The first threat to Microsoft Windows since BeOS

rypt · 9 Jul 2009 at 15:08

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8141964.stm

Google has announced which hardware firms have pledged to build machines that will run its Chrome OS.
The search giant said it was working with many firms on Chrome OS hardware including Acer, Asus, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, and Toshiba.

Google said that the code for the Chrome OS would be open sourced in late 2009. Google said that the software will be free to download and use.
The first netbooks that can run the software will be ready in late 2010.

Looking good, might switch my NC10 to it when it's out

rypt · 9 Jul 2009 at 15:11

HangTime said:
To be honest even back then if you take id software engines out of the equation, OpenGL was very much playing 2nd fiddle even to Glide, never mind DX.

In the short-medium term at least any OS other than Windows will be considered a niche market by developers/publishers and aside from a few studios I can't see many moving away from DX. With more and more cross platform games nowadays (i.e. released on consoles too) I doubt OGL will take off even if it was technically equal or slightly superior to DX.

PS3 runs on OpelGL ...

Wossi · 9 Jul 2009 at 16:11

If it's free and lightweight, then I might consider it for the netbook we have at home, all it's used for is browsing the web and msn.

Caged · 9 Jul 2009 at 16:31

yashiro said:
Nothing can really topple Windows now that's true, but the information in your post is incorrect.

Feel free to address the points made then

Ninja Please! · 9 Jul 2009 at 16:32

netbooks are gaining more popularity. I think too many people expect a netbook to be everything a desktop is, which is just not going to happen.

The biggest problem I see is this OS would have to ship with some netbooks. The people this OS is marketed toward are probably not going to seek it out and buy it and install it.

Kriist · 9 Jul 2009 at 16:42

is it not going to be free?

Macro · 9 Jul 2009 at 17:23

mrk said:
No Google service to date has flopped or received bad press after launch and that's not likely to change.

Really? How about Google Notebook? Google Video? Google Catalogs? Jaiku (the Twitter compete)?, Google Mash-up Editor? Google Answers?

All of which goes to show the power of marketing and just why Google make so much money from advertising, people buy into the brand and don't stop to look at the facts...

mrk · 9 Jul 2009 at 17:25

They were not major things though were they, not on teh same level as gmail, docs, calendar, and now this new os.

Macro · 9 Jul 2009 at 17:29

Well they would have been if they'd not flopped, just like this OS "won't be on the same scale a Google search" if it flops.

You can hardly say "No Google service to date has flopped or received bad press" if you only choose to include the successful products and conveniently sweep the failures under the carpet.

Pretty much proves my point about buying into the Google marketing though..

theheyes · 9 Jul 2009 at 21:12

Google's OS security claims called 'idiotic'

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/070809-googles-os-security-claims-called.html

Bruce Schneier, the chief security technology officer at BT, scoffed at Google's promise. "It's an idiotic claim," Schneier wrote in an e-mail. "It was mathematically proved decades ago that it is impossible -- not an engineering impossibility, not technologically impossible, but the 2+2=3 kind of impossible -- to create an operating system that is immune to viruses."

I must admit when I first read Google's statement myself I thought it was an iffy claim.

Google said:
And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

Faustus · 9 Jul 2009 at 21:19

Personally the larger Google gets the more worried I get - much more so than I ever have about the size of MS.

I worry that Google's stated aim is to "take out Microsoft" in ever market they operate in. I think healthy competition is good but this isn't healthy it's a vendetta, why and to what end?

I view Google as a malevolent force and I think the time is way overdue for the worlds regulatory authorities to keep a very close eye on Google's global expansion.

NathanE · 10 Jul 2009 at 09:03

The thing that confuses me is that Google Chrome (the browser, ooh this is going to get confusing) has already had more security vulnerabilities than IE8... so how exactly is their oh-so-advanced "security architecture" paying off exactly?

The problem is that Google is really just a PHP/Ajax/HTML/CSS company at heart. But for some reason they think they have a clue about operating systems and security...

