Google to launch Chrome OS

Google announced today that it will be launching the chrome OS very soon. It was very exciting to read the post. The content of the post is

"It's been an exciting nine months since we launched the Google Chrome browser. Already, over 30 million people use it regularly. We designed Google Chrome for people who live on the web — searching for information, checking email, catching up on the news, shopping or just staying in touch with friends. However, the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web. So today, we're announcing a new project that's a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It's our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we're already talking to partners about the project, and we'll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems. While there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google.

We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better. People want to get to their email instantly, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot and browsers to start up. They want their computers to always run as fast as when they first bought them. They want their data to be accessible to them wherever they are and not have to worry about losing their computer or forgetting to back up files. Even more importantly, they don't want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates. And any time our users have a better computing experience, Google benefits as well by having happier users who are more likely to spend time on the Internet.

We have a lot of work to do, and we're definitely going to need a lot of help from the open source community to accomplish this vision. We're excited for what's to come and we hope you are too. Stay tuned for more updates in the fall and have a great summer."

Beware Microsoft...I guess you have some tough competition here.

iPhone OS 3.0

The latest and the most powerful mobile OS (Apple advertised it this way) was released today. Apple did a pretty poor job of managing the server load as everyone who tried to upgrade their phone OS faced some problem or the other. I tried several times to install it but kept getting the error message saying that the iPhone activation server could not be reached due to the overwhelming traffic. I am big apple fan but this was a huge let down.

I finally managed to install the OS today evening and I should say that its great! The cut/copy/paste feature works great and I am super impressed by the search feature. Emails have their own search and there is a generic search for the entire phone. The one huge feature I was looking forward to was the turn bu turn directions in the maps and that was a huge let down. I was expecting voice command directing you as u drive but I dont think that option has been included. I am still exploring the other new features and till now, I am just loving it!

Bing Travel is Cheaper than Kayak

I have been super impressed by bing right from the time it came out. The whole look and feel of bing is impressive. I always keep checking for airfares to different places on all the airline fare aggregator sites and Kayak has been my favorite till now. When i was comparing bing travel and kayak a few days back, both the sites gave me the same results. But today when I checked for fares from San Francisco to Hyderabad (India) in November, bing gave me tickets for almost $80 less.

Kayak --> SFO - HYD (Round trip) - Cheapest : 1328 (Nov 7 to Nov 30)
Bing Travel --> SFO - HYD (Round trip) - Cheapest : 1251 (Nov 7 to Nov 30)

I am super impressed! Bing on...

Google Ads for Bing.com

What an irony!! Google Ads are advertising www.bing.com, its competitor. It may be argued that the site displaying the ads had nothing to do with google, but the fact remains that the Ad Server used to display this ad belongs to google and the campaign has been registered with google.

iPhone 3GS

Apple has finally broken the silence and the day that many people across the world have been waiting for has come!! Apple has announced the launch of the new iPhone 3GS, the S indicating Speed.

The new features in the iPhone 3GS are

1. Apps open 2x faster.
2. Browsing is 2.9x faster.
3. View attachments 3.6x faster.
4. The camera has been upgraded to 3MP with Autofocus and white balance.
5. Tap to focus and balance exposure.
6. New video recording capability. 30 fps VGA with audio. auto focus, white balance
7. New compass app. Tap maps to orient map to the direction you are facing

The 3GS has 16GB and 32Gb versions in black and white for $199 and $299 respectively. The 8GB iPhone 3G will be sold for $99 (damn it!!). I just wish i could have waited for a few more months (like 6)...

Pandora internet radio

I have had the pandora radio application on my iPhone for a long time now, but never really used it a lot. Today i woke up in the morning and felt like listening to some different music than I what usually listen to. Pandora was the first thing that came to my mind and boy, does it play some beautiful songs!! The application is really impressive and i heard some really amazing which I have never heard before.

One of the most impressive songs I heard among them was "Have you ever seen the rain?" by Creedence Clearwater Revival, a band from the early 60's late 70's. I am super impressed and pandora is surely one of my favorite iPhone apps.

Another amazing feature of the app is that I can view the detailed description of the artist and the song when a song is playing, bookmark the song etc. Real cool app..!

Audi R8 - Dream Machine

I spotted an Audi R8 in Burlingame the other day. This monster is a real dream machine.

New Microsoft Search Engine - www.bing.com

Microsoft is trying real hard to take a share of the internet search space. They pushed all limits to try take over yahoo and become a competitor to google, but since that failed, they have no other choice except to build their own search engine and try to do something different. Thats bing.com for you!!

I took a preview of the new website which is going to be launched on June 1, 2009 and it looks cool. They have been really smart in focusing on just major categories namely travel, local search, shopping etc. instead of trying to beat google across all the segments. I am super excited to use bing.

Google has been my only search engine till date, but if bing proves itself, that might change!! Watch out google, MS is BACK!!

Backstreet Boys

All of a sudden I end up on a video of Backstreet Boys on youtube!! Wow...I really used to enjoy their music almost 10 years ago and then things changed. Backstreet boys and all the boy bands started sounding so stupid and totally moved out of it.

Now when I think back, I realize pretty much everyone has a similar story to tell. All of us were so into these boybands and they were really famous then. I listen to a few of their songs now and it sounds so different, it does not sound stupid but kind of brings back memories of those old days. The music channels used to play these songs so much back then that everyone started to love them. We could say people evolve and change but I still love the old pink floyd and metallica. Not that the music which is old stops sounding good and I used to like the songs by these bands even back then. They still sound so good!!

Getting back to backstreet boys kinda music...NAH, I dont think so!!

Angels and Demons - Disappointing

The movie Angels and Demons is a very sad and disappointing attempt by the director Ron Howard at remaking the best selling book of the same name by Dan Brown. The director missed out the whole point of the book and I would say even the very essence of the book.

The movie has changed a lot of roles in the book and has missed out on several aspects. The movie starts off with showing how anti matter is made instead of starting with the murder of the CERN scientist ( which i thought gave a great start to the book). The director has taken no effort to explain any of the components of the book which forms the spine. He does not even clearly explain what is anti matter and why is it actually dangerous which would have made the audience more engrossed as to why the small canister which keeps blinking and shows a battery indication is so dangerous.

None of the sculptures on the "Path of Illumination" have been explained even a little removing the significance of the path entirely from the movie. It is shown that Robert Langdon is a born genius and infers everything within a few minutes of reaching a place. The movie is a pure commercial thriller which makes the hero invincible. One thing that I really enjoyed in the book was looking at the ambigrams and admiring their artistry. None of the ambigrams were shown for more than a few seconds and were given absolutely no importance.

All the above could be excused as cuts required to keep the movie short but one thing I will NOT accept in the movie is it not explaining the very purpose the camerlengo does all this. He has been shown as the villain who is crazy about power is greedy after the papal office which is not the truth. This flaw cannot be excused!!

Overall the movie is a total let down for the book fans. I recommend not even taking the effort to watch it. For those who have not read the book, its watchable.