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Matt Cutts › Likes
Today, Google engineers announced a technology called PubSubHubbub that makes RSS/Atom more real-time, and they deployed the technology on FeedBurner. FriendFeed also added support for the technology, so if you have a FeedBurner feed, your updates should show up in FriendFeed within seconds rather than minutes after the feed updates.
jan geronimo, Ionut, Thomas Ho and 166 other people liked this
To enable it for your FeedBurner feed: go to Feedburner, click on the "Publicize" tab, and then click on "PingShot" and enable the PingShot service. That will enable PubSubHubbub and send your feed to a number of ping services.
- Bret Taylor
what, right now? i mean immediately? From today?
- Zee.
Zee: yes, right now!
- Benjamin Golub
Zee: yes, from today, though the technology is very much "in beta," so I am sure there will be hiccups.
- Bret Taylor
Excellent, thank you Bret and FF, will switch this on now. :-)
- Kol Tregaskes
WOW.
- Zee.
Nice - thanks Bret!
- Jim Connolly
RSS is back in the game... then
- Yann Ropars
This is very cool
- Edwin Khodabakchian
Once step closer to being able to build an open distributed twitter like system!
- Edwin Khodabakchian
this has been done already by superfeedr.com - google's behind the game on this one, but def takes it mainstream.
- Scott Magdalein
I don't understand. Updates won't appear on Feedburner in realtime, so what's the point?
- Peter
Peter: most blogging platforms ping Feedburner when you post a new entry, Feedburner pulls down the feed, Feedburner then pings the hub, then the hub notifies FriendFeed :)
- Benjamin Golub
Thanks Benjamin. Alas, my feeds are not that sophisticated.
- Peter
We're still working out kinks so if you have any issues please send me a message!
- Brett Slatkin
You lost me at "Today" I shall now just smile and nod politely
- Steve C
Where's the spec?
- Dave Winer
http://pubsubhubbub.googlecode.com/svn...
- Brett Slatkin
Dave: http://pubsubhubbub.googlecode.com/svn.... Edit: Brett beat me by nanoseconds!
- Benjamin Golub
If I understand correctly this essentially turns any site with a feedburner feed into a real time publisher? But to read it in real time you need what?
- BryanSchuetz
Since this is a Google thingie, does it work on Google Reader already?
- Tarmo Aidantausta
FriendFeed can receive the pings *RIGHT NOW*
- Brett Slatkin
guys, how long are we really talking before it should appear here? Seconds or minutes?
- Zee.
The Reader integration is a prototype; more to come soon!
- Brett Slatkin
no way, so Google Reader could technically go real time??
- Zee.
That would be cool, wouldn't it? =)
- Brett Slatkin
I stopped reading here: "RSS isn't supported for simplicity." Laughing. Out. Loud.
- Dave Winer
I better make sure i get post titles right the first time round.....
- Zee.
Brett - any chance i could ask you a couple of questions via email or dm?
- Zee.
Hey Dave that's my mistake. We support RSS! http://code.google.com/p... I need to update the spec.
- Brett Slatkin
is that SUP's role take up by those rss accelerator? or SUP is losing a chance to propagate in this field?
- huixing
Huixing: we plan to support all widely adopted real-time standards to make FriendFeed better. We are not tied to SUP only.
- Bret Taylor
from iPhone
Brett, why didn't you use the weblogs.com ping protocol? Your comment there about RSS, right up front, really captures the whole philosophy -- right? Let's just reinvent stuff that already works, so... Why? To break everything that already works? It won't happen that way. It'll only make your adoption curve steeper.
- Dave Winer
Is this working for anyone else? Anyone getting near real time publishing to Friendfeed with feedburner?
- Zee.
from iPhone
Would you ping me (dave dot winer at gmail dot com) when I can use RSS with this system. I'll be happy to evaluate it and provide feedback if necessary, and endorse it if it works. Thanks in advance.
- Dave Winer
Alright we've fixed in the spec Dave. Sorry for the mistake. Followed up.
- Brett Slatkin
Dave you can use rss feeds http://code.google.com/p...
- Darren Stuart
I agree why didn't ff just implement a ping server and just let people add it to their blogs?
- Darren Stuart
Darren: you can use our public SUP in that way: http://friendfeed.com/api...
