November 23rd, 2009

Chrome OS: More questions than answers?

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 6:48 am

Categories: Cloud computing, Google, Hardware, Major breakthroughs, Mobile computing, Next-generation technology, Open source, Productivity

Tags: Desktop, Google Inc., Operating System, Google Chrome, Hardware, Operating Systems, Software, Zack Whittaker

Hearing the news of Google’s Chrome OS at the end of last week left me with an uneasy feeling about the future of operating systems and computer use.

The general idea behind Chrome OS is that the operating system as you see it will be nothing more than a web browser with a few things plugged into it, and a massively slimmed down operating system which will load in a fraction of the average time taken with existing products.

But even as a man who looks towards the next generation, this doesn’t sit too well with me. Not only did the announcements and the coverage seem to ask more questions than give answers, but Chrome OS also seems to exclude a very important market - students.

Students won’t be able to take their laptops everywhere as they can now without access to the web. Students can’t live entirely in the cloud, which I’ve already proved once before, even though many university campuses are blanketed with a cloud of wireless signals. And even then, not all students should be able to anyway with applications which are absolutely necessary to run on desktop computers.

To start off, take a spare ten minutes and watch the videos that Jason Perlow added to his blog just before the weekend which will brief you on the latest.

Bandwidth issues

Everything is stored in the cloud is accessed through the web. Even the “applications” such as the calculator and the calendar - simple desktop applications for Windows and Mac OS X - but not for Chrome.

If you have no Internet, I have no idea how Chrome OS would even turn on. Perhaps it’s like the Chrome browser, which works offline with Google Gears enabled sites. But that’s hardly optimal. Will the Chrome OS work where the is no Internet access on the road, on a plane or train (at least in the United Kingdom anyway) or even sitting out in a park in the city. Sure you could use a wireless 3G card or your phone modem but this will cost a lot to run an entire operating system.

And what if the damned broadband goes down? This is something I seem to face quite a bit and frankly, without access to the Internet, the Chrome-specific device just becomes a very expensive paperweight.

Read the rest of this entry »

November 12th, 2009

Cloud storage: Impossible to fill?

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 3:00 am

Categories: Cloud computing, Discussion, Google, Multimedia, Productivity, Virtualisation, Windows Live

Tags: Storage, Hardware, Zack Whittaker

There are vast numbers of online storage solutions, services and products at the moment. More often than not they’re free, being paid for through advertisements, and most offer a number of gigabytes; some into double figures.

But taking a look at a random selection, some including email services like Gmail and Hotmail (which offer very much the same thing in a different format), are they giving us too much storage? Are the cloud storage providers giving us infinite capacity?

Side note: semantics and technicality could shoot me in the foot here. When I mean “infinite”, I do not mean a never ending supply of data storage, rather the storage we currently have in the cloud will never be filled by us as individuals.

Take SkyDrive as a perfect example. Even though you have 25GB at your disposal, you can only upload 50MB at a time. There seems no logical reasoning to this, with the possible exception of not being able to abuse the storage for uploading of illegally downloadable films and videos. However, this restricts you somewhat.

If it were to be fully open, you could literally drag and drop an entire system image into your cloud and take it anywhere with you. Then again, you can create a restore image and use WinRAR or HJSplit to cut them into tiny 50MB sized pieces and upload manually.

I don’t think every user truly has 25GB space, though. It would make logical sense for the “drive” you have to be a dynamically expanding (virtual) hard drive. If every user used their 25GB today, the datacenters would be overfilled by tenfold no doubt.

The point is, as most online cloud services offer these vast storage quantities, you are restricted in how much you can upload in one go; this makes it ideal for documents and music files, but not for massive files like movies and large videos.

The same applies to Gmail, of which emailing something to yourself acts as pretty much the same concept. The 25MB limit is purely coincidental, but limits the user once again.

