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May 20, 2013
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
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Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
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May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
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Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
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April 24, 2013
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Jewish World Review
July 17, 2009
/ 25 Tamuz 5769
Of Chrome and an operating system's polish
By
Mark Kellner
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The July 8 announcement by Google that it will launch a computer operating system,
dubbed Google Chrome OS, for developers to work with this year and for the rest of
us "in the second half of 2010," sent shock waves through much of the computer
world.
"Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS," wrote
Google's Sundar Pichai, VP Product Management and Linus Upson, Engineering
Director, in a blog posting at the corporate Web site. "We're designing the OS to
be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web [sic] in a few
seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user
experience takes place on the web," they added.
Microsoft Corp.'s share price gained a few pennies on the day of the announcement,
but was down 18 cents the following day. Over the same two-day period, Google gained
$13.69 per share. (Microsoft had no official statement on the move and declined,
through an outside PR firm, to speak on-the-record for this article.)
But share price isn't the only way to measure the impact, of course. Google has
announced, via a blog posting, that computer and technology firms Acer, Adobe, ASUS,
Freescale Semiconductor, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and
Toshiba have all agreed to work with Google " to design and build devices that
deliver an extraordinary end user experience."
Of the nine firms listed, nearly half are not computer makers: Adobe publishes
software, Freescale and TI are in the semiconductor business, and Qualcomm has
expertise in cellular telephony. Acer, ASUS, HP, Lenovo and Toshiba all make
"netbooks," the mini-notebooks popular with a wide swath of users, and a
free-of-charge operating system would surely have an appeal to them. No license fee
means a lower retail price on a netbook.
So far, so good, right? Well, there's a bit beneath the surface here. For
starters, this isn't going to be a totally fresh OS: instead, it will be the
"Google Chrome [Internet browser] running within a new windowing system on top of
a Linux kernel," Messers. Pichai and Upson promised. So if you like Linux,
you'll probably cotton to this. If you're not a Linux fan, you may not.
There are tons of unanswered questions: how well will this support the myriad of
devices out there: printers, displays, CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives and/or disc
writers, USB devices, and so on? If you can't hook up your printer/DVD-ROM/Webcam
to this and have it run, you'll likely be upset.
Also, how secure, in terms of data and identity protection, will this be? It's a
nice idea that users "want their data to be accessible to them wherever they are
and not have to worry about losing their computer or forgetting to back up files"
as the Google duo wrote. But do I really want you looking at my financial documents?
My photos? My resume?
Moreover, do I want, say, the federal government to rely on an open-source, "cloud
computing" based OS for its sensitive information? Especially after the news July
8 that North Korean computers were attacking sensitive computer installations in the
U.S.?
According to Peter S. Kastner, chief research officer at Scott-Page, a Westport,
Mass., technology research firm, Google has a challenging task.
"Most of the time, Web applications hosted in the cloud work OK," Mr. Kastner
said via e-mail. "The limiter is network bandwidth, which affects speed and
reliability (e.g., data lost in flight). Plus you have to trust your online
'cloud' service to backup and secure your data.
Mr. Kastner, a 40-year veteran of the technology industry and co-founder of the
noted Aberdeen Group research firm, added, that there are "tradeoffs both ways
between doing it yourself and trusting your online vendor. Many people are using
redundant vendors, putting critical family photos on both Google Picassa and HP
Snapfish on the assumption that both [firms] won't crash or go out of business."
He did say there was a "potential flaw in the model: always-on Internet in
emerging markets." If there's no Internet connection available, there's "no
useful netbook functionality besides local games," he said.
How will this shake out? It may be trite to say "time will tell," but we shall
have to wait. Buying a netbook now, however, might make even more sense than before.
In about 18 months, you could have a new operating system to keep your hardware
running like a young colt.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Mark Kellner has reported on technology for industry newspapers and magazines since 1983, and has been the computer columnist for The Washington Times since 1991.Comment by clicking here.
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