How will Google bring Chrome OS to market? The company is working with vendors to specify reference hardware. You cannot download and install Chrome on just any device, you will have to purchase a Chrome device. Google is looking at a launch window of late 2010, before the holidays.

Google sounds very concerned about the end-user Chrome OS experience. Pichai says the company wants to ensure that the displays, keyboard, etc., on the netbooks that run Chrome are robust and easy to use.

Pichai wraps things up, but before the Q&A, we’re shown a short explanatory video. “The first thing I want to do when I fire up my computer is browse the Internet….If there isn’t any Internet, I might not even use my computer….What if when you pressed on, your PC turned on, what if your operating system was more like a Web browser…what if it was a browser?…Chrome OS is a totally rethought computer that lets you focus on the Internet, which is what most of use our computers for these days anyway.”

Q&A
At this point, Sundar Pichai opens the event to questions:

If you’re specifying hardware components, do you have an idea of what they’ll cost?

A: “We expect Chrome netbooks to be in the price range of what people have come to expect….We are not specifying a price target.” Price will be determined at the OEM level.

Will the APIs support W3C standards?

A: “We’re working very closely with the W3C to standardize as much as we can….In general we want to see everything standardized across multiple browsers.”

Will there be an application store?

A: “The Web offers hundreds of millions of applications. Our job is to make people aware of them.”

What about desktop applications that are not available on the Web?

A: “We expect most of our users to have a second machine at home….Chrome OS is about a delightful experience on the Web….If you’re a lawyer spending your entire day on contracts, etc., this is not the machine for you.”

Will you support Microsoft Silverlight?

A: In the case of certain selection plug-ins, we are working to integrate them. No comment beyond that.

Since Chrome is open source, could people build their own variations?

A: Yes. We expect people will do many interesting things with it.

Do you see Chrome running on laptops or desktops?

A: We’re initially focused on netbook-like form factors–clamshells, etc. That said, the OS is being developed to work on other devices.

Is there any level of offline access? What happens when I’m on a plane and don’t want to pay for Wi-Fi?

A: Chrome devices are primarily intended to be Internet-connected. That said, it will have some caching abilities so, for example, you could play a game offline.

Virtualization?

A: Yes. You could run Chrome today on a virtual machine.

Are you working with outfits like Adobe to, say, build a Web-friendly version of Photoshop?

A: We’re very excited by things like Photoshop on the Web and we’re working hard to make that possible.

Will Android apps work on Chrome? Are there plans for third-party apps?

A: Pichai dodges this one. If it’s a Web app, he says, it will work on Chrome. The Web works very, very well for Google’s purposes, he adds.

Will Chrome work on both X86 and ARM?

A: Yes.

Is there a direct business model for Chrome OS or is this another variation of the-more-people-who-use-the-Web-the-better-for-Google?

A: We are working with partners. No plans for advertising. That said, Pichai notes again that anything that runs on the Web will run on Chrome. And of course, AdWords does, indeed, run on the Web.

[Sergey Brin joins the Q&A]

Do you want Android Apps to run on Chrome?

A: We are focused on creating the use case in which everything is a Web application, but hopefully we can do more in the future.

How does Chrome handle peripherals? Can it print?

A: Most keyboards, cameras, phones, etc., will work. In terms of printing…yes, Chrome OS will print and we’re working hard to make that possible.

What is Chrome’s strategic position for Google?

A: [Brin]: Call us dumb businessmen, but we really focus on user needs rather than focus on business strategies. We believe that the Web platform is a much simpler way of computing for individuals to use, and that’s a very important need in the market right now. That’s what we’re trying to fulfill.

Speaking at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans this past July, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said of Google’s forthcoming Chrome OS, “Who knows what this thing is?”

Today, he found out. The operating system, a direct challenge to Microsoft Windows, was on display at a media gathering at the Google HQ this morning.

Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management, and Matthew Papakipos, engineering director for Google Chrome OS, presided over the event, which the company described as a “technical announcement.”

That meant that Google (GOOG) was not releasing a beta of the operating system this week, as had been rumored.

That said, it was an overview of Chrome, as well as Google’s plans for its launch in 2010, so let the Chrome OS liveblogging begin:

• There will be no beta today. Pichai says Google is still a year away from an official launch. However, the company is making the code available today.
• Pichai says that a year after launch, the Chrome browser has some 40 millions users. He boasts about the browser’s speed, noting that it handles Javascript 39 times faster than Microsoft’s (MSFT) Internet Explorer. There will be three more big Chrome announcements sometime in the future: Chrome for Mac, Chrome for Linux and the debut of Chrome Extensions.
• Google’s goal is to ensure that Web applications function as well as desktop apps. Pichai says that the company is figuring out a way for Web apps to safely take advantage of the operating system in the way desktop apps do. A few examples: Graphics, video/audio applications, real-time communication, notification and local storage.

