Must Read | This is where we are going

[linuxtechie]

This Is Where We Are Going

Google’s Chrome OS announcement is the beacon that those in the know have been waiting for, to be able to point at it and say “hah—there! That’s what I meantâ€; as if the rest of the world has failed to understand up to this point what we’ve been trying to explain all along:

This is where we are going. There are unstoppable forces in motion moving us to the ’Web. The momentum simply cannot be dammed. Everything that can be ported to the ’Web, will be ported to the ’Web. Anything that can’t be ported, will result in new standards so that it can be ported; even if doing so is stupid, it will still be done.

You have been used to a ’Web that has been defined by Internet Explorer. A slow, painfully inadequate, stagnant browser (even in latest versions). The “OS integration†in IE is about how hard it is to remove it, and keep it removed; not how seamless the experience is (it isn’t).

The fact is that this history has dampened people’s imagination when it comes to the ’Web. They are too used to doing things according to Microsoft’s plan (to lag behind so much that developers are forced to use Silverlight to do anything good).

The ’Web is not slow anymore. Did you see that NES emulator written in JavaScript? What about that demo of Another World, written in JavaScript? We are able to cook up things in web-browsers that you were not even able to imagine a web-browser being capable of doing. Your closed mind will not stop us from cooking up the next generation of web-apps that continue to stun.

And if it is not fast enough yet, it will be soon. We have seen a thousand-fold increase in speed over the last few years. This will continue. To think that it won’t is yet again that softened idea of the ’Web that Microsoft has perpetuated. Just because it isn’t fast enough now for something, doesn’t mean that absolutely nobody is working on the speed issue at all, and the current state is what we have to stick with—just like those years of IE dominance. IE is no longer dominant in mindshare and it’s certainly not doing anything to stop the massive haemorrhaging of market share. Poland: 50% Firefox usage. 50%. For a web browser that isn’t the default on the computer. That means that in essence half of an entire nation chose to change their browser.

We can do OpenGL 3D in the browser too. Using the GPU. Directly. You will one day see Quake ported to the browser, natively. Not yet, but soon. Those without the imagination to push the browser will only try to hinder it.

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.
Matthew 6:24—King James Bible

Google’s Chrome OS does not try to hold up the status quo while they still have ‘back stock’ to sell. What the OS cannot do, Google know that web-developers will fill in for them. Chrome OS forces us to solve these integration problems that have held the ’Web back as an OS. They will be solved, don’t take the status quo to be the only thing that’s possible!

The browser OS is the new paradigm. In the long term, it will eventually overtake OS X and Windows. I understand that you laugh at that. You can’t see it because you are comparing features instead of futures. Microsoft and Apple’s investment is in traditional browser-addendum operating systems. Embracing the ’Web with their full passion would directly conflict with their ‘back stock’ that needs to be sold first. It is why Apple will perpetuate the joke that is the App Store instead of giving web-apps the same capabilities as native apps—they can’t control every website on the Internet. If you believe that it’s not possible for all the native APIs to be exposed to the ’Web, then you must be reading this site in IE or something. It’s an API. The clue is in the name. If you believe that to be unsafe then go watch Fox news and rejoice in your App Store rejections.

Google however exist within the ’Web already. It is not an addendum to them. They assume the ’Web. Creating Chrome OS does not conflict with their other projects, it only compliments them. Apple might be embracing the standards with WebKit, but at some point the ’Web is going to get far too smart for their liking, and maintaining WebKit will directly conflict with their ability to sell hardware / software. As noted, this has already happened with the iPhone. Apple would rather abuse developers, than give them an open field to play in.
† See note below.

