Hewlett Packard, a.k.a. HP is one of the oldest brands in Information Technology business and is respected for being one of the most innovative business empires in technological landscape. They are getting into every emerging facet of technology, whether it’s laptops, Netbooks, PDAs, smartphones or tablets, you can see a prominent player in the name of HP, producing cutting edge hardware for satisfying the growing market demand.

But along with all the accomplishments that HP has made in the past decade, one important area where HP is seriously lagging behind is its monopolized Print business. And it’s not HP’s competitors(Canon, Lexmark…) which are hurting the revenue stream of HP’s established print business but there’s a different sort of threat for them. It’s the Next Generation digital devices that are making Paper printing worthless.

With the advent of smartphones, e-readers and tablet devices, people are getting more adapted to reading content over the screen. Less people are looking interested in printing every single document they want to read as the comfort zone is slowly drifting to Wireless digital devices from Paper reading.

Dying business of Newspaper & Magazine industry is one big indicator. That’s probably the reason why media entities like WSJ and NYTimes have launched their iPhone and iPad apps, to keep serving their content to current generation of consumers.

Apart from the changing preferences of our generation when it comes to consuming content, there’s another reason why Printing is no more a desired thing for many of us. The reason is the incapability of most of the upcoming devices to start printing right away.

Majority of printers that HP builds today require printer specific drivers, wired connectivity, etc as the mandatory condition, which simply turns off anyone interested in taking a quick print from his smartphone or tablet, as all of them are wireless devices and don’t have printer drivers installed on their sleek machines.

All of this is hampering HP’s print business revenues to a great extent. Solution ?

HP has found a reliable companion, which will make things better than what they are now. Google and Google Cloud Print to be more specific.

As Chrome OS team announced earlier about Google Cloud Print, a cloud based service to execute printing jobs from any device (Desktop, phone or browser), without any need of printer drivers, it recently updated about the progress on Google Cloud Print service and also highlighted HP’s launch of full suite of cloud-aware printers ranging from $99 consumer printers to business-oriented printers.

As Google describes, Google Cloud Print can print from any printer, be it a legacy printer or upcoming Cloud aware printers but Google strongly recommends Cloud aware printers as they will give the best experience to the users. And supporting Google’s vision, HP has finally come up with affordable ‘Cloud aware’ printers.

Google employees have started internal testing of ‘Google Cloud Print’ service employing HP’s cloud aware printers and it seems that the goods(Chrome OS) are most likely to be delivered on time(this fall), as committed.

As more and more people are spending substantial time on Internet and more likely from their wireless devices(smartphones, tablets), if all of us become able to start printing right from our smartphones and tablet devices, HP will have far less problems to deal with, to keep its print business revenues flowing.

We reported earlier that Acer is going to be the first computing hardware manufacturer to deliver Chrome OS powered Netbooks. That’s indeed going to be a reality in no more than two weeks, if latest report from Venturebeat is to be believed.

According to folks at Venturebeat, they have confirmation from multiple reliable sources that Acer, the Taiwanese computer manufacturer will launch Chrome OS powered netbook(s) at the Computex Taipei show, which is scheduled to be held from June 1 to June 5.

As per very early reports, Chrome OS netbooks were supposed to be delivered by late 2010 so this particular news sounds tough to be believed as the first half of this year is yet to get over but then, we can understand why Google and Acer would want Chrome OS powered netbooks to hit market earliest possible. It’s the iPad that might be causing the worry.

With the advent of Apple iPad and growing interest of other hardware manufacturers in newly explored tablet computing industry, Netbook sales have already started to decline. Every advantage offered by Netbooks over laptops is well compensated by a tablet device such as iPad and the possibilities are much brighter in touch enabled tablet devices.

So, that could be the reason why Acer is on its way to unveil Chrome OS powered Netbooks in the first week of June. Anyways, June isn’t too far so the truth will soon come out.

Since the launch of Chrome OS, plethora of questions were raised over the feasibility and productivity of Chrome OS powered devices. How will the web based device ensure heavy data storage ? How will it print documents without any native printer driver ? and a lot more questions like these..

Today, one of the most critical questions of them all, ‘Printing’ from a Web based device appears to have been solved by Google Chrome OS team. Writing a post on the Chromium blog today, Chrome OS team has introduced some preliminary designs for a project called Google Cloud Print.

Google Cloud Print will basically enable all web enabled devices, be it desktop, web or mobile to be able to give printing job commands to any kind of printers, either Cloud aware printers or legacy printers, without any need of printer drivers.

So, all web enabled devices will actually give their print commands to ‘Google Cloud Print’ service and then it will be Google Cloud Print service, which will forward your print command to your Cloud aware or Legacy printers and get the job done.

Google Cloud Print service is still under development and the Chrome OS team has made both code and documentation publicly available.

All of this means that work behind Google Chrome OS is in full pace and all possible difficulties in building this revolutionary Web based OS will be conquered, soon or later.

