Despite gaining momentum, Google Chrome adoption is still far behind Firefox's 330 million users!
At the Googleplex this morning, Google vice-president of product management Sundar Pichai started the Google Chrome OS press conference with an update on the search engine Web browser:
Since launch, 14 months ago, 40 million people are now using Google Chrome as their main Web browser. Although this sounds like a big number, it’s not. To put it in perspective, Firefox added 30 million users in 8 weeks last month!
Google Chrome has been updated more than 20 times through seamless auto updates;
Javascript is 38 times faster than Internet Explorer. An important benchmark for Web 2.0 applications that make heavily use of AJAX;
HTML 5 support.
Pichai also mentioned about 3 more announcements that Google will be making by the end of this year regarding Chrome:
Release of the Mac version
and the Linux version;
Release of Extensions, which are similar to plug-ins.
Linux creator, Linus Torvalds, will attend the inaugural LinuxCon event in Portland, Oregon, his current hometown.
With the LinuxWorld tradeshow now gone – or should I say “expanded” to become OpenSource World – LinuxCon is now the only event exclusively focused on all things Linux.
And to make sure developers – and media! – show up for the inaugural event, despite being held in Portland, Oregon in late September, the Linux Foundation (LinuxCon’s organizer) convinced Mister Linux himself – Linus Torvalds – to show up.
It sure does help that the Linux Foundation, the latest gatekeeper for the open source operating system, is also Torvalds’ employer!
“LinuxCon will ditch the traditional tradeshow environment in lieu of a new, annual technical conference designed to provide collaboration and education on all things Linux. It will also include hands-on tutorials from the kernel community’s most respected developers,” said a Linux Foundation spokesperson.
Asked about creating yet another tradeshow in this fledging economy, the organizers responded that “tradeshows (like OSCON and the now-defunct LinuxWorld) are declining in popularity and impact, but specialized community conferences are thriving. This is an area where the Linux Foundation is uniquely positioned to offer both community and industry a valuable service.”
An interesting story in the EE Times highlights the difficulties ARM is experiencing as it tries to bring the full Internet to ARM-based netbooks.
ARM chips are in numerous Internet devices, but the latet version of Flash is not
ARM is battling Intel on this crucial front of the computer and mobile-device wars. Intel hopes to push into ARM’s traditional market with its low-power, low-cost Atom chip – and so far has had noted success with low-cost laptop-like netbooks.
Intel claims its greatest advantage is that its x86-based computer chips work well with Net technologies, such as Adobe’s Flash.
ARM responded last fall by ageing to work with Adobe to bring the lastest version of Flash to ARM-based mobile devices.
But EE Times says it continues to struggle with poor video support for its devices and with software fragmentation. Half a dozen or so variants of Linux run on ARM devices and there are no standards for how they interact with Web-based applications.
People are working hard to bring Flash to ARM, which would improve video support, says the EE Times.
Openmoko is not a cell phone, it's a development platform
The maker of the world’s first totally open mobile phone has a long way to go before it can compete with Apple, RIM or Nokia.
At a special session during the Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) today in San Jose, Calif., Openmoko CEO Sean Moss-Pultz discussed how developers could use its FreeRunner to create mobile products.
The device is targeted at developers – not consumers – who then can totally change everything, from its physical aspect and hardware components to the operating system, installing Google Android or Debian Linux, for example.
The ultimate open source smartphone: Openmoko+Google Android
“If you want to write applications, buy an iPhone. But if you want to transform the way the physical product looks, then buy a FreeRunner,” said Moss-Pultz. “I don’t think Apple will let you resell their products with a different operator, with a different market, with a different software stack. But we can.”
Moss-Pultz also argued that at $299 (the show’s special for 30 days), the FreeRunner is unbelievably cheap. “It has all the things you will find on a $3,000 development board [...] You have all the major RF components you want to do real development.”
Openmoko doesn’t do 3G because of “monstrous patents issues”
“The moment we try to do a design with 3G, the cost of this device goes up by $200. And then you have serious issues with documentation, etc.
So we decided that for the first version – to get this concept out there – the free networks like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth were more important for development early on than 3G.
Our stand on 3G is that it is something that at some point we will make. But really, we use this device first to see what markets are interesting out there. And then based on those markets, someone will come back to us and say “I want to place an order for 50,000 of these things with 3G.” And we’ll make it.
That would be for a specific project that they would not care about the openness of the mobile part.”
Here’s a video excerpt of Moss-Pultz presentation at ESC’09:
The $400 convertible netbook has no fan, drives and runs Linux
One startup to look for today at Demo is Always Innovating and you can watch their presentation here.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based company is unveils the first ARM-based netbook that also converts in a all-magnetic tablet computer that you can stick on the fridge!
The Touch Book runs Linux and weighs two pounds and boasts a 10 to 15 hours battery life with the keyboard attached, between 3 and 5 hours in tablet mode.
Like a cellphone, the Touch Book is always-on – no need to reboot it – and completely silent, no fans or disk drives. But if you need to reboot it, it reboots in seconds.
The Touch Book is like a huge iPod touch
Similar to the iPhone and iPod touch, the Touch Book’s touch screen has built-in accelerometers that can be used for game play.
However, the netbook’s availability is not expected before “late Spring.”
“Until now, all netbooks were engineered the same way: Power-hungry Intel Atom, ugly case, and outdated 90′s OS. Our goal: To achieve a breakthrough in both architecture and design. The result: a revolutionary device that works as both a netbook and a standalone tablet thanks to a detachable keyboard and a 3D touchscreen user interface,” says the company.
