Thursday, November 19, 2009
Chrome: The End of Desktop Apps

Direct from Google headquarters, Vice President of Product Management Sundar Pichai explains that the company’s forthcoming Chrome OS could signal the end of desktop apps as we know them.

Direct from Google headquarters, Vice President of Product Management Sundar Pichai explains that the company’s forthcoming Chrome OS could signal the end of desktop apps as we know them.
Speaking at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans this past July, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said of Google’s forthcoming Chrome OS, “Who knows what this thing is?” Today, he found out. The operating system, a direct challenge to Microsoft Windows, was on display at a media gathering at the company’s HQ this morning, and in the words of Sundar Pichai, Google’s vice president of product management, it is intended to make computing a “delightful” experience.
Asked earlier this year if he would resign from Apple’s board in the face of Federal Trade Commission scrutiny of the close ties between the two companies’ boards of directors, Google CEO Eric Schmidt replied simply, “It hasn’t crossed my mind.” Well, apparently it has now.

Microsoft might worry more about Google’s new Chrome OS if it knew what it was. At the company’s Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans today, CEO Steve Ballmer said he was mystified by the dual-OS strategy Google seems to have adopted with Chrome. “Who knows what that thing is,” he said.
After four beta versions and nearly as many release candidates, Firefox 3.5 is finally here. This latest version of the browser offers a number of new features. Among them: Private browsing, location aware surfing, support for emerging HTML 5 standards such as plug-in-free video and audio playing, and better JavaScript performance.

He had a good run of it, but Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s stint as an Apple director may be coming to an end. Now that the Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether the close ties between Apple’s and Google’s boards of directors violate antitrust laws, Schmidt’s seat on the former’s board, which he has held since August 2006, seems more trouble than its worth.
Oh, they’re all piling on now. Google has thrown its backing behind European antitrust regulators’ latest complaint against Microsoft, which accuses the software behemoth of illegally bundling its Internet Explorer Web browser and Windows operating system. Like Mozilla before it, the company is applying to become a “third party” in the European proceeding.
The stock market’s performance this past year isn’t the only thing that’s charting historic lows. According to preliminary December metrics from Net Applications, the share of the browser market held by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has slipped below 70 percent.
The first Android-powered handset debuted this morning at a T-Mobile launch event in New York. Manufactured by HTC, the G1 is largely as anticipated. Peter Chou, CEO of HTC describes it as “iconic,” but that’s being a bit generous, I think. In design, the device seems to borrow quite a bit from the T-Mobile Sidekick, and its touchscreen GUI clearly owes a thing or two to Apple’s iPhone.
Google’s new Chrome browser hasn’t been available for a week yet and already, privacy advocates are sounding alarms. Over the weekend, Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security warned against using the browser, which it fears collects and centralizes a bit too much user data with Google.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.