]]> http://www.googlechromeosupdate.com/print-through-chrome-os/feed/ 2 http://www.googlechromeosupdate.com/chrome-os-tablet/ http://www.googlechromeosupdate.com/chrome-os-tablet/#comments Sun, 03 Jan 2010 15:50:26 +0000 admin http://www.googlechromeosupdate.com/?p=165

According to some reliable sources, Google along with HTC, is working closely on a tablet running Chrome OS, the Chrome OS Tablet. As of now, rumors are still in its nascent stage as there’s practically no evidence behind this but the possibilities are looking quite certain.

As Apple Tablet is very much a certainty now(which was a rumor in 2009) and Apple has officially announced an event this month for launching their tablet product as well, the niche tablet industry is ready to get shaken up big time in 2010.

As reported by Australian publication, Smarthouse recently, Google and HTC have been working on Chrome OS Tablet for the last 18 months and have so far produced several prototypes of their yet-to-exist touch tablet. As Chrome OS offers a great way to get onto the web as swift as it gets, Chrome OS over a tablet sounds like a perfect concept actually.

Now when all of us know that Google is just about to unveil its own Smartphone, Nexus One , built by cellphone manufacturer, HTC, this rumor that claims that Google is on its way to launch a self-branded Chrome OS Tablet built by HTC makes absolute sense.

But there’s a question popping up in couple of curious minds…

Is Chrome OS Tablet a worry for Chrome OS Netbook ?

Frankly, it doesn’t really matter as long as it’s Google’s Chrome OS powering the machines, be it a tablet or a netbook.

But yes, Google’s supposed plan to launch its own tablet against Apple’s tablet might be a well planned move from Google to simply prevent Apple from reiterating the ‘iPhone act‘ again.

Apple’s iPhone is an extravagant smartphone and so is Google Nexus One(actually much better) so what’s the difference..?

iPhone dominates the smartphone industry and Nexus One is yet to even start selling to its prospective buyers. Why ? Because iPhone launched in mid 2007 and Nexus One is to launch in 2010. It’s the early advantage that made Apple iPhone a clear dominator in smartphone industry. Google would never want to let Apple eat up the Tablet industry single handedly, just like what it did to smartphone industry with iPhone.

With Google competing head-on with Apple in Tablet market now, the consumers will find it more comfortable to be able to have a choice between the two offerings.

We will track further developments on this…Stay hooked!

[via Gizmodo]

There are some speculations coming from some trusted sources about Chrome OS development. And this one is a major change from the earlier carved-out plan by Chrome OS team at Google. The change is about the login interface of Chrome OS.

As demonstrated by Chrome OS team at Google HQ last month, the user login to Chrome OS was taking place at initial boot up stage. But considering the latest rumors, Chrome OS team is testing to shift User login to Chrome browser rather than putting it at boot-up stage.

Why ?

Well, there can be plethora of reasons for it…Here are a couple to think over !

• Putting login interface through Chrome browser would give an ubiquitous flexibility to Chrome OS users to login to their WebOS interface though any machine that has got Google Chrome browser and not just through Chrome OS Netbook.
• Browser based Chrome OS interface would make it much more easier for users to switch between user accounts, almost as quickly as logging in and out of your two different Gmail accounts.
• Syncing of user accounts could be easier
• It would reduce boot-up time even more

So, what do we expect now ? Browser based login or Boot-up based ? We got to be patient to get any of the possibilities confirmed as Chrome OS team is still to decide on this point. We reckon, Chrome OS will be a browser based login system.

Anyways, we will find that out soon…Hang in there !

Source

So here we have one exciting news coming from some trusted sources about Chrome OS. Google is in serious talks with a couple of Netbook OEMs to produce a Google branded Netbook running Chrome OS. Now, there’s no official word of Google about this news yet but multiple insider sources are confirming this.

When Google promised that Chrome OS Netbooks will be out in the market by fall 2010, it was presumed that multiple Netbook manufacturers will come up with Chrome OS Netbooks but now, it seems that Google doesn’t want to take any chance in launching its own OS and simply wants to ensure that Chrome OS Netbook becomes a Standard within Netbook industry.

It might be a case that Google branded Netbook may serve as the exclusive distributor of Chrome OS, much like Apple’s business model but this is just a presumption as yet. It has been Google’s nature(as what you can see with Android) to build the software side and let multiple hardware brands do the rest of the job and hence it would be a tough call for Google to go exclusive with Chrome OS.

There is another possibility that Google may become one of the many Netbook brands to offer Chrome OS. But frankly, no hardware OEM would like competing with Google on hardware front especially when the OS is built by Google itself. At worst, this might even happen but only if OEMs get terribly scared of getting out of business if they boycott Chrome OS in their Netbook offering.

Now that Google is making its entry at mobile hardware front with Nexus One (the Google Phone) along with Android, it is looking more probable for Google to come up with a Google branded Chrome OS Netbook as well.

As per the rumor mill, this Google branded Chrome OS Netbook might be sold with a 2 year data plan contract with a carrier.

So guys, whatever the case be, you better hold your plans to buying a Netbook until next Christmas. We bet, you won’t regret !

