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.

Related articles

• Yes you can use the new Chromebook offline
• Chromebook News 12/22/2012
• New Chromebook: Getting Better, but Its Internet Dependence Is Limiting
• Chromebook News 12/21/2012
• Chromebook
• Google Chromebooks Series 5 Now Available
• New Samsung Chromebook and Samsung Series 5 550 head-to-head
• How to get the Chromebook's free goodies
• Touchscreen Google Nexus Chromebook reportedly in the works. Android convergence coming soon?
• Samsung's ARM-powered Chromebook can run Ubuntu

Chromebook: $249 A Much Better Price Point

$199 would have been better still. $199 ad free, $100 ad supported.

Google launches 11.6-inch ARM-based Samsung Chromebook: $249, ultra thin and light, 6.5-hour battery, 1080p video
The new Chromebook, for everyone
Google Unveils New $249 Chromebook by Samsung
Samsung/Google's new ARM-powered Chromebook looks like a MacBook Air, costs just $249
Google announces new Samsung Chromebook, available for $249 on Monday (hands-on video and photos)
Google wants new $249, ARM-based Chromebook to be your second computer
New Google Chromebook Has a Great Price: $250
Google's thin 11.6-inch ARM based Samsung ChromeBook with 100GB of online space is finally compelling at $249 (Video)
Nope, Google's $249 Chromebook totally didn't rip off MacBook Air wholesale

Related articles

• Google announces new Samsung Chromebook, available for $249 on Monday
• Google's thin 11.6-inch Samsung ChromeBook with 100GB of online space is finally compelling at $249
• Google unveils $249 laptop
• New Google Chromebook from Samsung launched
• Google announces new $249 Samsung Chromebook
• Google announces $249 Chromebook
• Google Unveils New Ultra-Slim Samsung Chromebook for $249
• Google's New Chromebook Looks Just Like The MacBook Air [Image]
• The new Chromebook, for everyone
• New Google Chromebook is $249, dumps x86 for ARM

Power

Technology Review: The Computing Trend that Will Change Everything: using ultra-low-power computing, consider the wireless no-battery sensors ..... These sensors harvest energy from stray television and radio signals and transmit data from a weather station to an indoor display every five seconds. They use so little power (50 microwatts, on average) that they don't need any other power source. ..... and that means an explosion of available data ..... "nanodata," or customized fine-grained data describing in detail the characteristics of individuals, transactions, and information flows .... if a modern-day MacBook Air operated at the energy efficiency of computers from 1991, its fully charged battery would last all of 2.5 seconds ..... will help the "Internet of things" become a reality—a development with profound implications for how businesses, and society generally, will develop in the decades ahead. It will enable us to control industrial processes with more precision, to assess the results of our actions quickly and effectively, and to rapidly reinvent our institutions and business models to reflect new realities. It will also help us move toward a more experimental approach to interacting with the world: we will be able to test our assumptions with real data in real time, and modify those assumptions as reality dictates.

There are implications to the internet of things, of small sensors constantly streaming data about, say, the ecosystem. This trend is great news for devices that are much smaller than the smartphone. You are looking at pea size particles that are smart.

The Internet Of Things
Another Ode To Big Data

We are looking at smart particles that don't need to have screens.

Related articles

• The Computing Trend that Will Change Everything
• 5 ways to power the Internet of things
• CIA Home Invasion: Smart TVs and the 'Internet of Things'
• Solar Cell Thinner Than Spider Silk Could Power Internet of Things
• How the Internet of things could make the world safer and greener

• The Computing Trend that Will Change Everything (technologyreview.in)
• Beyond The Internet Of Things Towards A Sensor Commons (mt-soft.com.ar)
• Beyond The Internet Of Things Towards A Sensor Commons (opendotdotdot.blogspot.com)
• IBM: Internet of things to improve infrastructure (news.cnet.com)
• Here Comes A Hot New Chip For Internet Of Things (paidcontent.org)

Post PC Or PC Plus

Image via CrunchBase

Winrumors: Microsoft slams post-PC idea, claims “PC isn’t even middle aged yet”: even their most ardent admirers will not assert that they are as good as PCs at the first two verbs, create and collaborate. And that’s why one should take any reports of the death of the PC with a rather large grain of salt. Because creating and collaborating are two of the most basic human drives, and are central to the idea of the PC. They move our culture, economy and world forward. You see their fingerprints in every laboratory, startup, classroom, and community.

I am in agreement with Microsoft on this one. But let me clarify. A laptop is PC. The Macbook Air is PC. The Chromebook is PC.

In my case instead of me migrating my computing to the smartphone I have migrated most of my phone calls to the free Google/Gmail/Google Voice phone on my laptop. If you have been getting many text messages from me and have been impressed with how fast I can type on the small screen, be warned. I am not typing on a small screen. I am typing on a proper keyboard on my big laptop. I am sending text messages to people from my laptop. Thank you Google Voice.

Being on the move is important. But if you already know you are going to be online for so many hours per day, there the laptop rules. The laptop is mobile.

Steve Jobs' home office features a huge screen desktop. That dude be driving a 18 wheeler.

The smartphone is a great addition to the family and is on its way to becoming the center of the known universe, and for good reason.

Chrome Notebook Pilot User?

This morning I logged into my Gmail account and my first reaction was, oh no, my Gmail account got hacked. My inbox was flooded with emails from just one address. Looked like someone had taken over.

First Time Entrepreneurs Getting Screwed

Mike Arrington: "That first company I started made a lot of money for the venture capitalists – nearly $30 million – but next to nothing for the founders."

I have heard this story from someone else I know. His first company got sold for a lot of money - multiples more than Mike's - but he made only a tiny bit of money in the process. In other words, he got screwed.