NathanE · 10 Jul 2009 at 09:16

theheyes said:
Google's OS security claims called 'idiotic'

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/070809-googles-os-security-claims-called.html

I must admit when I first read Google's statement myself I thought it was an iffy claim.

I think it is good that BT, of all companies, has decided to voice an opinion on the subject. If nothing else, it has raised BT's profile amongst the open source and security industries.

I totally agree with the guy. If Google had merely said something like "we're going to redesign the security architecture making it more secure than ever before" but they didn't. They said their OS "will be immune from viruses"! That is quite some claim, right there.

The immaturity of Google, as a company, is beginning to show more than ever before now. Increasingly people are beginning to realise Google are not their fluffy teddy bear anymore but that they are evil and more evil than Microsoft ever was in its heydays.

denyerec · 10 Jul 2009 at 09:21

Any business that tries to tell you their business ethic is "Do no evil" needs viewing with suspicion. I'm unclear why the news reporters are carrying such a large "Anti Microsoft" banner, along with Google. Most of their services were probably written with Visual Studio for a start...

People seem to forget that MS do a lot other than Windows & Office, and don't realise quite how much they've done for the PC industry as a whole. Not saying all of it's good, mind, or that I support some of their business practices, but sometimes a dictatorship can work (DirectX and a largely unified PC hardware market as one example).

Dj_Jestar · 10 Jul 2009 at 10:54

denyerec said:
Any business that tries to tell you their business ethic is "Do no evil" needs viewing with suspicion. I'm unclear why the news reporters are carrying such a large "Anti Microsoft" banner, along with Google. Most of their services were probably written with Visual Studio for a start...

unlikely when it's using a modified linux kernel, and will be open source.

Ross1234 · 10 Jul 2009 at 11:20

Google said you dont need to worry about antivirus's not that its immune to them. they probably scan stuff at their end over the internet.

Edward01 · 10 Jul 2009 at 11:23

It's interesting how peoples view of google is now changing. Once the friendly hippy search engine, now the big multi national how wants to track your every move so they can advertise at you 24/7 (just look at the amount of ads on youtube now).

People are warming back to Microsoft who, when you compare big evil mega companies, don't seem as bad.

And then on the sidelines you've apple who aren't particularlly evil, they just have the best marketing department in the world, (take the iPhone, they've got people to pay a small fortune for the same phone 3 times in 2 years and it's still 2 years behind the competition)

raptormonkey · 10 Jul 2009 at 11:57

With Virging getting into F1 maybe Branson could develop an OS!!

Dj_Jestar · 10 Jul 2009 at 12:41

NathanE said:
I think it is good that BT, of all companies, has decided to voice an opinion on the subject. If nothing else, it has raised BT's profile amongst the open source and security industries.

I totally agree with the guy. If Google had merely said something like "we're going to redesign the security architecture making it more secure than ever before" but they didn't. They said their OS "will be immune from viruses"! That is quite some claim, right there.

The immaturity of Google, as a company, is beginning to show more than ever before now. Increasingly people are beginning to realise Google are not their fluffy teddy bear anymore but that they are evil and more evil than Microsoft ever was in its heydays.

I'm genuinely intrigued when I ask could you please qualify how Google are "evil", especially "more evil than Microsoft"?

m4cc45 · 10 Jul 2009 at 12:44

Ross1234 said:
Google said you dont need to worry about antivirus's not that its immune to them. they probably scan stuff at their end over the internet.

Then google will be acting as a proxy onto the net. They will be scanning all of your traffic (which will be necessary to provide an effective AV) and also then they can use directed advertising.

The interesting thing is that you are not always going to be connected to the net. If everything is in the 'cloud' then what are you going to do when you are offline?

Also what if you use a memory stick to copy over files and get a virus that way? Or are you suggesting that they then scan every file on your computer via a web connection?

Sounds stupid to me and I for one will not be touching it with a big stick.

M.