  “By 2010 we expect to have all these things built into Chrome,” Pichai adds.

• The advent of Chrome coincides with a perfect storm of converging trends, Pichai says, noting the tremendous popularity of netbooks during the recession, the growing acceptance of cloud apps and the rapid innovation in mobile devices. Smartphones are becoming more like laptops, Pichai adds, and laptops are becoming more like smartphones. Is there a better level of computing available for these devices?

  There is, according to Pichai, and Google believes it is Chrome OS.

• Among Chrome OS’s advantages, Pichai says: Speed, simplicity and security. Every application will be a Web application. There will be no desktop apps. Chrome OS is essentially a browser with a few modifications. All data in the Chrome OS resides in the cloud. Pichai: “We want all of personal computing to work that way….If I lose my Chrome machine, I should be able to go out, buy a new [one] and re-create my previous computing experience easily.”

  Chrome OS will run completely inside the browser security model, he adds, noting that security is one of Google’s top priorities along with speed. “Turning on a PC should be like turning on your TV,” he says.

• Chrome OS is very similar in appearance to the Chrome browser. “Chrome OS is Chrome,” says Pichai. Google made it look like a browser, because the browser is familiar.
• And indeed, Chrome OS does look quite a bit like a browser. Multiple apps load into tabs, for example. It also features “Panels,” which Pichai describes as persistent lightweight windows. “All Chrome data resides in the cloud. Anything you put in the machine is immediately available to you anywhere.”
• As netbooks become more advanced and battery life improves, they will evolve into entertainment devices, says Pichai, who notes that via Google Books, a netbook can become an e-reader, and, through YouTube, a video device.
• A quick demo of the user interface, which seems very simple and intuitive. “It just works,” says Pichai in an unintentional nod to Apple (AAPL).

  An interesting remark: Anyone who writes an app for the Web has written an app for Chrome, says Pichai, joking that Microsoft is already developing for it.

• Speed, simplicity and security, says Pichai. We’re trying to make the computing experience delightful.

With that, Pichai hands the stage over to Engineering Director Matt Papakipos.

• Papakipos, too, offers the “we want to make computing delightful” sound byte and notes once again that turning on the PC should be like turning on the TV.
• Chrome OS eliminates the bootloader, auto-launching the browser. The OS also auto-updates itself, making sure that it’s always current with security patches, etc. Everything from the firmware to the kernel is secured with a cryptographic signature to ensure a secure boot. In the event malware is detected, the system repairs itself automatically.
• The basic application security protocol for current operating systems allows apps the same privileges as the user. This presents obvious security issues. Whenever you install a new app, you’re taking a risk, says Papakipos.

  But Web applications like those that Chrome OS use, are different. They are Web apps, so they don’t have system-level privileges. Additionally, all apps run in secured sandboxes that are separate from one other and from the OS. Finally, all apps must be signed and verified before each use.

• In terms of file systems, Chrome’s is locked down. It’s a read-only root-file system, obviously quite different from other operating systems. All user data are encrypted and synched to the cloud. Essentially, Google uses the PC for caching. Again, if you should lose your machine, you buy a new one, fire it up and it synchs with the cloud, restoring your previous computing experience.
• How will Google bring Chrome OS to market? The company is working with vendors to specify reference hardware. You cannot download and install Chrome on just any device, you will have to purchase a Chrome device. Google is looking at a launch window of late 2010, before the holidays.
• Google sounds very concerned about the end-user Chrome OS experience. Pichai says the company wants to ensure that the displays, keyboard, etc., on the netbooks that run Chrome are robust and easy to use.
• Pichai wraps things up, but before the Q&A, we’re shown a short explanatory video. “The first thing I want to do when I fire up my computer is browse the Internet….If there isn’t any Internet, I might not even use my computer….What if when you pressed on, your PC turned on, what if your operating system was more like a Web browser…what if it was a browser?…Chrome OS is a totally rethought computer that lets you focus on the Internet, which is what most of use our computers for these days anyway.”

Q&A

At this point, Pichai opens the event to questions:

If you’re specifying hardware components, do you must have an idea of what they’ll cost?

A: We expect Chrome netbooks to be in the price range of what people have come to expect….We are not specifying a price target. Price will be determined at the OEM level.

Will the APIs support W3C standards?