- Benjamin Golub
Zee- there are some debugging tools at the bottom of http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/, which I think is the hub you're using. For example, I don't see anything here: http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/topic-d...
- Casey Muller
Ping this, ping there. What's so great about it?
- Burcu Dogan
Benjamin: thanks that just saved me a little work. Should be linked on the api page I think. ;)
- Darren Stuart
Just enabled this myself, glad to be on the bleeding edge for once !
- Justin Long
Awesome. Just enabled it. Thanks for the details Brett.
- Mark Krynsky
Mark, can you let me know if it works for ya?
- Zee.
@Casey i can't seem to get it working
- Zee.
Darren: it's linked from http://code.google.com/p... but yeah we should do a better job of exposing it.
- Benjamin Golub
I had enabled from way before, let's see if the post I'm about to publish works. I'll DM you Zee if it does!
- Jorge Escobar
can someone please let me know if they've managed to get this working?
- Zee.
There's also a WP plugin I wrote that does the same thing. This might be a good option for anyone who's not using feedburner. http://wordpress.org/extend...
- Josh Fraser
Zee, I set this up for my Empoprise-BI blog, wrote a blog post (using Blogger), and six minutes after posting I haven't seen anything in Google Reader or FriendFeed yet. So if you're not getting advertised response, you're not the only one. I'll test again at a later time.
- John E. Bredehoft
cool...just want to be sure it isn't me alone
- Zee.
Update - seven minutes after posting, the post showed up on FriendFeed (both in my feed, and in a group that receives the blog feed). Nothing in Google Reader yet.
- John E. Bredehoft
Josh Fraser - nice!
- Micah Wittman
John: The Reader integration we demo'ed was a prototype; more to come in the future!
- Brett Slatkin
yeah, it seems 7 minutes is about how long its taking me for too (to arrive in friendfeed)
- Zee.
Could you DM me the feed URL? I'll look into the details and figure out the issue. Like I said before, we're still working out a few kinks (the FeedBurner integration is initial support right now). So thanks in advance for your help in making it super fast!
- Brett Slatkin
Ready? Go!
- Jorge Escobar
Nope, nothing... published at 4:34pm EST
- Jorge Escobar
Brett, the one i'm testing it on is http://zee.me/blog and the feedburner url is http://feeds2.feedburner.com/zblog1
- Zee.
4:42pm, 8 minutes after I published and the article still doesn't show. My blog is at http://jungleg.com and the feed is http://feeds.feedburner.com/jungleg
- Jorge Escobar
Looking into it now, thanks!
- Brett Slatkin
Thanks Brett!
- Jorge Escobar
Cheers Brett - i'm itching here... :)
- Zee.
If you're looking for another implementation of PubSubHubbub, I'd suggest you give a look to our http://superfeedr.com ;) Thanks for your time and feedback!
- Julien
Heh, what's the idea behind the crazy name? ;)
- Tyson Key
does self hosted wordpress natively ping feedburner?
- Tyler J. Gillies
Try it for yourself! http://friendfeed.com/pubsubh.... My test took only 8 seconds. Amazing (via http://friendfeed.com/brett)
- Jérôme Flipo
Nice to see XMPP more and more used on the web! It's a nice environment, also for cloud computing!
- Egon Willighagen
Google's Pubsubhubbub - http://www.scripting.com/stories...
MikeAmundsen, Matt Cutts, vijay and 4 other people liked this
Let me know if you have any questions about it, Louis. I'd like to know what your viewpoint on this is!
- Brett Slatkin
PubSubHubbub Demo - Real-Time CrunchUp - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Lizunlong, Suresh R Iyer, Brett Slatkin and 3 other people liked this
I love articles that pretend to speak (or be offended ) for the "open source community". They crack me up.
Matt Cutts, dannysullivan and Adam Lasnik liked this
Wow, Google Reader already supports PubSubHubbub. Their demo shows new posts instantly hitting Google Reader. #crunchup
Tanath, Matt Cutts, Nicholas James and 8 other people liked this
This is a prototype right now. More to come! -- Just to be clear.
- Brett Slatkin
Paul is on sabbatical for the next seven weeks. What a weird feeling.
Matt Cutts, Adam Lasnik, Amit Patel and 4 other people liked this
Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google Chrome OS - http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009...
