Netizen: Linux

Showing posts with label Linux. Show all posts

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Chromebook Glory Days

The glory days are ahead, but the Samsung Chromebook already looks like a Macbook Air, at a quarter the price.

New Chromebook: Getting Better, but Its Internet Dependence Is Limiting

a bare-bones version of the Linux operating system capable of running only one application: a Web browser ..... Chrome OS has at last matured from a quirky experiment to something that make sense for consumers. .... 11.6-inch screen .... woke up in less than five seconds. .... If you don’t pause to ponder the difference between an “app” and a bookmark (often there is none at all), it works surprisingly well. .... Chrome OS has the same minimal feel as a smartphone. The constrained space of a mobile screen often forces designers to display fewer options, and less information, at once making for a less cluttered experience. ..... The speakers are also impressive for a small, cheap device. .... Offline photo editing is impossible, which is a shame because a Chromebook would be a good companion on a vacation, when you might take a lot of photos. ...... even the company’s own lineup of offline apps is weak..... There’s a version of Gmail that works offline, and it’s possible to create and edit word-processing documents offline using Google Docs, and read other documents offline.

The Chromebook happened before HTML5 happened. This book is ahead of the times.

Friday, July 23, 2010

This is simply put awesome. This excites me like the Chrome OS got me excited when I first heard about it. Looks to me like my IC vision is coming to fruition with me simply keeping up with the news. Between the Chrome OS, the $35 PC and the spectrum bids in India, there is only one missing piece to the puzzle: how do you bring the costs of internet access down drastically by serving ads? How about bringing it down to zero? Maybe that will be a Chrome browser innovation.

Indian Railways
How To Date An Indian: Andrea Miller
India Broadband Spectrum Bids
Dropio's Indian Cofounder Darshan

This $35 price goes down to $10 when you mass produce it, and it goes down to zero if you splash ads on the back of the computer. I think plenty of companies will pay $10 to be permanently placed on the back of your computer.

The iPad Is No Laptop Killer
The iPad
iPad

Finally a tablet I am excited about.

India's $35 PC is the Future of Computing PC World will replace the bloated desktop and laptop hardware architectures in use today. .... runs on a variation of Linux. It has no internal storage ..... a Web browser... can also run on solar power.....far exceeding the $100 laptop developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ..... makes the $500 iPad seem significantly over-priced. ..... economy of scale will allow it to push the price down to $10 ......the iPad has also been embraced by corporations and is widely used as a portable computing platform for business professionals. .... What businesses need is a simple, cheap device that uses a secure cloud connection to keep data where it belongs and keep workers up and working without the down time of expensive, failure-prone hardware.
$35 computer taps India's huge low-income market Christian Science Monitor targets a vast, untapped market of 1.2 billion people. ..... ncludes an Internet browser, a multimedia player, a PDF reader, and video conferencing ability. .... its biggest attraction is the price: $35. ..... a thrilling prospect for the future of global education ...... how technology and ultra-cheap innovations are bringing new options to India’s 1.2 billion people, whose per capita income is $1,030. ..... by 2020 rural markets in India will grow to $500 to $600 billion from the current $487 million. ..... the nearly 742 million people across rural India are pushing retail demand faster than urban areas and accounting for more than 60 percent of the national demand ..... In 2008, Tata launched the world’s cheapest car – the bubble-shaped Nano – priced at $2,500. Its low-cost engineering fulfilled the aspiration of millions of moped-riding Indians for whom a four-wheel drive was far out of reach. The same company last year launched the Swach water purifier – its two models priced at 749 rupees ($16) and 999 rupees ($21) – with the promise of providing clean drinking water to millions of India’s poor. ..... The price of the new computer is expected to fall to $10 in the coming years
India unveils world's cheapest tablet computer at $35; may drop to $10 New York Daily News From the country that brought you the $2,000 open-heart surgery and $2,127 car comes the latest bargain – a supercheap, touch-screen computer..... The Linux-based tablet appears to do most things an $499 iPad can do - but at a fraction of the cost: Internet browsing, word processing, video conferencing and more..... Research teams at India's leading technical institutes - the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science -developed the tablet to compete with a $100 computer developed at MIT ..... part of India's initiative to modernize its schools
India's $35 tablet - vaporware or the real deal? ZDNet (blog) potential ODM interest in Taiwan to manufacture these devices at scale.
India unveils prototype of $35 tablet computer The Associated Press looks like an iPad, only it's 1/14th the cost .... India, which is home to the 100,000 rupee ($2,127) compact Nano car, the 749 rupees ($16) water purifier and the $2,000 open-heart surgery. ... $100 laptop .... India rejected that as too expensive and embarked on a multiyear effort to develop a cheaper option of its own. ...... Sibal turned to students and professors at India's elite technical universities to develop the $35 tablet after receiving a "lukewarm" response from private sector players. He hopes to get the cost down to $10 eventually. ..... The tablet doesn't have a hard disk, but instead uses a memory card, much like a mobile phone. The tablet design cuts hardware costs, and the use of open-source software also adds to savings .... several global manufacturers, including at least one from Taiwan, have shown interest in making the low-cost device ..... India plans to subsidize the cost of the tablet for its students, bringing the purchase price down to around $20. .... government subsidies or dual marketing — where higher-priced sales in the developed world are used to subside low-cost sales in markets like India — ..... the device could send a shiver of cost-consciousness through the industry. .... an ambitious education technology initiative by the Indian government, which also aims to bring broadband connectivity to India's 25,000 colleges and 504 universities and make study materials available online.
India's Rs.1500 laptop a godsend for students Sify a built-in key board, a 2 GB RAM memory, Wi-Fi connectivity, USB ports and is powered by a 2-watt system for use in power deficit areas. ..... will support functions like video web conferencing facility, and multimedia content viewing. .... hopes to bring down the price to $10 after the device is mass produced. .... the ministry is reported to be in discussions with entrepreneurs, private firms and industries. .... One motherboard was reportedly designed by a student of Vellore Institute of Technology under his B.Tech project
India unveils Rs 1500 computing device Hindustan Times writing and storing text, browsing the internet and viewing videos