Using this time calculator, my own connection, a stopwatch on my phone and a bit of graphics editing, I’ve concluded to fill up a 25GB drive such as SkyDrive, it would take you:

… and that’s continually, without sleep, walking the dog or even going for a pee. Although, I guess maybe you could pee during the upload, but you get my point.

Still, you could always bypass the whole system and map your cloud storage to your other local computer and drag and drop that way.

Has cloud storage become unfillable?

November 4th, 2009

Google Maps and the mystery of the non-existent town

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 12:05 pm

Categories: Google, Security, Space, University fun, Weird and wonderful

Tags: Google Inc., Google Maps, Argleton, Document Management, Internet, Blogging, Branding, Enterprise Software, Software, Finance

A small village in the north of England, Argleton, has been causing confusion with an air of mystery. The simple reason is, is that the village simply doesn’t exist except in the world of Google.

The above image is from Google Maps, displaying the village of Argleton, Lancashire, in the north of the UK.

The above image is from Bing Maps, displaying the exact same area but without any reference to Argleton in the map.

The above image is from the birds-eye view from Bing Maps, which shows an aerial, high-resolution image of the area, which I have stitched together (click to enlarge into full scale; warning: 7MB). As you can see, there is nothing but a load of fields and certainly no buildings, let alone a whole village in the area.

So why does Google display this village - which I’ll point out now, categorically does not exist - and other mapping services don’t?

Some believe that the added name is due to a measure to prevent copyright violations, but Tele Atlas provide the imaging and name data and have said they provide accurate information and Google deny that they have altered it in any way. It seems in this area, Google Maps is the looking glass to external information.

The local blogosphere is already taking advantage of this “Internet sensation” with this spoof site. Yet even after months of knowing about it plus users reporting it as an error, it still hasn’t disappeared — branding Google’s mapping service as potentially inaccurate.

Mike Nolan, head of web services at Edge Hill University, wrote:

“I grew up in the area and spotted on the map one day that it said ‘Argleton’,” he says. “But it’s just a farmer’s field close to the village hall and playing fields. I think a footpath goes across the field, but that’s all. The name ‘Argleton’ is similar to ‘Aughton’. Maybe someone made a mistake when keying in the name?”

Yet the president of the Society of Cartographers, Prof. Danny Dorling, suggested that perhaps this was an additional element to a map to hide secret locations, as some may well be forced to do.

The only thing I can think of, and after trying out the name in an anagram solver which provided little except slight amusement, is that it’s a tiny Easter egg which has taken all this time to discover.

What’s your theory? Surely it can’t be as crazy as, say, a fictional village existing only within the realms of Google, can it?

November 3rd, 2009

Google Wave: Has potential, but let loose too soon

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 4:12 am

Categories: Cloud computing, Google, Multimedia, Next-generation technology, Productivity, Skills development, Social networking, University, Weird and wonderful, e-Learning

Tags: Google Inc., Google Wave, E-mail, Corporate Communications, Online Communications, Marketing, Zack Whittaker

Google Wave has annoyed me so far. Because I am set in my ways and stubborn enough to brandish anything new, exciting and radical to my everyday routine as “a giant waste of my time”, I saw Wave as more of a challenge than anything else.

At the moment the only real factor it has in its favour is the real-time collaborative space, and of course I see this as a positive from a students’ perspective in a university enterprise arena. But besides that, it has very little substance. Sure it has the avatars, the ability to change the colour of certain items here and there, and it’ll give you a contacts list. Besides that? Mostly unfinished features and no obvious end-game.

One of my favourite features so far is the “Sign out” button in the top right hand corner. This has been particularly useful when pulling out my own hair, trying to work out what the hell is going on, and becoming confused as to what is being said.

Read the rest of this entry »

October 9th, 2009

Google's ongoing quest for home page simplicity

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 3:46 am

Categories: Google, Multimedia, Productivity, Research, Skills development

Tags: Google Inc., Home Page, Mice, Web Browsers, Hardware, Peripherals, Internet, Zack Whittaker

For those who aren’t in the know, the secret of Google’s success is the home page. This clever design almost one of a kind in that the home page was the only page. All you had was a search bar and a couple of options, but the speed in using the site was phenomenal.

