lovehate: Belated Thoughts on Google Chrome OS

When Google made a late-night announcement earlier this week that they would be releasing a lightweight Linux-based OS that booted in seconds and allowed users to live in the clouds, I was all YEAAAHHH! And then I thought about it and I was all YEAAAHH... I think.

In as much as love the big software, hardware and webware giants pushing each other around in order to push innovation and refine user needs and concerns, the Chrome OS is probably a good thing. Will this OS effectively help to redefine the OS concept or just essentially become an OS lite for cloud-dwellers? I really don't have a problem if this is the case, but somehow even this move doesn't have me stretching my mind to applaud where the OS has become.

For instance, while I have no doubt that 90% of what I do on my PC now could be accomplished by web apps, the other 10% cannot and, even though it's only 10%, they are things that need to be done. In fact, I can probably do almost 99% of my PC activities via online apps, but many of these things would be a pain in ass as the interfaces have not reached the ambitions of the backend web developers.

Aviary is a great tool for online photo manipulation, but it is just that, an online tool. If anyone is to spend serious time working with dozens or hundreds of photos on a regular basis, a desktop app would be hard to give up. While I've there are even options for online editing of audio and video files, I would imagine the process would take way more time that a regular desktop app.

And this said, Google is not (at least yet) proposing to take over everyone's PC with the Chrome OS. The first moves are in the "netbook" field which is a PC format that I consider a vast waste of money anyway. Why are people paying what only amounts to $150 less than a full out laptop for hardware that is limited at best and ridiculously restrictive and proprietary at worst? If a netbook is being purchased in addition to a laptop and a desktop, just for kicks, go for it. But please don't the netbook replace one of the above. Honestly, even though the form factor and interface abilities of my iPod Touch are incredibly narrow compared to a laptop, I would rather carry it in my pocket than a netbook under my arm or over my shoulder.

But back to the next phase of the OS. Hadn't we all expected more by now? Is every new feature OS essentially "window-dressing" on slightly modified backends? Are we only buying into interface updates?

How different is the end user functionality of Vista or Windows 7 compared to Windows 95 - after all it's been 14 years? [Alright all you tech-heads, there's obviously a TON of development going on to ensure speed, loads, and efficiencies have improved, but I'm thinking more interface issues here.] If I want to find a file, I still browse to a folder/directory. If I want to install a program, I still double click an executable. I'm still stuck with a mouse and cursor. I've been promised voice interface for generations, but it's still not perfect and far from ubiquitous. I see great "proposed" UIs at developer's conferences and on the Discovery Channel, but hardly anything that has moved the masses from the keyboard and mouse. And maybe this is all because, other than the prominence of interacting with the web, with PC apps, we're still doing the same things: games, word processing, spreadsheets, document handling, audio/video production/editing, email and porn.

So if the prominence of the web is the grand mover behind this alternate OS by Google and probably others soon to follow, I suppose I can cheer with a certain amount of buy-in. It'll be cool, I'm sure, but it won't be game-changing... unless the game is Bejeweled 2, then I'm sold. Until then, bring on voice or thought-based interfaces and scary-cool AI with a dose of thought-based networking and fully-immersive VR to boot. 

C'mon Google! You've got all the money. Bring it on home... or, dare I say, bring it on Chrome!

lovehate: Wolfram Alpha Renews Authority Issues

In the past few years of webolution we've dealt with the advances of technologies and platforms that are greeted with great fanfare. What tends to get lost, or at least glossed over as time passes, are some of the ethical questions that arise from the technologies.

Remember when everyone thought Google was the greatest thing ever? Wait... I guess most people still do. There once was a time were the links that popped up for your searches were suspect. Why those links and not others? Was there some grand design that we were unaware of? Was Google harnessing the power of search results, feeding us what they wanted to feed us and instead of an "above board", transparent list of links where my little homepage could ever have a chance of hitting the top of the list? I remember thinking about this once... for a few seconds anyway, and then I got to my searching. I had ceded my link aggregation to Google.

Wikipedia has crowdsourced knowledge to the point where noted journalists are buying into the entries as though they're gospel. We search. We find entries that we can pretty much guarantee are suspect in one regard or another, yet we cite, source, report, and pass off the amalgamated ponderings of others as the 21st century Funk & Wagnall's. Don't get me wrong; I can appreciate the fact that we've moved from an authority system based on printing press to one based on monitor text. I'm not naive enough to think that print encyclopedias were without bias. I do know, however, that the filtering system to go from research, to edit, to publish at a publishing house is at least tangibly more complex than clicking "edit". We have ceded our knowledge to Wikipedia.

And then past year's fears of Digg manipulating their stories to jack up the ratings of "superusers" or otherwise manipulating their front page results. The community cried "Foul!" and most of us went back there anyway.

Let's digress for a minute though...

Google, Wikipedia, Digg - none of them are bound to ANY public recourse or obligation. These are private companies that may be community-driven in some respects, but are beholden to no one but themselves, or their shareholders. Even still, we have ceded authority to the aggregators... and I'm sadly willing to accept it, because their functionality makes my life easier and I'm far too lazy to pursue the alternative.

So now we are presented with Wolfram Alpha which purports to be a "computational knowledge engine" which is way cool and has potential written all over it. But its existence (and future) raises questions concerning our divested authority. While Google and Digg ask us to accept rankings and Wikipedia asks us to accept knowledge, Wolfram Alpha is asking us to accept solutions. While this may seem to be a fine line (and one that I'm sure I'll be accepting sometime soon) the line does lead down the path to bigger ethical questions than link aggregation.