Friday, July 17, 2009

Blog Carnival: Bill Gates, Chrome OS

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

My Post: Bill Gates On The Chrome OS

July: Netizen Blog Carnival Month

Bill Gates, Chrome OS

Netizen: Bill Gates On The Chrome OS
Bill Gates on Chrome OS and browsers
Bill Gates on Google Chrome OS: Just a Linux Bistro

Image via Wikipedia

Bill Gates Responds to Chrome OS: It's Just Linux - AppScout
Geek In Disguise : Bill Gates talks Physics, Chrome OS, and ...
Bill Gates on Google's Chrome OS: Nothing New Here | John ...
Bill Gates on Google's Chrome OS
Computer Renaissance: Bill Gates on Google's Chrome OS
Bill Gates on Google's Chrome OS - Appfrica

my blog: Gates and Ballmer bash Google Chrome OS
Bill Gates Says Google's OS Is Nothing New (MSFT, GOOG)
Bill Gates calls Chrome OS more of the same, "surprised people are ...
Bill Gates calls Chrome OS more of the same, "surprised people are ...
Remains of the Day: Bill Gates Talks Chrome OS Edition [For What ...
Google's Chrome OS looks a lot like a familiar Linux: Bill Gates
Bill Gates on Chrome OS and browsers - KezNews.com

Image via CrunchBase

Bill Gates, Chrome OS, Natal, Wave
Bill Gates: Behind The Curve On Chrome OS
Blog Carnival: Bill Gates, Chrome OS
Bill Gates On The Chrome OS
Bing ---> Chrome OS ---> Office 2010
Google Chrome Operating System: Pinging Bing

Sunday, July 03, 2005

The $100 Computer

Wow, it is happening.

My current business involvement is at the level of group dynamics, which I fancy to be at a whole different level from things like software, even biotech. Those are down there!

A few years back I was trying to launch a series of companies, which was at the level of software. I must admit I have toyed with the idea of an Internet Computer. IC. Like the PC succeeded the mainframes, the ICs would succeed the PC.

But it is already happening. And I am happy for it. The Indian $100 computer.

This is a big deal. One difference is it is not totally tied with the internet. It still does a bunch of offline stuff. Which is good. For the Indian context.

My vision was more of like a computer that is always online, and there is nothing to be done offline. You have Linux that supports Firefox, and that is all there is to it. And then you scale back to the hardware level and get rid of all the extra bells and whistles.

I am surprised Larry Ellison is not jumping on the idea bandwagon. The guy was trying to push something called a Network Computer back in 1995. It did not take off, but I think his vision, slightly modified, has oomph.

If you have ICs, all the data crunching happens on servers. And that is the only way Oracle could fathom taking over Microsoft.

But the thing about the computer industry is, it is a great marketplace. It is truly hard to predict winners. The situation stays fluid and rightly so.

I mean, if you are a dot com company, your competition is only a quick click or a quick Google search away. You sink and swim fast. But then you can also come back fast when you sink. If you keep working, and keep offering the very best you might have to offer.

I don't think the IC vision is going to be anything dramatic. The PC itself will likely morph beyond recognition.

There was Steve Jobs with his bells and whistles recently. He was boasting you can get weather reports on your PC with Apple's new operating system, and I am thinking, why would I want to do that? I already have been doing that online. Well, maybe not me, because I am not much of a weather person, but I mean, that option has been online for ages now. That is when I realized the PC is not going too far from here.

The online world is the new western frontier, and worldwide too.

No, it is not outsourcing. That term is so racist. People who realize Indians are no longer just subsistence farmers, they get thrown off balance. What is happening is new jobs are being created in India. Trade is a good thing. Just because that trade happens online and is worldwide does not make it suddenly bad.

Go India!

Monday, January 24, 2005

Google And Browsers And More

I just read news, Google Snaps Up Top Firefox Programmer. The guy, Ben Googler, I mean Goodger, (how did his parents know, or rather ancestors), announced the news on his blog. That tells you where he belongs.

In one of Larry Ellison's biographies, the earlier ill-written one, there is talk of how the guy - his lifestory reads like fascinating - would promise of software that half the time never got delivered, but he hogged marketshare anyway! Google is the opposite of that. It delivers and surprises. Noone saw the digitizing libraries project coming.

But there is such noise Google is angling for a browser. That would be a major step. You have a slim machine running on Linux, you download a Google browser, you do your word procesing online - the technology is already there, just look at all the features with Blogger, Gmail meets all your email needs, personal as well as work, and so on, and where is Microsoft now! You handle all your text, audio, video, data processing stuff online. There is no Desktop, so to speak of. Wow. I mean, with Internet2, you have 10 gigabytes per second kind of speed. You are always on. With that kind of reliability, you won't need a desktop.

Two schools emerged within Microsoft in the mid-1990s, one Windows, but the other one wanted a new universe entirely around a browser. MSFT would be the gorilla dot com. But Gates squashed that effort. To Gates' credit, he gave some valid reasons, like, how do you make money if you give everything away! (Google's answer: you sell ads, stupid!)

Windows made Microsoft what it is, but it also might be the albatross around its neck.

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