A: We’re working very closely with the W3C to standardize as much as we can….In general, we want to see everything standardized across multiple browsers.

Will there be an application store?

A: The Web offers hundreds of millions of applications. Our job is to make people aware of them.

What about desktop applications that are not available on the Web?

A: We expect most of our users to have a second machine at home….Chrome OS is about a delightful experience on the Web….If you’re a lawyer spending your entire day on contracts, etc., this is not the machine for you.

Will you support Microsoft Silverlight?

A: In the case of certain selection plug-ins, we are working to integrate them. No comment beyond that.

Since Chrome is open source, could people build their own variations?

A: Yes. We expect people will do many interesting things with it.

Do you see Chrome running on laptops or desktops?

A: We’re initially focused on netbook-like form factors–clamshells, etc. That said, the OS is being developed to work on other devices.

Is there any level of offline access? What happens when I’m on a plane and don’t want to pay for Wi-Fi?

A: Chrome devices are primarily intended to be Internet-connected. That said, it will have some caching abilities so, for example, you could play a game offline.

Virtualization?

A: Yes. You could run Chrome today on a virtual machine.

Are you working with outfits like Adobe to, say, build a Web-friendly version of Photoshop?

A: We’re very excited by things like Photoshop on the Web and we’re working hard to make that possible.

Will Android apps work on Chrome? Are there plans for third-party apps?

A: [Pichai dodges this one.] If it’s a Web app, it will work on Chrome. The Web works very, very well for our purposes.

Will Chrome work on both X86 and ARM?

A: Yes.

Is there a direct business model for Chrome OS or is this another variation of the-more-people-that-use-the-Web-the-better-for-Google?

A: We are working with partners. No plans for advertising. That said, Pichai notes again that anything that runs on the Web will run on Chrome. And of course, AdWords does, indeed, run on the Web.

[Sergey Brin joins the Q&A]

Do you want Android Apps to run on Chrome?

A: We are focused on creating the use case in which everything is a Web application, but hopefully we can do more in the future.

How does Chrome handle peripherals? Can it print?

A: Most keyboards, cameras, phones, etc., will work. In terms of printing…yes, Chrome OS will print and we’re working hard to make that possible.

What is Chrome’s strategic position for Google?

A: [Brin]: Call us dumb businessmen, but we really focus on user needs rather than focus on business strategies. We believe that the Web platform is a much simpler way of computing for individuals to use, and that’s a very important need in the market right now. That’s what we’re trying to fulfill.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091119/a-first-look-at-googles-chrome-os-on-thursday/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091113/almost-famous-aviarys-israel-derdik/ http://allthingsd.com/20091113/almost-famous-aviarys-israel-derdik/#comments Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:21:07 +0000 Drake Martinet http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=17694 A new feature wherein All Things Digital looks at up-and-coming and innovative start-ups you should know about.

This week: A Skype visit with, some questions for and a few pertinent stats about Israel Derdik and his high-flying media suite, Aviary, a Web-based media-editing platform that enables users to alter, save and present their multimedia creations, all in the cloud.



Who: Israel Derdik, or “Iz” to his friends.

What: CTO of Aviary.

Why: Aviary is a Web-based media-manipulation suite comprised of flash-based tools for in-browser image editing, pattern generation, image effects, image markup, screen capture and audio editing. Let’s call it Adobe (ADBE) Lite.

Where: @iz (Twitter); aviary.com/about (corporate bio); Hewlett, New York (analog place).

Who else: Sumopaint, Pixler, Garage Band.

---

Five Stats You Won’t Find in His Facebook Profile

Worst Job: Tech Support Intern, Prudential Securities.

Has a Geek Crush on: Gina Trapani, Lifehacker.com.

Gadget of the Moment: Chartbeat app for iPhone.

Wishes There Was an App for: Home automation. “I want to have little touchscreens in every room of the house to control lights, HVAC, alarms, all of it. Basically, I want the touchscreens.”

First Computer: Commodore VIC 20. “My dad brought home a VIC 20 when I was six or seven. We played these little games on it–it had a tape drive. I’ve been hooked ever since.”

---

Bio in 140 Characters

Born in Brooklyn. CS degree from Brooklyn College. Became an intern at ConEd. Bubble of Web 1.0 burst. Then co-founded Aviary.

---

The Five Questions

What makes Aviary different from Adobe CS or Garage Band?

Aviary can do lots of things, but there’s nothing to install. It’s flash-based and runs right in your browser. The benefit of running that stuff in the cloud is every time you save it, it saves to our servers, and you can access it from any computer.