Bruce Johnson, Marco Castellani, David Berrebi and 182 other people liked this
"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."
- Paul Buchheit
from Bookmarklet
9:37 pm is an odd time for a blog post. I'm guessing that this post was published early in response to http://www.nytimes.com/2009...
- Paul Buchheit
Sounds awesome btw! "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."
- Paul Buchheit
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- patrick
This sounds like it would be perfect for Arringtons CrunchPad
- patrick
patrick, that would be pretty neat, wouldn't it? I don't know much about the hardware/OS in the CrunchPad though.
- Matt Cutts
sounds awesome indeed
- Edwin Khodabakchian
This sounds very, very interesting. Shame we have to wait till fall to hear more details. :)
- Sean Brady
Sounds very much like the Network Computer that Ellison wanted to introduce. Will be interesting to see how this one performs in the market.
- Sanat Gersappa
Timing matters a lot Sanat. 10 years ago the tech and users weren't ready for this, but we're just about there now, especially with tech such as NaCl.
- Paul Buchheit
woot
- Robert Higgins
I agree with Paul. I think that people are ready for this. I am wondering however if there will be some confusion regarding Android versus Google Chrome OS.
- Edwin Khodabakchian
I am so happy this is happening.
- Bret Taylor
Paul: Agreed. And Google has more mindshare than Ellison ever did :-)
- Sanat Gersappa
Edwin: I was confused till now about Android usage in netbooks but this announcement actually clears that up.
- Kiran Patchigolla
Paul, your guess on timing is probably right. The story broke, so they hit publish. Note the last paragraph says to wait until fall and to have a nice summer. This is a very interesting development indeed.
- Louis Gray
How will this differ from just being a special Linux distro?
- Gabe
Gabe, in the same way that Android differs from a special Linux distro :). They both use Linux as a device driver layer, but have built up a whole new application layer.
- Paul Buchheit
Gabe: from the blog post, they are writing a new window manager (and presumably getting rid of X since it is so slow and resource intensive). And I also presume working on startup time and power consumption will involve some deeper changes to the OS than most Linux distributions.
- Bret Taylor
Right on. Just like Apple did with Mac OS X.
- samgrover
"It should just work"
- Hayes Haugen
Bright move for an excellent project. V8 is so slick, I wished for it to be utilized in a broader domain than "just" within the confines of a browser. Stripping out all kinds of unnecessary OS components, building a layer of native windowing on top. Very excited.
- Mustafa K. Isik
a new windows system is interesting - Google just open sourced a custom NX server (http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2009...) so I wonder if that's related. I think overloading the Chrome name is a mistake, though - look how that worked for Sun with Java (remember the Java Desktop System - which was a Linux distribution and JavaFX?)
- Nick Lothian
Won't people get annoyed when Flash doesn't work, or QuickTime movies won't play, or something like that?
- Gabe
How soon will Chrome have enough market share for Google to push major new browser features? There are lots of ways to imagine a browser, but we're all still using more or less the same one.
- Zak Stone
I'm so excited. I wonder when we can get our hands on the real stuff.
- Sung W. Lim
Gabe: I think a lot of the work that is going into HTML5 is to mitigate those issues.
- Mark Trapp
from iPhone
Mark: Are you suggesting that people will write their apps in HTML5 (along with or instead of Flash), or that somebody is going to make a usable implementation of Flash in HTML5?
- Gabe
Gabe, I don't see any reason why they couldn't get Flash running on Chrome -- they already announced that Flash10 will be on Android: http://www.googleandblog.com/adobe-a...
- Paul Buchheit
Web-as-a-platform has a long ways to go. I think this is great work they are doing but just don't see it as being transformative.
- Hayes Haugen
People will still want to run native compiled apps. Especially for games.
- Rodfather
Rodfather, see http://code.google.com/p... (sandboxed x86, in short)
- Paul Buchheit
Gabe: The former. HTML5 includes built-in video and audio support, and includes Canvas, which will in large part act as a replacement for most use-cases of Flash. Some parts of it are already out there, but it'll still be a couple of years, I think, before it's ubiquitous. Maybe Google will get Apple and Microsoft to port their stuff to Linux (like Paul says, Flash is already in the works for Android) so it'll work on Chrome OS, but it seems more likely they're banking on HTML5's success.