For example, Apple have invested heavily in the very monolithic iTunes. Apple cannot run iTunes on Chrome OS, they can’t just write iTunes as a web-app†. Their investment does not fit this new paradigm. They will fight—tooth-and-nail—to make sure that the iPod and iTunes continue to work the way they do and abhor Chrome OS and the ’Web. With an entire Internet of innovation, Apple’s walled garden approved-only approach will vehemently stick to the paradigm they chose. The ’Web however will find new ways of doing new things with music. People will discover, use and spread music on the ’Web in ways that iTunes cannot find the UI for. Your music will no longer be completely centralised. When your music is all stored on the ’Web, anywhere you want, anyway you want then iTunes and iPod is going to feel like a very restrictive way of doing things. The notion of “syncing†is going to be a nuisance.

(NB: The iTunes store is now rendered with WebKit, CSS and all; Apple could easily move iTunes to the ’Web. They could have done that already, a long time ago. Why is it that a URL in a webpage has to link to an application that has to be installed, when the content is perfectly viewable in the ’Web? Why can’t I just link to an iPhone App and not have to expect the user to have to download a bloated app just to see some text and images? Apple are treating the iTunes store just how Rupert Murdoch wants to treat his news sites—closed, unless you are a paying customer.)

You cannot make the traditional desktop OS fit the ’Web. There is an inherit boundary between the two. Apple and Microsoft are going to face the problem that they will eventually need to make a new OS, from scratch and start the transition. They can make that as easy or as hard for themselves as they like. I am in the feeling that they are going to make this hard for themselves because they are attached to the notion that the current paradigm is their business, rather than part of their business. Everything Microsoft make is designed to drive people to use Windows. Even the XBox—it integrates with Windows for the media streaming, developers have to use Windows. Microsoft is Windows. If they can escape that, then they have some chance of success. They even try to shove Win CE on ARM laptops, because they don’t have anything else.

Creating something that isn’t Windows is Microsoft’s single biggest challenge.

I do not say any of this because I think that the ’Web is better than native software, nor desktop operating systems. Quite the opposite. The move to the ’Web is much, much, much more worse in many aspects than any transition in computing before us (more on this soon). I say all of this because this is where we are going and it is unavoidable. The ’Web affords us certain usability simplicities that have never been solved in 25 years of modern desktop computing. Even if there are massive disadvantages to porting something to the ’Web, developers still do it because it gives them a platform where everybody can participate relatively easily, data can be managed centrally by the developer and software updates are also central. It rubs out a lot of the hurdles (platform support, installation and app management) that an end-user experiences which only inhibit the size of the market the developer can target. With the ’Web, anybody with a computer and an Internet connection is potentially a customer. Let us not forget what an incredible prospect that is. If you are on the Internet, you can create your own business with a target audience of 1.7 billion.

It is the reason why we have created awful, unwieldy, unmanageable and insecure forum web-apps instead of just sticking to Usenet. Why we have created webmail (and live without being able to properly click e-mail links), instead of just sticking to a local e-mail app. For all the disadvantages, the ability to pull down any application from any computer far outweighs the benefits of a superior local app (in most—but not all—instances).

Why would anybody write a video editing web-app or write a 3D game in the ’Web—it being such a ‘stupid and inferior’ way compared to native toolkits? Because the new generation are growing up with the ’Web, and writing web-apps is going to be the natural concept for them. I grew up in a time before the World Wide Web, so I was used to a time when computers were not connected together like that, and all my applications were local. There existed no concept of a web-app at that time. If I wanted to read my e-mail, I had to literally travel to school to do it. Everybody has Hotmail or GMail now.

Since when has history chosen the technically superior solution over the lowest common denominator?

The move to the ’Web will change the following beyond recognition:

Ownership

Success of Chrome OS will ensure that in the near future you will not own a single thing of your digital existence. Hands up if you own a hard disk. Good, now hands up if you run your own mail server from home. Point made. When it becomes technically difficult and time consuming to store your own data locally, we won’t.

When your data is on someone else’s computer and you require their web-interface to access it then everything you own can be taken away as quickly as one can say “ToS violationâ€.
Software Versions & Updates
Chrome, the web-browser, has already bucked the trend and does not advertise its version number to the end user. It is always the latest version, and the user doesn’t need to know—and nor should they. Version numbers are for developers. The ’Web removes the need for nagging software updates, but at the same time rewrites the rules on upgrade pricing. It’s not exactly easy to charge users to move over to a new version of the same website (not least that programming all that is more effort than just continual rollout). Which leads us on to:
Purchases & Advertising
† British spelling, for those concerned.