We also make it easy to do the basic edits on Aviary. Then, for example, [you could] move the project to Photoshop for more heavy-duty stuff. You can also open other peoples’ works–if they haven’t made them private with a premium account–and see how they did something. We call it “creation on the fly.”

Are users ready for this?

Absolutely. We’re seeing it [cloud computing] more with Gmail; people are moving more of their applications to the Web. I think online image editing is still in its nascent stages, but it’s going to get there. [Aviary is] definitely building for the power user, the top of the pyramid, but it will trickle down.

You just completed a successful round of funding. How will Aviary expand?

Well, we’d love to get into bed with Flickr [Yahoo’s (YHOO) popular image-sharing site]. We can already pull images right from your Flickr account, and very shortly we’ll be able to push images back via their API. Currently, there’s a big hole for video editing and stuff for YouTube.



That’s a really, really tough problem to solve because of the file sizes involved. There is also music creation possibly, as opposed to just looping things together and adding effects.

Every geek has a memory where they saw something new and had to say to themselves, “Dang, I love living in the future.” What’s yours?

I’ll tell you exactly what it is because it really stands out. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Wannado City in Florida. It’s a kids’ amusement park that’s entirely indoors. It looks like a huge city, and the kids can do all the jobs–they can be police officers, and there’s fire trucks going back an forth that the kids can sit in, and there’s a bakery–it’s a really cool place. But what struck me as cool is that they give this bracelet to each person in the family when you walk in, and at any given moment you can walk to a kiosk, swipe your bracelet and see where anyone else in your family is in the building. I assume they are using some kind of RFID tags, but when I saw that I was like, “Wow, that’s really awesome.”

If you could change one thing about the Internet, what would it be?

The worst would have to be bad advice in tech support forums. Sometimes, I go on there, and there is just really bad advice. I look at it and think, “I could do that better.” Incompetence drives me crazy.

---

The In Living Color Interview

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091113/almost-famous-aviarys-israel-derdik/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091019/does-checkbook-blogging-pay-off-hard-to-measure-says-gawker-medias-nick-denton/ http://allthingsd.com/20091019/does-checkbook-blogging-pay-off-hard-to-measure-says-gawker-medias-nick-denton/#comments Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:00:38 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=12186 Another scandal, another Gawker story, and another payday for the person who sold Gawker the news. No big deal, says Nick Denton, the blog impresario: We’ll keep doing it.

The specifics in this case involve the alleged Balloon Boy hoax and a 25-year-old student who says he was involved, unwittingly, in the stunt. Last week, Robert Thomas announced, via Business Insider, that he’d sell his story to anyone willing to pay him $5,000 to $8,000. Denton’s company wrote a check for the tale, though it says it paid much less than Thomas’s ask.

This is becoming standard practice for Denton, who announced in July that he was willing to pay for juicy stories, tips and other stuff he could publish. In August, he shelled out for video of “Grey’s Anatomy” star Eric Dane, his wife Rebecca Gayheart and another woman in various states of undress.

Seminaked semicelebrities draw more eyeballs than stories about delusional reality-show aspirants, apparently: The “McSteamy” clips have generated more than four million views this fall, while Denton predicts the Balloon Boy saga will ultimately do one million.

My question: Does paying for this stuff make sense? After announcing a year ago that advertising was going to fall off a cliff, Denton now says he’s been making good money after all. So does this kind of checkbook blogging produce more profit? Denton’s answer, via email:

Hard to measure profitability. Short-term effect. Balloon boy story will probably go to 1m views. But you know one can’t easily sell advertising into a spike. And video hosting costs pretty significant–though not this time.

Why you think just two bought stories? We paid 10k for that Photoshop expose a couple years ago. Not really a new thing.

A story is a story. We’re not squeamish about the means. And the paroxysms of the j-school ethicists add to the satisfaction.

You were expecting a more straightforward answer? Ha!

If you want, you can check out Gawker’s rate card, make some assumptions, and conclude that Denton can’t afford to pay his story-sellers that much and still end up in the black, even at one million page views. And I’m reasonably confident that Denton is very interested in measuring profitability and has worked out an equation that pays his story-sellers in proportion to traffic, but without breaking his bank.

But the last part of Denton’s missive–quivering ethicist strawmen aside–is what really rings true. He really does get a huge kick out of this stuff: Entertaining himself with his blog empire, tweaking enemies real and imagined, and shrugging about it publicly.