More often than not, you double-click your browser on your desktop and begin typing your search term. Because after loading the site, you don’t need to click. Type in the term and hit the return key. All people do from the home page is search, with the odd exception here or there, but it is rare.

But since then, the home page has become a little cluttered. Google have opened up the floodgates to more services, more search sites, more business links and advanced options… perhaps not for long though.

The company seems to recognise its grass-roots in the simplicity of its home page and is regressing through a live experiment. By adding a bit of JavaScript code to the address bar of your browser once Google has loaded, it will display only the logo, the search bar and the buttons.

Hover over the page with your mouse and the rest of the options, links and services will display. But the beauty of this is that there is no inconvenience; those who search as soon as it loads don’t use the mouse so the simplistic look works.

Once Google has loaded, copy and paste this into the address bar, and hit return. Reload the page and you should see the simplistic view.

javascript:void(document.cookie=”PREF=ID=abac7a90f5a3784b:LD=en:
NR=10:TM=1254990196:LM=1254990236:S=uB6F4jDnMP_DuxtT;path=
/; domain=.google.com”);

To find the codes and more, the Blogoscoped pages and The Register have the details.

October 7th, 2009

Next-gen operating systems: Facebook on steroids?

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 10:33 am

Categories: Cloud computing, Discussion, Google, Next-generation technology, Productivity, Research, Social networking, Web 2.0, Weird and wonderful

Tags: Facebook, Operating System, Operating Systems, Software, Zack Whittaker

The conversation I had with Mozilla Labs UX chief, Aza Raskin, last week has made me think about the future of the web. He envisions a future when the vast majority of things in the cloud are combined with a social web, and “something” where the two overlap. Stick with me on this one for a minute…

Readers of the ZDNet “All About Microsoft” blog should be aware that in the next decade, Windows will be phased out and replaced by a next-generation operating system, “Midori”. My guess is that it will run as a Software+Services model where the client machine will do processing but the vast majority of the “workings” will be run from the cloud, including applications.

It’s just a guess, mind you. There’s nothing definitive yet, and even the Queen of Redmond herself isn’t entirely sure, due to the tight-lipped nature of the Singularity/Midori teams. This is at very least my vision of the future operating system.

So based on this thinking (and I am keen to stress that this is purely conjecture), isn’t this to some extent what Facebook could turn out to be if it was stuffed full of electronic uppers and poppers, and poked very hard with an ingenious stick?

The very nature of Facebook is that of a social experience. You interact with others - friends, family and colleagues - in a way which has gotten modern sociologists wetting themselves with excitement. The psychology of the whole thing is blowing the minds of these radical professors into new ways of thinking, and technologists are seeing this sort of platform as the potential for the future.

Read the rest of this entry »

September 22nd, 2009

Students vs. Google Apps vs. Office Web Apps

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 4:01 am

Categories: Discussion, Google, Microsoft, Next-generation technology, Office 14, Productivity, University, Web 2.0, e-Learning

Tags: Google Inc., Google Apps, Google Docs, Web Application, Microsoft Corp., Windows Live SkyDrive, SkyDrive, Cloud Computing, Microsoft Office, Office Suites

I have spent quite a portion of my time covering the developments between Google Apps (Education Edition) and Microsoft’s Live@edu online suites; the latest features, the timeline and background information, and the increasing competitive natures of the companies.

But throw in an interesting twist like Office Web Apps and it makes me consider the depth and breadth of Microsoft’s determination to make an impact in the office-in-the-cloud niche market.

For what I am trying to conclude in this post is the Google Apps (Docs specifically) vs. Office Web Apps war but from the students perspective. This was admittedly my editor’s idea, but a “student perspective” requires one to think outside the bog-standard definition-of-a box. Both are equally good - even though the latter has not been fully evaluated by the masses yet. From the documentation, the videos and the images we have seen already, what they have to offer seems appealing to the iGeneration.

