay current with new business models and computing paradigms that exist today -- particularly to help the company compete against Google on the Web.
"Breaking with the legacy of a product that first shipped 23 years ago seems wholly necessary in terms of keeping the product manageable and in sync with computing’s state of the art," Brust said. "If Midori isn’t real, then I imagine something of this nature still must be in the works. It’s absolutely as necessary, if not more so, to Microsoft's survival as their initiatives around Internet advertising, search and cloud computing offerings."
adCall("336","280","imu");
Microsoft seems to be preparing for that day with an incubation project code-named Midori, which seeks to create a componentized, non-Windows OS that will take advantage of technologies not available when Windows first was conceived, according to published reports.
[ InfoWorld's Randall C. Kennedy says Midori is a pipe dream at best, and shows why in his blog. ]
Although Microsoft won't comment publicly on what Midori is, the company has confirmed that it exists. Several reports -- the most comprehensive to date published on Tuesday by Software Development Times -- have gone much further than that.
That report paints Midori as an Internet-centric OS, based on the idea of connected systems, that largely eliminates the dependencies between local applications and the hardware they run on that exist with a typical OS today.
The report claims Midori is an offshoot of Microsoft Research's Singularity OS, which creates "software-isolated processes" to reduce the dependencies between individual applications, and between the applications and the OS itself.
With the ability today to run an OS, applications -- and even an entire PC desktop of applications -- in a virtual container using a hypervisor, the need to have the OS and applications installed natively on a PC is becoming less and less, said Brian Madden, an independent technology analyst.
"Why do you need it?" he said. "Now we have hypervisors everywhere."
Madden suggested that a future OS could actually be a hypervisor itself, with virtual containers of applications running on top of it that can be transferred easily to other devices because they don't have client-side dependencies to each other.
And while he has no information about Midori beyond the published reports, he said descriptions of it as an Internet-centric system that provides an overall "connectedness" between applications and devices makes sense for the future of cloud computing and on-demand services. Microsoft likely recognizes the need for this even if the actual technology is still five or more years out, Madden said.
"They're preparing for the day when people realize we don't need Windows anymore" and thinking about what they will do to remain relevant, he said.
Indeed, Microsoft has been emphasizing its virtualization strategy, based on its new Hyper-V hypervisor, beyond merely virtualizing the server OS. The company also is moving full steam ahead with plans to virtualize applications and the desktop OS as well.
Using virtualization in these scenarios would eliminate the problems with application compatibility that are still giving headaches to Vista users, and that have made the OS a liability rather than a boon for some Windows power users and enterprise customers.
If Midori is close to what people think it is, it will represent a "major paradigm shift" for Windows users and be no easy task for Microsoft to pull off, said Andrew Brust, chief of new technology for the consulting firm Twentysix New York.
He said challenges to an OS like Midori would be both technological complexities and the "sobering compromises" that must be made when a product moves from being a research project into commercialization. "I would expect those in abundance with something of this scope and import," Brust said.
Though he has not been briefed by Microsoft on Midori, Brust said the idea makes sense because Microsoft needs to drastically update Windows to stay current with new business models and computing paradigms that exist today -- particularly to help the company compete against Google on the Web.
"Breaking with the legacy of a product that first shipped 23 years ago seems wholly necessary in terms of keeping the product manageable and in sync with computing’s state of the art," Brust said. "If Midori isn’t real, then I imagine something of this nature still must be in the works. It’s absolutely as necessary, if not more so, to Microsoft's survival as their initiatives around Internet advertising, search and cloud computing offerings."
Cuil Crashes And Burns At Launch
Crashing right after launch is, apparently, a startup rite of passage. If, however, you've touted your new search engine as a Google killer, you might want to make sure crashes can't happen. Google never goes down, and quite simply, can't be killed with overloaded servers. After Powerset's sudden sale to Microsoft, the blogosphere needed a new contender. A former Google search architect and her Stanford professor husband, along with other former Googlers operating under the protective wing of the anti-noncompete laws of California (a law, ironically, Google likes to leverage when it can), thought for sure they could provide that new challenger. And then all went blank at Cuil (cool), which was touted to have thrice the index of Google, scanning 121 billion web pages. Servers today couldn't keep up with demand, illustrating what Powerset foresaw as their biggest hurdle: scalability. Microsoft provided that, along with enough cash to see it through. Even if you could get a query to return something today, though, reviews of the results have been mixed.The results are supposed to be an alternative to Google's ranking system, which is often criticized for being more of a popularity contest (among a myriad other criticisms) in the search results. Hence all the Wikipedia and YouTube returns. Cuil is said to operate differently from Google's distributed server, load-balancing concept—which incidently handles about a trillion URLs several times daily and manages to stay online—and has its servers divided according to category. If one searches for a sports-related query, for example, there are designated sports servers to handle that. One issue, as we're seeing today: If a spike in sports queries knocks the sports servers offline, other non-specialized servers specializing in, say, cooking, will handle the results instead. In that event, you get either no results or bad ones, which is likely the cause of all the subsequent, to put it lightly, disappointment following initial launch hype. I thought an ego-search would be sufficiently simple for it—there couldn't be that many sources to pull from. After a few minutes, Cuil did bring back several instances where my articles have appeared on TechMeme, and once from the New York Times' Blogrunner. A few images accompany the results, none of which are of me, one of which appears to be a female.There's an interesting "Explore by Category" section currently (more than a few minutes later) unclickable to see where they lead, categorizing me, interestingly, under Critics of Scientology, Investigative Journalists, American Bloggers, Scottish Premiere League Players, Villages in Illinois, and Black and White Films. Yes, there are other Jason Lee Millers, several of them, one of them an up-and-coming young actor, who is noticeably absent from Cuil's results. But he did change his name to Jason L. Miller noticing, I imagine, how I dominated Google under that name. Also noticeably absent from Cuil: any result from WebProNews, which would seem the most relevant. Cuil criticism is catching on. Fark, to put it mildly, was unimpressed along with scores of other bloggers. Someone zapped me this image from Photobucket, which appears to be a Wikipedia entry popping up at some point during the day before being edited back to the more positively-spun version. Is it or isn't it? Doesn't matter. It expresses a rising viewpoint on the Web today, as evidenced even on Google Hot Trends, where the phrase "cuil sucks" just made the number 2 biggest gainer spot. So far, Cuil the Google Killer is a colossal flop. Could it recover? Maybe, but it'll probably be really hard to get all the people on board this morning to give it another shot.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
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