It would be wrong to say you can’t put a price on that. But whatever that price is, Denton can afford it.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091019/does-checkbook-blogging-pay-off-hard-to-measure-says-gawker-medias-nick-denton/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090922/yahoo-ad-campaign-creative-wed-like-to-see/ http://allthingsd.com/20090922/yahoo-ad-campaign-creative-wed-like-to-see/#comments Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:41:13 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=18729

Yahoo introduced its new $100 million marketing and branding campaign in New York today with “It’s Y!ou” as the new motto, making use of the Internet giant’s famous exclamation point.

Sure, it’s clever and all, but BoomTown felt the need to jump in and help Yahoo (YHOO), since our posts have been a little tough when it has come to the Silicon Valley icon’s tumultuous ride over the last two years.

So, while CEO Carol Bartz (pictured above as a giant lady on the Nasdaq Jumbotron in Times Square) explained–as reported by MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka–that “Yahoo is the only site where you when you wake up in the morning and you want to know what’s going on everywhere about everything, you can find it one place,” I’d say there’s more to the brand that just that!

In fact, there’s Bartz herself, a sassy and ofttimes salty exec whose pugnacious utterances have become legend quickly.

Today, for example, when asked about a comparison with its search rival, she noted, “Why not be cynical about fricking Google?”

That was mild in comparison to her cursing me out at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference when she thought I was insinuating she was too old to be an Internet exec (you can see that exchange in the video below).

Thus, please take a gander at our branding effort for Yahoo below.

(While Yahoo has Ogilvy & Mather to do its work, ATD has the very clever Photoshop stylings of Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski to work our marketing magic.)

Best of all, you can switch out the picture and moniker to denote any Yahoo foe–Google (GOOG); Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer if he does not behave in the new search-partnership deal; billionaire investor and Yahoo board member Carl Icahn; and more!

Fondly dedicated to Carol–and the rest of the Yahoo crew, especially Judy–here’s our ad (click on the image to make it larger):



And here is Bartz in action at D7, cussing me out at 00:57 in the video of the interview:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090922/yahoo-ad-campaign-creative-wed-like-to-see/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20090921/adobes-cto-kevin-lynch-talks-but-not-omniture/ http://allthingsd.com/20090921/adobes-cto-kevin-lynch-talks-but-not-omniture/#comments Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:15:17 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=18609

BoomTown went to visit the HQ of Adobe in San Francisco several weeks ago for a chit-chat with its CTO, Kevin Lynch.

We had a lovely discussion about the future of its Flash video technology, as well as of its more recent AIR offering.

Lynch also discussed smart phones and other such devices, although he somehow neglected to mention the then-pending purchase of Omniture (OMTR) by Adobe (ADBE).

That would be the $1.8 billion the company said last week it would fork over for the Web measurement business.

Reaction to the deal has ranged from mixed to WTF? And some consider it an attempt to–as one smart exec put it to me–“buy revenue,” even as Adobe’s other businesses face major challenges ahead.

While the iconic company’s Photoshop and Acrobat software offerings dominate the Web publishing business, Adobe must still deal with the increasing move of all software into the cloud and onto non-PC devices.

And–with Microsoft (MSFT) continuing to aggressively push its own Silverlight online video technology and other companies like Google (GOOG) likely to have more to say in the arena–even the Flash business, which is now installed on more than 90 percent of Web-enabled PCs, will be more challenging than ever.

Lots to think about, so here is Lynch in a video interview:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090921/adobes-cto-kevin-lynch-talks-but-not-omniture/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090915/measure-this-adobe-buys-web-traffic-counter-omniture-for-1-8-billion/ http://allthingsd.com/20090915/measure-this-adobe-buys-web-traffic-counter-omniture-for-1-8-billion/#comments Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:42:29 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=11000 What do you do if you’ve got a grip on the Web/design software market? Expand into the Web measurement business, apparently. Adobe, whose Photoshop and Acrobat software offerings dominate the Web publishing business, will pay $1.8 billion to acquire Omniture, whose Web traffic measurement software is that industry’s standard.

Adobe (ADBE) is offering $21.50 in cash for each Omniture (OMTR) share. That’s a 25 percent premium over today’s closing price of $17.32–which includes a large run-up in the last few hours of the day, before trading was halted around 3:45 pm EDT. Good bet the folks at the Securities and Exchange Commission will take a look at that leap.

Release

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090915/measure-this-adobe-buys-web-traffic-counter-omniture-for-1-8-billion/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090826/sirius-xm-unveils-skydock-for-iphone/ http://allthingsd.com/20090826/sirius-xm-unveils-skydock-for-iphone/#comments Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:00:52 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=23757

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090826/sirius-xm-unveils-skydock-for-iphone/feed/ 0