Gallery
To see a screenshot gallery of the new features in the Office Web Apps technical preview release, head on over this way, or read on.

So let’s take this from a logical perspective and see which offers what exactly, rather than a finger-pointing exercise of which is better. Frankly, I don’t care. Everyone is different and personal preference prevails in this; hence the competition factor between the companies.

A brief tit-for-tat comparison

With Google Docs I have the ability to use my university email address and corresponding password; that, however, is a feature of Google’s account setup. With Google Apps which is a combination of Gmail, Google Docs and some other bits and pieces, it can link in directly with your university’s account servers for a single sign-on solution.

Microsoft’s Office Web Apps runs in two main capacities. In this context it falls into a “free for everyone” category where Office Web Apps is an online office suite which is activated when you access a compatible Office document through Windows Live SkyDrive. The second is the “for the university” where SkyDrive is non-existent and is replaced with an existing internal SharePoint site which allows Office Web Apps to open up in a very similar way to the consumer view.

The “free for everyone” version will be advert supported and will no doubt be quite annoying to those working with their documents, but it is after all how the Internet remains as free as it presently is. This version doesn’t support your university single sign-on details mixing your Windows Live ID and your university credentials. Anything academic should stay that way; using “personal” accounts makes things messy and you lose track of your stuff.

Google Apps is a purely hosted solution so if something goes horrendously wrong then the chances are it is Google’s issue and your IT technicians haven’t tripped over an important cable in the server room. As Google has a far better infrastructure in place than even the most powerful university, so it takes costs out of the hands of the university to provide more services elsewhere.

Microsoft’s side is getting a little confusing though. It seems to be mixing together so many services and not making distinct lines between services and products. Windows Live SkyDrive hosts the documents, whereas Office Web Apps opens them, but it can be integrated into SharePoint and Office Web Apps will be an integral part of Live@edu too.

Google Docs, however, uses the same space for storage of files and editing. It is as close to an actual online office suite as you can get, really.

But whether you like it or not, Google Docs or any non-Microsoft company will never make a fully compatible online or offline office suite which works 100% with Office documents. The simple reason here is that Microsoft made Office and that Office has a set standard. Only those with the know-how and the original source code can make it happen. If Google were in that position, Google Docs would be on top.

And there’s more… Read the rest of this entry »

September 21st, 2009

Google Apps and Facebook's recent inbox controversies

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 11:56 am

Categories: Discussion, Google, Legal and political, Productivity, Security

Tags: Google Inc., Google Apps, Facebook, ReadWriteWeb, User Permission, Cloud Computing, E-mail, Online Communications, Zack Whittaker

Over the course of last week, issues with both Facebook’s service and Google’s Apps service were highlighted by users.

What Google did wrong

Microsoft must have been reveling in Google’s tears as their competitor to Live@edu glitched, allowing other users and students to view, in some cases, the entire contents of another student’s inbox.

The issue was caused by an unknown bug which occurred during the switchover process from self-hosted accounts to Google-hosted accounts. According to one report, Google took between 3-5 days to isolate the issue and close the accounts before fixing the problem.

ReadWriteWeb’s summation:

“In the case of the Google Apps glitch, which began on Friday, September 11th, a couple of students notified Brown’s Computing and Information Services department (CIS) that they were able to read emails belonging to other students.

The CIS department contacted Google on the following day and sent out an email to the 200 students whose mailboxes were in transition, asking them whether or not they were experiencing the same problem. Some were. The affected students could either see entire inboxes belonging to another classmate or, in other cases, saw less than 100 messages that did not belong to them.”

What Facebook did wrong

On a similar note, Facebook took a relatively quiet step in the anti-privacy route by allowing application to access inbox messages.

This appears to be a effort to open up the Facebook experience outside of the desktop by allowing the API to connect with offline applications, but arguably the system is susceptible to abuse.