The company calls it Touch Book the perfect device for these touch economic times as it can be used as a netbook, ebook reader, kitchen computer, digital frame, game player and video player, all in one single device! Let’s hope they can find any funds to built it.
Below are the detailed specifications for the Touch Book:
Is Microsoft trying to create a monopoly in the car navigation market, scaring GPS device makers with some heavy handed patent infringement suits?
GPS maker TomTom rejected today Microsoft’s patent infringement allegations over 8 patents related to car navigation and Linux technologies; striking another blow for the financially-distressed Dutch company.
The software maker filed its complaint in a U.S. District Court in Washington and at the International Trade Commission and is seeking to block U.S. imports of TomTom’s navigation devices.
Microsoft claims that the two companies were unable to reach a patent-licensing agreement after talks that lasted less than a year.
“Microsoft provided defendant TomTom N.V. notice of its infringement allegations in a June 13, 2008 letter to Peter-Frans Pauwels, Chief Technical Officer of Defendant TomTom,” Microsoft said in its complaint.
Follows are the infringing patents:
Vehicle Computer System with Open Platform Architecture
Method and System For Generating Driving Directions
Methods and Arrangements for Interacting with Controllable Objects within a Graphical User Interface Environment Using Various Input Mechanisms
Portable Computing Device-integrated Appliance
Vehicle Computer System with Wireless Internet Connectivity
2 patents on Common Name Space for Long and Short Filenames (Linux)
Method and System for File System Management Using a Flash-Erasable, Programmable, Read-only Memory (Linux)
However, some sees Microsoft’s Linux patent infringement allegation as another attempt to slow the innovation in the open source operating system.
The Linux operating system used in the portable navigation computing devices… also provide the devices with additional functionality such as file system support for long and short file names, memory managment for flash memory commonly used on such devices, and a platform for integrating and controlling various electronic components used with the portable navigation computing devices, such as other components in a vehicle
However, could the Dutch company really afford to comply with the software maker’s demands when TomTom is desperately trying to find ways to repay its debt.
Freescale's netbook chip competes head-on with Intel's Atom chip. Photo: Or Hiltch (http://www.flickr.com/photos/orcaman)
At the Mobile World Congress conference, the chipmaker said its i.MX515 system on a chip (SOC) processor will support Google’s Android operating system by next quarter.
The Austin, TX-company sees $100 netbooks – with Wi-Fi connectivity – coming as early as this Summer.
Freescale anticipates that netbooks powered by ARM chips could capture as much as half of the world’s netbook chip market; estimated to reach 35 million units this year, according to research firm ABI.
Last month, at CES, Freescale unveiled the same ARM-based chip with support for Linux.
The i.MX515 processor is based on ARM’s Cortex-A8 core which supports 3D graphics and high-definition (1080p) video playback. Palm’s Pre, also announced last month at CES, is one of the first smartphones to use the Cortex-A8 core.
Despite having numerous phones, Motorola's handset division is rapidly loosing market share and tons of money
Motorola’s mobile phone business is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Today, the telecommunications company said its mobile devices division sold about 100 million handsets in 2008, for a total revenue of $12.1 billion and an operating loss of $2.2 billion, compared with $1.2 billion in 2007.
To cut its losses, Motorola – now ranked fourth in the global handset marketplace behind Nokia, Samsung and LG – is reducing head count and the number of operating systems its devices support (Windows Mobile, Linux and Google Android).
However, the company 1-year old turnaround strategy for its mobile device unit – which included a sale – is not working and continues to spill out precious cash.
A fire-sale of the handset division might be the only way out for the Illinois company. Unless Motorola manages to surprise us with a handset a la Palm Pre or Apple iPhone later this month, at the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona, Spain.
The open source leader fears more about foreign currency devaluations than the IT spending slow down
Red Hat expects to do well during recession.
The Linux distributor announced today better than expected results for its fiscal third-quarter despite a tough economy and a strengthening dollar.
Compare to the same period last year, revenues increased 22% to $165.3 million as well as net income, by 20% to $24.3 million.
During a conference call with Wall Street analysts, CFO Charlie Peters said the results could have been even better had the foreign currency devaluations not reduced the company’s revenues by $7 million and profits by $2 million.
Is Red Hat, Linux and open source recession proof?
At this point, foreign exchange fluctuations are much more of a concern for the software maker than the worsening macroeconomic situation.
Near 82% of Red Hat revenues are recurring revenues and come from subscriptions. “We have renewed all the major financial services out there,” confided Peters.
The Raleigh, North Carolina, company said that during the quarter, 12 deals were over $1 million, while 4 deals topped $5 millions or more. Only one of the top 30 deals was a “free to pay” conversion.
Most customers were from the media and technology sectors and from governments.
Small, cheap notebooks – known as netbooks – are among the hottest products in the PC market place.
Cloud OS boots inside a browser with icons at the bottom on the screen
Good OS would also like them to become quicker to turn on. The Emeryville, CA, company that supplies the Linux operating system that debuted in computers at Wal-Mart, announced a stripped-down operating system it says boots in seconds.
The product, called “Cloud,” opens in a browser and displays icons at the bottom of a Web page much as they are displayed in the Macintosh OS from Apple. Users navigate among the icons to make Skype phone calls, access Gmail e-mail, or reach Google Docs.
The OS is to first appear in a touch-screen laptop made by Giga-byte Technology of Taiwan and distributed early next year. The laptop is to be shown off at the Netbook World Summit this week in Paris.
According to Good OS, Cloud also allows users to “switch to the main operating system (Windows or a full version of Linux) with a single click.”
Can anyone @IBM fix the WiFi network at #IOD11 ? It's been terrible for the past 2 days and everybody I talked just can't stand it anymore 4 months ago
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