Source

Cloud computing is already on its way to transform the conventional computing methods and Chrome OS is a big step in taking the leap ahead. But security experts have been skeptical about ‘Cloud computing’ and the level of security it can provide.

Now, after the Chrome OS event happened last month, the concerns over ‘Chrome OS Security’ have started brewing up again. If anyone, even Google says that security will not at all be an issue then you better be paranoid.

With everything being hosted in the cloud, the security concerns will not be totally eliminated. Rather, there will be completely different kinds of security loopholes discovered in Cloud computing space. As Cloud computing will offer more benefits than concerns, it will keep growing at a fast pace but security issues will still exist. The difference will be the responsibility factor.

Right now, if someone’s data gets affected by a virus, he can’t blame anyone but himself but when the data will be hosted on the cloud, the responsibility will be more on the cloud hosting service provider than the individual.

Things will be different !!

Acer has taken the plunge yet again. After launching first ever Dual Boot Windows/Android OS Netbook this year, it has made similar plans for the year 2010 as well. This time however, its not Android but another OS from Google, the much hyped Chrome OS.

With loads of excitement and hype building around Google’s dream project, the Chrome OS, such an announcement was inevitable to come up. And stay assured to hear more and more netbook OEMs announcing their tie-ups with Google for launching Chrome OS powered Netbooks.

Catch the trend of Android’s growth. It was HTC which took the plunge first and became the first Android phone manufacturer by producing T-Mobile G1. Since then, every smartphone manufacturer followed the trend and launched their flagship android phones one after the other, be it Samsung, Motorola, LG & Dell among others. And such a behaviour is obvious as no cellphone OEM wanted to loose the opportunity they could get from Android OS platform.

Similar trend is expected to happen for Chrome OS as well. No Netbook OEM would ever want to loose out of becoming a Chrome OS Netbook OEM as market is going crazy to grab it. The huge excitement may just be among the geeky crowd at the moment but we all know that non-geeky crowd(majority) simply follows geeky crowd, when it comes to tech stuff and latest tech things to grab.

Acer plans to work in tandem with Google to get the first ever Chrome OS Netbook out by late 2010. We will keep track on the developement of this netbook. Stay hooked !

As expected, the speculations and individual perceptions of tech bloggers and experts over Chrome OS and its future have waved up to the peak. After the ‘Chrome OS’ event came to an end in Mountain View, somebody has been speculating why Chrome OS will fail and someone else is justifying why Chrome OS has already won and many similar speculations floating here and there.

Now, this is our take at Chrome OS and why we believe that ‘Life on the Web’ is Inevitable.

If you’re one of those web fanatics(still a poor minority at global scale) and spend almost 90% of your computing time on the web today, you were certainly spending around 50% of your computing time on web around five years back(2004) and probably spending 25% of your computing time some ten years back(1999) and so on…

In last five years, technology took a long leap, with wireless internet taking the lead and super fast internet access becoming a common and affordable service, mostly in developed countries such as US, UK and other european countries. In next five years, the technology will pacen up even more.

In next five years, developing countries will start picking up the same trend and start spending most of their time on web. Now, if all of us will virtually do everything on the web and do just a couple of tasks such as photoshopping, data storage, msoffice etc on desktop, why take all the hassles and money pains that desktop OS brings along when all these residual activities can also be substituted with a web based alternative, similar to what happened to videos, music…etc…etc

Chrome OS is just a tunnel to get to the Inevitable Future of Human Computing.

The only reason why the whole Chrome OS concept is facing some level of criticism is only because it’s probably….before its time. It is the same criticism that every revolutionary attempt is bound to come across.

Chrome OS is NOT the Present, It’s the Future And the Future is Inevitable and so is Chrome OS

And trust us on this statement…a decade from now(2019), you would laugh on today (2009) when we have to spend thousands of bucks on buying OS, Office apps, softwares and similar stuff as all these things will come at ZERO cost to us. It’s only a matter of time.

]]> http://www.googlechromeosupdate.com/future-of-chrome-os/feed/ 0 http://www.googlechromeosupdate.com/install-chromium-os/ http://www.googlechromeosupdate.com/install-chromium-os/#comments Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:48:28 +0000 admin http://www.googlechromeosupdate.com/?p=125

As everyone out here might be knowing that the Chrome OS has been open sourced to public, everyone can take it and make its own build by tweaking the Chrome OS code from now on. But it might prove to be a hectic task if you want to tweak the code yourself, specially if you aren’t a developer.

No issues. There’s an easy way to get Chrome OS running on your machine by this Do-It-Yourself method. Here you go !

1. First, you need to download the torrent from here and download the Chrome OS build thereafter.

2. Download a version of VirtualBox for your Windows/Mac machine from here . It’s a virtualization tool for temporarily running an OS on your existing OS. Install it and go through the wizard step by step.

3. Just make sure that while going through the wizard based installation, select Virtual Media Manager->Add->(Now browse the Chrome OS image you had downloaded earlier) and install the Chrome OS on existing hard disk.

4.  You’re done ! Click ‘Start’ and Chrome OS is ready for you…