According to a campaign to keep messages private:

“On August 11th, Facebook started giving whitelisted apps access to inbox messages. User permission is required, but the potential for abuse is enormous - a malicious or hacked app could post private messages on the web for anyone to read.
Even if you block or avoid applications, messages you send to less careful friends (who do use inbox apps) could be compromised.”

The controversy began when the Facebook Developer site announced last month that:

“The Inbox API allows you to access your users’ messages, once they grant your application the new read_mailbox extended permission. This lets your applications provide an interface for users to view their messages. For example, your application could pop up an alert when the user receives a new message.”

Ironically those supporting the cause (via) Facebook itself, although the petition application you use doesn’t collect any personal information. However, Facebook and security has never seemed very tight with applications in mind; there is very little stopping an application being a spam-engine and causing more hassle than good.

Had Facebook decided to ask the users their opinions of this, explaining in lay terms so the vast majority of audience understands using a poll, perhaps the end result would have been far different.

While no company is perfect and it is becoming increasingly difficult to fix and plug holes in complicated code, both Facebook and Google should take something away from all this: Sometimes doing what you consider good causes more issues, and the customer has the final say.

Have your say. It’s free, you know?

September 10th, 2009

What do Google and Microsoft gain from student cloud services?

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 6:12 am

Categories: Cloud computing, Discussion, Google, Microsoft, Money, Productivity, University, e-Learning

Tags: Google Inc., Google Apps, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Live@edu, Cloud Computing, Zack Whittaker

Google announced yesterday that over 5 million students have now “gone Google“, in that these students will start their academic sessions using the Google Apps Education Edition.

Along with this, they have a new site which shows where Google Apps has been rolled out across the globe, along with reasons to switch and case studies. Microsoft on the other hand are maintaining their efforts to compete with their rival service.

Google Apps statistics (as of today)

Google has now rolled out Apps to roughly 5 million students across 145 countries, which has increased roll-out by 400% since last year. “Thousands of schools” have picked up Google Apps with colleges following behind, and universities the least. However as a result of switching, some institutions such as the University of Notre Dame saved $1.5 million in costs.

In-depth statistics are unavailable at the time as Google don’t seem to want the world to know accurate figures. My guess is with the Google/Microsoft competitiveness, it’s an easier way to psych out the opponent.

Microsoft Live@edu statistics (as of today)

Microsoft’s statistics are much more clear cut, which is obvious as they are creeping ahead in the education market with their cloud student services. Live@edu is used by “thousands of schools” in over 86 countries and the user base has more than doubled to 10 million users since Februrary (this year, presumably).

Again, more in-depth analysis of the figures are hard to come by with the corporate spiel spouting more self-promotion to a journalist who just wants the numbers to crunch. Had Microsoft provided more in terms of numbers to the public relations officer, it would have made me certainly a less-grumpy blogger for this time of morning.

The reason for providing free cloud services

In both cases of Google Apps and Microsoft’s Live@edu, both use the phrase “thousands of schools“. There isn’t very much in it between the companies except Google is reaching out to regions Microsoft hasn’t hit yet.

The main differentiator is the number of students actually signing up for accounts. It seems based on the figures that schools offering Live@edu have more students actually signing up for accounts than those at schools offering Google Apps. There is no definitive answer as to why this is the case but it is an interesting trend nonetheless.

But what is in it for the companies?

It has come to my attention that Google uses the Apps Education Edition as a way of branching out to more customers as the software is free to use. Google makes their money from rolling out Apps to enterprises; the business which can afford to spend money somewhat lavishly. Google appear to be relying on these educational establishments to provide credibility and references to potential enterprise customers.

To be fair, it is good business sense as it is the least schools can do after saving millions of dollars in running and maintenance costs of their own systems.

Microsoft uses Live@edu as a testing ground for their own products. Outlook Live uses Exchange Server 2010 which only a few months ago was the only public viewing of the service. With that, Microsoft has gained around a year’s worth of feedback and user data before Exchange 2010 had even been released, allowing them to make products better based on error reports and usage et al.