All new models of purchasing read: “licencingâ€â€  and advertising will come about. The no-native-apps measure of Chrome OS will finally make Software as a Service take grip on the lower end (i.e. not SAP or SalesForce). This will infuriate all of us old-timers who grew up with the concept of a 1000 year old method of paying for things—that is, you pay for something, and it is yours. Though, those inventing new ways of purchasing use of the ’Web will be the ones who succeed. All sorts of wacky, complicated systems will come and go until somebody discovers a way to charge for web-apps and succeed no matter how ‘morally wrong’ us old timers consider it

Traditional advertising—shouting as loud as you can on the ’Web to be heard over everybody else—will die out. It has shown only to work to a certain extent and more ‘smarter’, ‘intelligent’ advertising will come about based on basically paying your way into people’s computers and other people’s web-sites.
Privacy

I’ve rarely met a child who gives a toss about who stores their data, and what they do with it, as long as he can use it. The generation before me are very careful about their privacy, I meet many people new to computers who are exceptionally cautious about what information they give out to what websites. My generation generally only cares to a certain extent, but doesn’t want to be left out by what’s popular. The newer generation have literally an entirely different perception of privacy than me. They don’t have any. They are so pressured into using services and are happy to give information away to any old website if it gets them emoticons or some such junk. Yes, they will grow up, maybe get wiser and more tuned into the concept of their privacy, but they have grown up in a ’Web that has had free reign to collect whatever information it wants, for whatever purpose, and in order to participate in the web-services of tomorrow you will effectively have to sign away your life.

The next generation will live in a world where the Internet is not opt-in.
Kroc Camen—“opt-inâ€

So who do you talk to to opt-out of being tracked by CCTV everywhere you go? That is exactly how the Internet of tomorrow will be. Impossible to avoid if you want to function in society. I’m not saying that that is a bad thing, I’m just saying that it’ll be yet another thing you have no real control of.
Identity

Business 2.0 is about hype and owning people’s identity. Facebook has got people by the balls and won’t let go. Its goal is clear—to make it impossible to function on the web without a Facebook account. Other corporations are looking to solve this problem in a more open way.

Owning your own identity and managing it is going to be one of the big contention points in the future. These proprietary, brand owned identities fighting each other for screen dominance won’t last forever.

I can now easily understand why old people are so crotchety.
The future isn’t what it used to be.

Src: http://camendesign.com/destination_internet

I am pretty sure about this being the future, its matter of time before it gets accepted and we dwell away into web os. Nope nothing is gonna change, not even the way of gaming, we will continue enjoying them.

+LT

 

[m0h1t]

Everything that can be ported to the ’Web, will be ported to the ’Web. Anything that can’t be ported, will result in new standards so that it can be ported; even if doing so is stupid, it will still be done.

I like this statement.

 

[archish]

sorry to sound pessimist well I dont see this happening in India for another 10 years. The way I see the end result is completely in cloud but before that we will have multiple transitions like online + offlline apps combination before switching completely to online.

Chromium OS is going to take ages to get some market share with the current internet system, they need to reinvent the web to optimize and make cloud computing a reality. Current internet standard is not good enough for cloud :/

 

[sasa110]

that was a very techie-ish point of view on the chrome-windows saga.

the real chrome-windows saga, however, wont be fought on the tech stage - it will be fought on the global political stage. i'm assuming there will be just two players in this - ms and google (with maybe apple thrown it too), and they'll both try to pump cheap internet devices (like netbooks, olpc etc.) loaded with chrome/xp to the hands of 5 year old kids in india, china, indonesia, peru, uruguay, south africa, kenya and the likes over the next several years. the basic premiss for this strategy is that whichever OS these kids will grow up on, they will end up using and buying for the rest of their lives.

the chrome OS is not the end in itself, but rather the means to an end - google wants to end microsofts world domination, and by about 15-20 years time, only the corporation which shall win this generational struggle to control today's kids, will remain. the other shall head to the insolvency magistrate.

the global politics of who controls these kids has already popped its first ugly head - the olpc imbroglio. and microsoft took their first step by keeping xp alive....you know, just in case!!

the new james bond movie showed wars fought for water. while wars will definitely be fought over water (already china and india are at it, with alleged dams being built on the brahmaputra upstream!!), i have a feeling one of two little skirmishes in little countries in africa and south america will be fought for OS control too -- basically MS sponsoring a general tapioca and google sponsoring a general alcazar -- to get control of the country and more importantly, lock their product to the few million school-children. wars have been fought over spices, coconut, cocoa, banana -- a war over OS looks very very possible to me! :euro:

 

[madnav]

apparently google is talking about ms n apple trying to monopolize but who will have the monopoly if all your info and data is on web..??!!

their servers their rules, privacy will be compromised imo.

its easy to deprive the young ones from social networking fads... just ask their parents to join in the same fad. Apparently 'the Kool' becomes 'Not so cool' when a whole different generation accompanies...

- Learnt from Southpark episod of Chimpokomon (ripp of pokemon fad )

 

[sabby]

These guys are obsessed with anti-MS/Apple ideas.

I’ve rarely met a child who gives a toss about who stores their data, and what they do with it, as long as he can use it. The generation before me are very careful about their privacy, I meet many people new to computers who are exceptionally cautious about what information they give out to what websites. My generation generally only cares to a certain extent, but doesn’t want to be left out by what’s popular. The newer generation have literally an entirely different perception of privacy than me. They don’t have any.

Really bold and blind statement. :no:

Its true that these days a single piece of data/software remains in thousands of HDDs. Web-OS will probably remove most of the redundancy. But connecting every computer in the world with 100Mbps i.e. 12.5MBps would cost a lot more money and time and intelligence than to produce millions of storage devices.

They want to free the poeple from Apple/MS monopoly but to what Google Monopoly ?

IMO, this OS should be ideal for netbooks and Handhelds. But for PCs ? It only makes me imagine the "VIKI" from the 'I,Robot'

 

[linuxtechie]

All,

I am with your contentions and argument, however I can't deny a trend that I have been observing for a long time. New radical technologies, no matter, how badly they are ridiculed or bullied, always make there way to the general masses. M$ had once rejected the need of a browser and now thats where they are fighting for there survival.

Bottomline, the one who sees what's coming is wise and the one who turns away blind the fool.

In current case Google is more than wise.

+LT

 

[cranky]

I can now easily understand why old people are so crotchety.

or cranky, as the case may be.

the real chrome-windows saga, however, wont be fought on the tech stage - it will be fought on the global political stage

QFT. Good to see a new member with a meaningful and sensible post.

As to the content of the post, it's pretty much like that already. Most of my time on the PC is on the web, unless I'm gaming (I don't play multiplayer games) or creating content. I can't remember the last time I used Outlook for email, for example.

 

[blufox]

These guys are obsessed with anti-MS/Apple ideas.

Really bold and blind statement. :no:

Its true that these days a single piece of data/software remains in thousands of HDDs. Web-OS will probably remove most of the redundancy. But connecting every computer in the world with 100Mbps i.e. 12.5MBps would cost a lot more money and time and intelligence than to produce millions of storage devices.

What a pointless statement may I humbly put it Sabby.

Short sightedness is what I see here, with this statement. Perhaps bad example at wrong place, I ll presume .

They want to free the poeple from Apple/MS monopoly but to what Google Monopoly ?

IMO, this OS should be ideal for netbooks and Handhelds. But for PCs ? It only makes me imagine the "VIKI" from the 'I,Robot'

So you do not use any email.

Do not give your email ID when you register somewhere, say e.g on techenclave?

Paranoia is fine but living covered in it is not good.