Is it okay to cede problem solving to the web? Don't get me wrong here. I realize that WA is not apt to solve the world's problems even with the best placed query. My fear is that the ourobouros of crowdsourcing will increase exponentially. When does a Wikipedia entry that's received a million hits, because of its listing in Google, become so accepted that it is "fact"? When does "fact" get integrated into research which, itself, gets re-cited back into Wikipedia and other sources? When does Wolfram Alpha generate solutions based on a "fact" that, in itself, gets republished to create new "research"?

And I guess we can go back to the paper v. digital question where I'm sure someone will correctly assert that this feared pattern has all happened before in paper, ink and press. I'll concede to that. My issue is the filtering. Now it can happen in an hour or a day. Research used to be time intensive and subject to the self-questioning that the research and publishing process would allow. The speed of the web CAN deny such reflection. Where it has always been incumbent on consumers of media to question content providers, the obligation becomes even greater when server-side computation verges on impending nascent stages of AI. Alright, I know were not talking Skynet here, but there's a big difference between "here's where you can go to possibly find the answer" and "here's the answer".

Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolfram?

wolfram alpha

thinglets: the power of tagging

If you want people to check out your new recipe for chocolate chip cookies, just put "Watchmen" in the tags and miracles will abound. In this case, I actually did a podcast about The Watchmen, so I wasn't cheating, but I am shocked. But, seeing as this is a post about the power of putting "Watchmen" in a tag, I'll put it in this one too. I invite others to make reference to this post and tag accordingly.

tagging

thinglets: who to blame

Now that Google is being blamed for aiding terrorism with their Google Earth program, let's take a lawyer's look at who else we could extend our litigious leanings to in our case of Aiding and Abetting Terrorism:

The Non-Terrorist People of the World

vs.

Google and...

Every company who makes digital mapping applications
Every computer manufacturer
Every monitor manufacturer
Every internet service provider
Every publisher who prints atlases or maps
Every camera manufacturer
Every company responsible for Research, Development and Production of satellites
The paper manufacturers
The memory card manufacturers
The electric companies
Any other manufacturer that contributes to any of the products mentioned above
The governments of the world
The people of the world
The earth itself for being so photogenic

google earth

lovehate: Living in the Chrome Trench of the Browser War

So for the past two weeks I've been trying an experiment. And while I'm loathe to call anything I do shiny or sparkly, I suppose, in a very metaphorical way, both those words would apply. I've come to the realization that I'm slowly becoming a Google fanboy and, with this in mind, I have been exclusively using the Chrome browser for the past two weeks.

Let me lay a little browser history on you though. When I first started on the net, it was through BBS calls at all hours of the day and night. Such exchanges basically included forum posts back and forth between a small group who has been permitted access. Soon after (when the www became a reality) I moved to the Lynx browser which handled only text and was, at the time, the greatest tool I'd ever seen - I honestly didn't even know what a gopher was before Lynx. Browser reality changed forever with the onslaught of NCSA's Mosaic. Which allowed for graphical browsing for the first time and consolidated many of the existing internet protocols so almost all of them could be viewed in one web application... I can't believe that was only fifteen years ago. Mosaic gave way to Netscape and Netscape Gold, which I was a fond devotee of for at least a couple of years until one day I woke up and found myself an Internet Explorer disciple, unwavering and unflinching for many years.

Sometime last year, I finally made the Mozilla Firefox leap and was glad for having done so. IE was falling quickly falling too far behind the times. The add-ons and plug-ins opened up a new realm of browsing that seemed a natural evolution. But, like those of us that filled our early web pages with animated gifs and flashing text, I realized that, ultimately, the overbearing number of tweaks and add-ons to my Firefox experience was creating a garish experience. The browser was taking a minute to load with all of the plug-ins and the five homepage tabs. While I knew I could strip down the options within Firefox, my fanboy meter was piqued when Chrome was released a few months back.

So while I was still having fun with my two dozen Firefox add-ons, I made a conscious effort to pare down my browsing frills. I had dabbled a bit with Chrome and the speed was definitely impressive. Two weeks ago, I began an experiment that has led me to making Chrome my default browser with no desire to turn back.

The benefits are numerous: speed, integrated search/address bar, speed, more screen real estate for web pages, incognito browsing windows, and probably the most appropriate portal browser you'll be able to get for the ever-expanding Google Labs, Betas, and other Apps. Also, because it's my default browser, my computer now contains nostalgic remembrances of the electronic game Simon for every html icon. 

There are drawbacks as well. When one gets used to the multi-functionality of two dozen plugins like TwitterFox, Digg, weather reports, autoposting to various microblogs, the diversity of options can be infectious. I struggled for a couple of days trying to figure out how I could survive in Chrome without having to go back to Firefox all the time... such an examination, however, yielded serendipitous results in may cases.

I immediately downloaded Tweetdeck after months of convincing myself I didn't really need it with a plugin like TwitterFox. Now Tweetdeck has a permanent home on my screen real estate. I discovered I really didn't miss Digg pop-ups every 5 minutes and that my ability to one-click post to Pownce was... well, poor Pownce - we hardly knew ye. I found the Google Application Shortcuts were a great way to always have my calendar available in an instant and that I could make almost any page into it's own browser app.

All in all, I'm quite satisfied that this Chrome conversion will have some life to it. I'll admit, there still are some bugs to be worked out in terms of some page that just don't seem to want to render smoothly every time, but those are few and far between. I'm hoping that when the onslaught of Chrome add-ons hits over the next few months, I will have the tempered resolve to not go too crazy and only pick what I need.

I don't do product reviews on lovehatethings in the traditional sense. I've maintained that short of a willingness to love or hate something, I will reserve judgment until further review. I don't do stars or thumbs ups or "out of 10s". So when I say I've put Firefox aside for the time being, I don't want to imply I hate it. I still love Firefox. I just love Chrome a little bit more... but I'm fickle - blow me away Flock!

chrome