This is also one of the reasons why Live@edu users will be given first hand access to Office Web Applications. As my PR contact pointed out, it is an easy way to stress-test the system before bigger and badder companies start adopting the service.

It’s an interesting approach, and both companies are providing their products free for a reason. Perhaps now this will shed some light on the internal processes both Microsoft and Google take into account when offering free services or products.

What do you think? Ethical? Unethical? Good business practice or doomed to bite them in the arse?

September 4th, 2009

Google: Pot, kettle, black, Chrome OS and a potential antitrust

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 10:37 am

Categories: Discussion, Google, Legal and political, Microsoft, Next-generation technology

Tags: Google Inc., Antitrust, Operating System, Corporate Law, Operating Systems, Business Operations, Software, Zack Whittaker

Last week, TechCrunch posted some more screenshots which allegedly purport Google’s new operating system, Chrome OS in the works.

What struck me was the number of Google products already bundled in the operating system, as you can see:

Now, I’ve mentioned before the tit-for-tat battle over Internet Explorer and the dispute in an ever-continuing scuffle between the EU and Microsoft, but what my colleague Mary Jo Foley has mentioned some time ago was that Google stepped into the row.

To cut a long story short, the EU was annoyed at Internet Explorer being included in Windows because it dominated the market by bundling a browser with an operating system. Google stepped in because they have a browser, Chrome, which has a smaller market-share but is steadily increasing.

But now Google is working on an operating system to directly rival Microsoft, which in itself was a bold yet brave move. In the meantime, Microsoft is still being anti-competitive in their “let’s crush the rival [Google] and make one hell of a spectacle about it”. I wasn’t happy.

After looking through a number of posts which offer clues as to what is in Google’s highly anticipated operating system, most of the “applications” provided will run through the browser. But the rest - such as Google Earth, Google Chrome and Google Talk will be bundled with the operating system.

Google Chrome is the Internet Explorer equivalent, clearly, whereas the remaining applications rival those of Windows Live. The comparison is important to note.

Why can’t Microsoft ship a Windows edition without including a browser (or at least come under fire from a zillion lawsuits) yet Google can? And with this, Google is entirely contradicting itself by doing something it opposed Microsoft from doing. Just because they have a smaller market-share doesn’t exempt them from the practice.

On an interesting note, Prof. Eric Clemons who specialises in this field claims:

“The fact is, Google almost doesn’t have any competitors. Google could kill anything it wants to.”

While even I initially thought the quote was misguided and just plain wrong, he goes on to explain. For instance, the price of most products Google provides to its users: free. Android is provided as a free open-source operating system and so will Chrome OS. I can understand the antitrust motions for Microsoft as it is providing a paid-for operating system whereas in terms of free operating systems, besides Linux, there aren’t any.

Regardless of this, does the antitrust concept solely rely on paid-for software? Whether or not a product is free to the end user would not stop it from being anti-competitive because the reign Google has over the “free Internet” is huge.

By providing a product for free can entirely alienate an entire market. Revenues can be generated online nowadays through online advertisements and user information being shared between companies. If a company can afford to invest millions into a free operating system tied in with their search engine which offers advertising already, the price would benchmark at $0 and there could potentially never be another paid-for operating system again.

How do you compete with free? By providing a better, more sophisticated free. From there, the online world builds up further and further as a supply of money-making advertisements, and the concept of revenue generation has changed forever. The free operating system manufacturers would earn money as they go through users’ browsing rather than the numbers of product box-set’s they sell.

This is where I want you to come in. Please, by all means, jump in at any point because frankly, I cannot see how Google can progress forwards without kicking up one almighty antitrust suit which could not only potentially destroy the company in revenue but reputation. And in comparison to Microsoft, Google may well be a polished turd but at least it’s pleasing on the senses.

TalkBack.