How do you trust your Windows/Mac/Linux/* OS when it may have left a backdoor/hidden service open which may upload your personal info during a update?

Get the point, this is whole web of trust. People trust any email/web service provider on the basis of trust, which is off course mutual.

Anyway it very true that it is more than what meet eyes, but you cannot deny that Google has beaten M$ blue and black, where it hurts it most and that is field where they are vulnerable, i.e netbooks and smartphones.

What this means for lesser mortals like us?

Well, increased competition, better products and more adherence to service level agreement by the service provider.

So, why disappointment. Rejoice for you ll get better stuff for great prices/free.

Unfortunately there are about 98% people who never ever read the terms and conditions before using any service/software. Anyway that is OT, so I peace out here.

Thank you.

 

[sabby]

@blufox

That went over the tangent. Could you explain what you said. I am so dull or you misunderstood me. :S

 

[linuxtechie]

Its true that these days a single piece of data/software remains in thousands of HDDs. Web-OS will probably remove most of the redundancy. But connecting every computer in the world with 100Mbps i.e. 12.5MBps would cost a lot more money and time and intelligence than to produce millions of storage devices.

Your are assuming that as a constraint for OS, thats not necessarily the truth. Technologies have changed so fast that they break every assumption ever made. So, bottom line, you may not always need a high mbps setup for the web os.

Paranoia is fine but living covered in it is not good.

How do you trust your Windows/Mac/Linux/* OS when it may have l

left a backdoor/hidden service open which may upload your personal info during a update?

Get the point, this is whole web of trust. People trust any email/web service provider on the basis of trust, which is off course mutual.

Anyway it very true that it is more than what meet eyes, but you cannot deny that Google has beaten M$ blue and black, where it hurts it most and that is field where they are vulnerable, i.e netbooks and smartphones.

Correct, its the trust that make up this co's. If ever the trust is broken, no matter how good they are, they won't be acceptable and no one is going to take that risk.

+LT

 

[Malique]

^^^ Talking about trust, google is one of the last companies i'd like to trust.

most of their apps and services are in beta, their storage policies and privacy policies, data retention even after deleting always raises concerns for me. somehow, i feel a lack of trust with google.

 

[Uriel]

It will come to India, and soon, if not through computers, then through mobile phones. We are in a perfect position to leapfrog over to mobile connectivity, as a lot more people own mobile phones than computers.

Chrome is not a competitor to Windows, and it occupies an entirely different space. Windows too has an OS for the cloud, but that is for driving the back end services (Azure) on the web, for which Google does not have an alternative. There is ample of space for both of them to play around in the cloud.

Instead of a cloud-only OS, and an OS based entirely on the operating system, I think that the future is in some kind of a hybrid, where it won't really matter whether you save your data on your hard disk or on a remote server, both kinds of access will just fluidly flow into each other. As in you can open up say images on Facebook through photoshop, then save, and the changes are affected smoothly. Something like that.

For some applications, the cloud-only OS is not only insecure, but also impractical and roundabout. This includes gaming. If nothing, just the length of the wires would introduce twice the amount of lag that would normally be there during multi-player gaming. This is, of course, unacceptable.

Coming back to Chrome OS, specifically, it works on a very limited range of hardware. It is a little premature to say at this point, but most users would like to have access to their physical drives. At this point, based on current builds, you can not even copy files from one USB drive to another. To open a presentation on a USB drive, you have to first go to a website that let's you open PPT files, then open it. There is no way to doubleclick and hope the chrome OS opens the file, additionally, there is no way to even look at the file. The console does almost nothing, and you cannot tweak the OS at all. True, that this is a very early stage, but I don't think that even in a year, anyone, anywhere in the world will be willing to make the switch smoothly, because suddenly you have to work everything ass-ways. It may not be a bad thing at all, but it is a new way of working, alien to all Operating Systems so far. Doing it for the small things is irritating. New notepad file? No command on the console, type in a web address for an on-line notepad. The whole switch from filesystem based computing, where you look at files and folders, to temporal based computing, where you look at streams of data, and what grabs your attention, is not going to happen anytime soon because of how counter-productive the process is. Moreover, Chrome is waay to hardware-specific. The best it can do is occupy a small, niche market, and be well known for that, but I don't think anyone is prepared to give up on their file-systems yet. This is also partially because the web services are full of bugs, and not mature enough for serious use. We don't even have an online office suite - particularly a spreadsheet application that does not buckle under pressure, so these are not as reliable as good old excel.

