It's not very surprising as we've all speculated a full-fledged Google OS for years, then Google's mobile OS hit the phone market, and now we've seen it (Android, of course) already installed and working dutifully on netbooks. It's not rock-solid, but Google's CEO has hinted that there'll be subsidized, Android-powered netbooks backed by Google or its partners arriving to the netbook scene soon.Straight from the mouth of Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, on March 3rd during a Q&A session in San Francisco:
Whether or not Schmidt means that Google is planning to follow this 'new model' is yet to be seen, but there's a good chance that there will be Google Netbooks (or mini-notebooks, if you're picky) subsidized by advertising and/or data contracts to follow Google's phone come 2010, coinciding with previous predictions. The work has already been done, indeed, as Android is well on its way to being able to compete with other netbook-designated systems, Google has the brains and the funds to pull this off, and it would probably be well-received judging by Google's maintained popularity and satisfied customers.
As it is, Asus could a netbook specifically for the Android OS, and there are rumors that Google employees already are using said netbooks as Net Applications reported that employees were running an OS whose identity was blocked from traffic monitors. Connect the dots. It's easily assumed to be Android.
Microsoft's Steve Ballmer already made predictions of his own earlier this year and figures that the big MS can handle anything Google brews up.
We've already seen Windows 7 run well enough on netbooks time and time again, and it's supposedly going to be woodshedded and optimized even more to suit netbooks in the approaching future, and Android is, as already mentioned, well on its way to competing with Windows 7 and the like. What happens when the monopolist of software and the monopolist of the Internet both try to lay claim to the netbook arena? Competition, advancement of technologies, and lower prices. Delicious.
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"So in summary... Google has pulled the plug on support on a protocol they've helped popularize, after years of promising interoperability, for reasons that are dubious at best, and in a way that leaves people who don't jump to the new Hangouts app unable to talk to their contacts without any feedback that their IMs aren't getting through... And they've done that with no warning to anyone. I imagine there's a bunch of people out there wondering where some of their buddies have gone, or why their messages aren't getting responses, because this isn't documented anywhere." Google really messed this up. Such a dick move.
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The Tizen Greek Community has some screenshots of a very recent build of Tizen running on a Samsung GT-i8800. It looks wholly unremarkable.Joint statement to The Next Web from Microsoft and Google: "Microsoft and YouTube are working together to update the new YouTube for Windows Phone app to enable compliance with YouTube's API terms of service, including enabling ads, in the coming weeks. Microsoft will replace the existing YouTube app in Windows Phone Store with the previous version during this time." Good to know these children stopped acting like little pricks. Can we have full Google support in Windows 8 now, please?
Yahoo is acquiring Tumblr, the microblogging and social networking website, for $1.1 billion USD. Tumblr offers little revenue but lots of eyeballs if Yahoo can monetarize them. Now Yahoo is bidding for Hulu, the streaming video service. After years of ineffective responses while Google, Facebook, and others took large chunks of the online advertising market, Yahoo is fighting back. Can Yahoo reignite the momentum it had at the turn of the century? What do you think?
"Sources have described iOS 7 as 'black, white, and flat all over'. This refers to the dropping of heavy textures and the addition of several new black and white user interface elements." I couldn't be happier.
"Ilja van Sprundel, a security researcher with IOActive, has discovered a large number of issues in the way various X client libraries handle the responses they receive from servers, and has worked with X.Org's security team to analyze, confirm, and fix these issues."
"Google is facing a new antitrust probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission into whether the company is using its leadership in the online display-advertising market to illegally curb competition, people familiar with the matter said." Sucks to be Google today, apparently."In the midst of the major press blitz surrounding its annual I/O Conference, Google dropped some unfortunate news about its instant messaging plans. In several places around the web, the company is replacing the existing 'Talk' platform with a new one called 'Hangouts' that sharply diminishes support for the open messaging protocol known as XMPP (or sometimes informally Jabber), and also removes the option to disable the archiving of all chat communications. These changes represent a switch from open protocols to proprietary ones, and a clear step backward for many users." That's why I always say: only suckers trust companies."The wave of departures is a sign of internal struggle, but amidst all the bad news, there is a glimmer of hope. According to an anonymous HTC executive cited by WSJ, the crucial HTC One is selling 'pretty good so far'. The executive revealed that HTC sold about five million One units since launch, a performance that is deemed encouraging. However, sales have been limited by the persisting supply issues that still plague the production of the HTC One." Finally some good news for HTC. Five million units amidst supply constraints is very impressive.
"Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. Weâll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that itâs usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing.