http://www.osnews.com/ Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams OSNews version 4 donotreply@osnews.com (Adam Scheinberg) donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:38:57 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com/ 120 http://www.osnews.com/story/21801/Chromium_Gets_Native_Theming_on_Linux/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21801/Chromium_Gets_Native_Theming_on_Linux/ Chromium/Chrome, everyone's favourite web browser that descended from heaven to take us by the hand and guide us to the promised land of web browsers (that's how I look at it, anyway, but I'm insane) has been steadily evolving its Linux port. The latest feature addition? The first signs of native themeing. Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:49:32 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Google 41 http://www.osnews.com/topics/28 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21796/_No_Thanks_Google_We_ve_Got_Ubuntu_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21796/_No_Thanks_Google_We_ve_Got_Ubuntu_/ Google's recent move of revealing the Chrome OS to a suspecting public has put a great many people on alert. Some say it's a major privacy issue, some say Google oughtn't to become more and more monopolistic, while others think that the wide array of popular Linux distributions shouldn't become even more fragmented than it already is. "Google's decision to create its own Linux distribution and splinter the Linux community decisively once again can only be seen as foolhardy and self-obsessive. Instead of treading its own path, Google should have sought to leverage the stellar work already carried out by Mark Shuttleworth and his band of merry coders and tied its horse to the Ubuntu cart." Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:34:21 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Jordan Spencer Cunningham) Google 43 http://www.osnews.com/topics/28 News rlem6983 http://www.osnews.com/story/21794/Google_Unveils_a_Cloud-Based_Operating_System/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21794/Google_Unveils_a_Cloud-Based_Operating_System/ From NYTimes: "In a post on its company blog, Google said the operating system would initially be aimed at netbooks, the compact, low-cost computers that have turned the PC world on its head. It said the open-source software, called Chrome OS, would be available in the second half of next year. Read more for a quick observation on the announcement. Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:23:18 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia Loli-Queru) Google 91 http://www.osnews.com/topics/28 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21790/Gmail_Google_Apps_Out_of_Beta/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21790/Gmail_Google_Apps_Out_of_Beta/ It almost sounds like a joke, but it's true enough. Ever since Gmail was instituted in April of 2004 with the invitation scheme, it and many other of Google's Apps have been wearing the beta tag. At long last, however, Google's ripping it off like a bandage. Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:23:27 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Jordan Spencer Cunningham) Google 9 http://www.osnews.com/topics/28 News google_ninja http://www.osnews.com/story/21689/Back_Off_Android/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21689/Back_Off_Android/ While most people seem to be rooting for Android to make its debut and bridge the gap between phones and netbooks, apparently there are a few who, for varied reasons, think Android ought stay away from netbooks and stick to what it knows best: smartphones. Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:24:23 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Jordan Spencer Cunningham) Google 25 http://www.osnews.com/topics/28 Feature http://www.osnews.com/story/21675/Gartner_Impressed_by_Android_on_ARM_Android_Ported_to_MIPS/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21675/Gartner_Impressed_by_Android_on_ARM_Android_Ported_to_MIPS/ We've been talking a lot about ARM-based netbooks, and when they're going to come. We've also been talking about Android on netbooks. Well, at Computex, analyst firm Gartner took a look at ARM netbooks running Android, compared them with Atom notebooks running Windows 7, and concluded that the interface on the former felt snappier. Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:54:44 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Google 24 http://www.osnews.com/topics/28 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21661/Google_Tests_Revolutionary_Cloud-Based_Database/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21661/Google_Tests_Revolutionary_Cloud-Based_Database/ Google has quietly announced Fusion Tables, a new online database designed to sidestep the limitations of conventional relational databases. Fusion Tables, announced on Google's Research Blog, has been built to simplify a number of operations that are notoriously difficult in relational databases, including the integration of data from multiple, heterogeneous sources and the ability to collaborate on large data sets, according to Google. Under the hood of Fusion Tables is data-spaces technology, a concept has been around since the early 1990s and that Google has been developing it since it acquired Transformic in 2005. Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:29:49 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSNews Staff) Google 0 http://www.osnews.com/topics/28 News snydeq http://www.osnews.com/story/21622/Google_Opens_Chrome_Developer_Channels_for_Mac_Linux/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21622/Google_Opens_Chrome_Developer_Channels_for_Mac_Linux/ We barely ended the discussion on Chrome's sandboxing feature and how hard or easy it is to implement such functionality on Mac OS X and Linux, and we have the Chromium project releasing the first builds of Google Chrome for Linux and Mac OS X "officially". Nightly builds for these platforms have been available since earlier this year, but this is the first time the project puts out actual releases for Mac and Linux. Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:05:38 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Google 19 http://www.osnews.com/topics/28 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21608/Chrome_Sandboxing_Easy_on_Mac_OS_X_a_Mess_on_Linux/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21608/Chrome_Sandboxing_Easy_on_Mac_OS_X_a_Mess_on_Linux/ One of the defining features of Google's Chrome web browse is its sandboxing feature. You probably won't realise it's there, but from a security point of view, sand-boxing is one of the most impotant factors in browser security, as it severely limits the amount of damage a security hole can do: sure, you've got a hole in the browser, but thanks to sandboxing, you're pretty much locked in - until you break out of the sandbox, of course. Sandboxing on the Windows variant of Chrome was a "complicated affair", says Chromium developer Jeremy Moskovich, but for the Mac version, it's all a bit easier and more straightforward. On Linux, however, it's a mess. Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:21:30 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Google 60 http://www.osnews.com/topics/28 News Hakime http://www.osnews.com/story/21595/Qualcomm_Demos_Eee_PC_Smartbook_Running_Android/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21595/Qualcomm_Demos_Eee_PC_Smartbook_Running_Android/ Qualcomm showed off a previously unannounced Eee PC running Android at Computex in Taipei. The machine has a 10-inch screen, built-in webcam, and a universal 3G radio that supports all UMTS and CDMA networks on all frequencies used around the world. The 'smartbook' runs on Qualcomm's Snapdragon, a 1GHz ARM processor core that marks a shift away from Intel Atom x86-based netbooks. A second Android-based netbook -- a prototype by contract hardware maker Compal Electronics -- was also demoed at the show. Google, meanwhile, declined to discuss what steps it is taking to adapt the smartphone OS for laptops. Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:27:55 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSNews Staff) Google 29 http://www.osnews.com/topics/28 News snydeq http://www.osnews.com/story/21584/Google_Android_on_18-20_Phones_by_End_of_2009/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21584/Google_Android_on_18-20_Phones_by_End_of_2009/ Google predicts that some 18 to 20 phones, from eight to nine manufacturers, will come with Android OS installed on them by the end of the year. Although Android is open-source, manufacturers will be able to sign distribution deals with Google in order to pre-install their phones with more options such as Google Apps. The Android OS is widely predicted to also make the jump to mini-notebooks soon. Fri, 29 May 2009 17:56:07 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Google 8 http://www.osnews.com/topics/28 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21577/Google_Adds_Scripting_Capabilities_to_Google_Docs/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21577/Google_Adds_Scripting_Capabilities_to_Google_Docs/ Google will add scripting capabilities to Google Docs, allowing organizations to customize its online applications and automate tasks. Google plans to sign up about 1,000 customers over the next few weeks to test the feature, called Google Apps Script. It will be tested initially in Google Spreadsheets and extended to other Google Docs applications over time. Thu, 28 May 2009 15:26:51 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSNews Staff) Google 0 http://www.osnews.com/topics/28 News snydeq http://www.osnews.com/story/21541/Google_Releases_Chrome_2_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21541/Google_Releases_Chrome_2_/ After about 8 months of work, Google has "released Chrome 2" to the general public. Technically, this just means they moved the version of Chrome in the beta channel up to the stable channel. "We're referring to this as Chrome 2, but that's mainly a metric to help us keep track of changes internally. We don't give too much weight to version numbers and will continue to roll out useful updates as often as possible." There's lots of decent goodies in Chrome 2. Fri, 22 May 2009 09:12:57 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Google 29 http://www.osnews.com/topics/28 News poundsmack http://www.osnews.com/story/21494/Chrome_Extension_Framework_Coming_Together/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21494/Chrome_Extension_Framework_Coming_Together/ Some serious progress is being made with Chrome, Google's foray into the web browsing business. Not only is the plugin framework coming together, the Chromium project also started offering regular builds of the browser for Mac OS X (regular Linux builds have been available since March). Thu, 14 May 2009 10:34:37 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Google 9 http://www.osnews.com/topics/28 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21373/Android_1_5_Released/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21373/Android_1_5_Released/ The first major update for Google's Android platform, based on the Cupcake development tree, was released today in source form at the project's git repository. Now it's up to the OEMs and carriers to deploy it, and the community to port it to other platforms. Dig in for a list of new features. Sat, 25 Apr 2009 03:46:25 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia Loli-Queru) Google 14 http://www.osnews.com/topics/28 News