In short: yes, we will move more and more into the cloud, BUT Chrome OS is not the way to go, at least in it's current state

 

[Kroc]

Hi all. Kroc Camen here, author of the article. I just wanted to add to the discussion that I didn't mean to imply that Chrome OS was the *only* instigator or the outright 'winner' in this transition to the web; but rather it is only the first step and it will seed the creation of many copycat operating systems and ideas that all help push everything to the web.

Chrome OS itself may never become the number 1 operating system, and that really doesn't matter to Google. All they care is that people are writing and using web apps, and Chrome OS will drive the demand for web apps.

Chrome OS does not have to be successful for Google to win.

 

[blr_p]

The OP's post reads like some sort of evangelical statement. Its just gonna happen right, like tons of other predictions in the past.

Oh yes the web has become very fast, too bad we cant really claim the same in our country.

Everything that can be ported to the ’Web, will be ported to the ’Web. Anything that can’t be ported, will result in new standards so that it can be ported; even if doing so is stupid, it will still be done.

Reads like garabi hatao for software developers

 

[cranky]

Welcome to TE

I was working for a while in an internet marketing firm, and all everyone would say was 'make me a website'. The really adventurous would ask for an online game, but no one really understood what a web app is (or mistook it for a Facebook app). When you explain to them that Google is itself one big honking app, their faces would light up. Issue number one is the understanding of the system, so it can be driven to volume. As of now, Windows is itself not very well understood by a lot of people, at least not very well - at a conceptual level.

I still think there is some perspective in terms of the third world (which is where we are). Connectivity is a major issue - and not just quality of it, even presence is very low. Our internet pop is ~40 million (expected 50 million in 2011), which is larger than the total population of some countries, but a very small percentage of ours. Unless this grows drastically, the penetration of this kind of computing has some way to go.

OTOH, there is a growing segment of non-traditional applications over the internet in our country, but not consumer-driven, indeed they are closed systems. The e-choupal initiative (ITC E-Choupal, Agricultural Exporters India - ITC ABD, Corporate Social Responsibility in India) directly links buyers and sellers in a market fraught with agricultural uncertainty, and there was a Government project based on internet kiosks that would update rural communities on weather, news and information. This latter project has been blockaded for obvious reasons, not to do with technology (keep them in the dark and feed them you know what).

I think the growth, as someone said earlier, will come away from the traditional x86 and x64 systems we see today. These old systems need too many pieces, are too complex, and try to do too many things to be useful to any single person. As the web itself grows, the devices to access it will shrink, eventually heading for the pocket. They're not there yet, IMO, not completely. And the devices that do it well displace too much currency from the pocket, so it's going to be a while.

 

[Boot_Comp]

And that's when Skynet will finally strike and I will have to reluctantly take on John Connor's role. :rofl:

 

[nikrusty]

Haha so true, in both accounts

And that's when Skynet will finally strike and I will have to reluctantly take on John Connor's role. :rofl:

 

[6pack]

imo all this is plain hogwash. this is just some wishfull and foolish thinking, thought out by an idle brain. do you think the hundreds of companies that have their livelihood in manufacturing computer devices allow any such thing? will the hdd manufacturers allow such a thing when its going to make a dent in their bottom lines the most?

why would anyone save something onto a virtual drive accessible through the web when he can very well get it off his hdd in a few minutes?

this will never see the light of day. Its like one of the hundreds of scientific experiments that are announced in the news saying they have the potential to change the future but are never heard of, for ever and ever.