Bob Browning's blog

The press have gone wild over the Google operating system announcement.

Google gets set to shatter Windows’ dominance
Google’s operating system escalates Microsoft duel

etc.

I don’t think so.  This is another Linux distribution.  There are hundreds of these including Ubuntu (the hot distro du jour), Moblin from Intel, Google’s own Android and for that matter the Apple Mac Operating system which is built on Linux.

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The guys in Googlewho brought you Google maps have been working on something just as revolutionary. A complete rethink of he email concept.  The email is out, the ‘wave’ is in. 

A wave is a bit like a cross between an email, a shared document and a forum post.  Everyone who ‘receives’ the wave looks at the same document.   Anyone on that recipient list can add to it, much as you would add comments to an email and then ‘reply-all’ to update everyone.  The big difference is that there is only one copy of the wave and everyone is looking at the same thing.  So when you update the wave everyone sees your update – in real time to it replaces email and messenger.

When you add to a wave you are clearly identified, and you can add semi-private updates.  You can even replay the wave and see the additions made in the order they were added.

Anyone who sees the presentation at http://wave.google.comis going to see how much better this all works than regular email.  There are other clever things like dragging and dropping images, a smart API, spell checker that seems to be more intelligent than most, real-time translation into other languages, a serious API and so on…  However there are  few issues:

During the presentation their network went down.  No network no wave.  However Google Gears has the possibility of creating local copies of things like this so this may not be such a big issue. 

This is a hosted application and no corporate is going to allow its precious data to be held or even accessed externally.  So email is likely to remain.  Is there going to be a clever way of integrating wave with email?  My brain hurts when I try and figure that out. 

This is an exciting product.   Forget messenger applications because this one is messnger on steroids.  Will it replace email? I doubt it – sadly.

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Here is a site I came acrosss by change.  A periodic table of visualisation methods. 

http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html

The periodic table of elements lists the elements in nature and they show elements properties are repetative.  I am not sure this table does exactly show that for visualisation methods, but if you need to make numbers or concepts understandable then these examples may help.

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A new version of bluetooth was launched last month.  It will be a while before we see products in the shops of course.    It uses the same communications protocol as your wi fi, so Bluetooth 3 will be much faster than version 2 and can be used for bulk transfers of data or for video.  It will allow for mobile phones and for that matter netbooks to interface wirelessly with a wider range of external devices – see this Nokia video to se how this might work.

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I just sent out a newsletter coving the jargon du jour – Cloud Computing.  I missed this classic for inclusion in the mailout.  It is Larry Ellison on the subject.  Quote

” The interesting thing about cloud computing – it is either going to be or already is the most important computing architecture in the world because we’ve redefined cloud computing to include everything that we currently do. So it has already achieved dominance in the industry – I can’t think of anything that isn’t cloud computing with all of these announcements.

The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women’s fashion. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It’s complete gibberish. It’s insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?”

Go Larry!

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I see Robert Dyas has a windows netbook for less than £150.  The catch – it is running Windows CE, the operating system aimed at mobile applications and very much not Vista.

So here are the main candidates for your netbook next year:

• Windows XP the clear leader at the moment, but for how long as it becomes seen as obsolete.  The other issue – it won’t run on the new ARM processors for netbooks.
• Windows CE – somehow I don’t see it.
• Windows 7 starter edition which will run a maximum of three applications at any one time.  ‘Starter’ in this case meaning you will end up shelling out for an upgrade to full-blown Windows 7 within weeks.  This is, I suspect, a good option but expensive.  Also it won’t run on the ARM processor.
• Linux – My favourite for the long run as it will run on any processor and has lots of good office applications courtesy of Open Office.
• Coming up on the stand site – Google Android.  This is being hyped as an option.  But will it run Open office?  There is not a lot of talk about this in the Open Office community as it is seen as a mobile device operating system. 

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