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Author Archives: Neil McAllister
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Chrome OS demystified
Confused about Chrome OS? You’re not alone. Ever since Google announced its new OS for Web appliances, I’ve heard the wildest theories about it — everything from Google being the savior of desktop Linux to Chrome OS being available for download now. In a new short article for InfoWorld, I debunk the top five myths about Chrome OS and offer some guidance about what to expect next. Google’s OS may not be what you expected it to be, but it certainly bears attention.
Google gWater: By invitation only
Google’s Mountain View headquarters — the Googleplex, as it is known — is a wondrous place. The various little perks and bennies enjoyed by Google employees are legendary. Whether it’s free laundry service, a loaner umbrella when it’s raining, a loaner bicycle to get from building to building, or a help-yourself bucket of gummi worms, Google provides everything for you.
Visitors to the Googleplex are invariably stunned by these displays of Larry and Sergey’s nigh-prodigal largess. At most of their own offices, they’re lucky to score a free newspaper for the train ride home.
But there is one thing Google is less willing to provide, as I learned this week while covering the Chrome OS announcement. Next time you have a chance to visit the Google campus, just you try getting a drink of water. » More... »
What is Chrome OS, anyway?
Google’s at it again. Surely no company is as adept at generating buzz for something it hasn’t actually done yet. It’s already well-known for keeping products in perpetual Beta until its marketing department decides the time is right to drop the label. This time, the “news” is all about Chrome OS — a product that isn’t in beta, isn’t ready for anybody to use, but will be changing the nature of computing itself real soon now. (And by “real soon now,” Google means no sooner than next year.)
InfoWorld was invited to participate in the press conference, so they sent me down to check it out. You can read my coverage at InfoWorld.com (and on various other sites, via IDG Syndication).
I can’t say I’m totally convinced. The idea of an instant-on Web browser appliance is interesting, but Google isn’t the first to propose it. After all, don’t a lot of people use iPhones for that? And while Apple has backed away from its stance that all iPhone apps should be based on the Safari browser, Google continues to insist that the future of all computing lies on the Web. Sorry, but I just don’t see the trend being as “very, very clear” as Google’s Sundar Pichai claims it is.
Nonetheless, I’ll be following this project with great interest, and you can expect more coverage from InfoWorld as details emerge.
ARM vs. Intel for the mobile device market
My latest feature article for InfoWorld is a look at how competition is heating up in the chip market for mobile devices. With sales of traditional PCs and servers slowing and customers increasingly turning to smartphones and other devices to access the Internet, Intel is off in search of new markets. But to win share, Intel will have to compete with an unlikely contender — one far removed from Intel’s Silicon Valley stomping grounds.
ARM Holdings of Cambridge, UK has been manufacturing power-efficient chips for the embedded systems and digital device markets since the mid-1980s. Intel hopes to win away ARM’s customers with its newest, low-voltage Atom CPUs. But to do that, it will have to contend with a company whose business model is substantially different from the Intel Way. Click on over to read how the contest is shaping up, and be sure to leave your comments.
Oracle OpenWorld
San Francisco’s largest annual technology event descends on Moscone Center yet again. Last year it took over a couple of the nearby hotels, too. It will be interesting to see how much Java/Sun Microsystems content is featured at this year’s show.
Online office suite comparison
The idea that someday we’ll be doing all our computing in a Web browser is gaining traction, but have you ever wondered what it would be like to do all your daily office tasks online? I did, too, so I set out to see whether I could replace Microsoft Office with any of the current generation of Web-based office suites. I looked at Google Docs, Zoho, and thanks to an invitation to Microsoft’s Technical Preview program, the forthcoming Office 2010 Web Apps. The results are up at InfoWorld, but I should warn you: They weren’t all positive. Click the link to read about the good and the bad, and see if you want to try for yourself.
Review: “A New Kind of Science”
The ancient Chinese game of Go has fairly simple rules. In general, it is much easier to teach someone the rules of Go than those of poker, for example, or of chess. Nonetheless, popular wisdom says that in all the 2,500 years that Go has been in existence, no two games have ever been identical. It’s impossible to know whether this is actually true, but it’s statistically plausible; thus, the game of Go demonstrates that it’s possible for very complex systems to arise from a very simple set of rules.
Makes sense, right? At least, when I say it that way it seems pretty obvious. You probably had some inkling in your mind of the idea that “complex behavior can arise from simple sets of rules” even before I mentioned it to you — didn’t you?
Well, strangely enough, Stephen Wolfram — although a mathematical prodigy who published his first scientific paper at 15, went on to school at Eton, Oxford, and Caltech, and invented the mathematical computation software Mathematica, among other things — did not. » More... »