- Mark Trapp
from iPhone
Paul, Native Client sounds exciting
- Rodfather
A new windowing system just to run Chrome? Sounds a bit overkill to me. It feels like their "broad vision" is ignoring some important offline user behavior that can't easily be addressed with Gears. Soon they will probably need a file manager, a desktop, proper windowing, reserved areas on the screen to display "things" about what's happening and some more. Yeah, voila, what I just described is a fully-fledged Linux desktop, something Ubuntu-like. I hope they're not reinventing the old wheel.
- Enver ALTIN
What's going to happen when somebody needs to print a boarding pass or tax form?
- Gabe
Hopefully it will have some kind of printer support. Printers have to be the most backwards, broken part of the PC world though. Even on osx and windows, they never quite work, and sharing is nearly impossible.
- Paul Buchheit
@Paul .. good luck with that :) But we don't need printers, right? Everything can be done on the web.
- Tim Hoeck*
Enver: except that Ubuntu takes forever to start up and X and all common desktop environments (Gnome, KDE) are slow as heck. I hope they reinvent a few wheels, if those are the wheels I have to choose from.
- Bret Taylor
Google and Microsoft getting more and more alike.
- Rutger Blom
Will Google take a cut from the devs for apps written for Google Chrome OS?
- τorƍue
Rutger: They are in the same space but not alike. i cannot imagine windows being open sourced
- Kiran Patchigolla
τorƍue, nope.. but you'll have to look at ads in your OS. :)
- Tim Hoeck*
Kiran: I can actually see Microsoft releasing an open source OS if that generates money for them. I just meant Google, by first releasing a browser and now an OS, is starting to look more like Microsoft in my eyes. They just apply a different license to their source code and "do no evil" right?
- Rutger Blom
Finally!
- phil
Finally, maybe it'll force IE to become standards-compliant. I'm sick of this ..oh yeah, now I have to make it work on IE (6,7,8).. this is such a clean concept (that we all knew was coming)!!
- Chris Myles
Did you notice that few weeks ago, Google announced that they were integrating NaCl into Chromium: "we have a strong preference for delivering Native Client pre-installed or built into the browser, and we'll be focusing on that as our main strategy for delivering Native Client to users. Careful readers may have already noticed evidence of integration into Chromium...
more...
- Jérôme Flipo
Bret, sluggishness is a feature of today's Linux desktop, I agree -- but determining to reinvent instead of giving a few hands to fix the problem? Just to host a browser? It doesn't seem like a good move to me.
- Enver ALTIN
I hope the good old classical *nix utilities will be available in this grand new OS, specifically vim+git? I'm just going so well with Linux.
- Juvenn Woo
I think they should have kept it a secret until they had more code. Also, history is littered with attempts to do this. Remember NetPC? Remember JavaPC/JavaOS? Remember Netscape's Javascript Push Desktop? Maybe the web is mature enough that people are ready for this concept now, atleast on mobile devices like the Pre and NetBooks, but there's a still a lot of people who like to run...
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- Ray Cromwell
ChromeOS is custom GUI for web apps running on a linux kernel, right? So how exactly is this different from Palm's WebOS which is a linux kernel running a custom version of webkit.
- Greg Morgan
Greg, it's probably conceptually similar, except that ChromeOS will be designed for netbooks instead of cellphones (which obviously have different ui constraints).
- Paul Buchheit
Isn't a huge difference compared to WebOS (which allows some API calls to the hardware) that the apps developed for Chrome OS are limited to the webbrowser sandbox? In the blog post Google says "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." Unless they try the Microsoft Active X approach to get around that, which sounds like a pretty bad idea to me.
- Daniel Chow
Will this mean I get adsense on my desktop? ;-) No but srsly I am amazed to see that this interesting project wasn't started by a team that has just left Google.
- TobiasVerhoog.com
Finally
- Ozkan Altuner
from Android
@Ray Cromwell, you're right, they should have kept their cool, and let the NYT publish what it wants without explicit corroboration. It's MSFT that's the master of premature announcements, aka vaporware, not Google. As it is now, the assorted self-styled tech punditry of the world will have half the summer and fall to speculate, when they could have been caught largely unawares with a simple faït accomplí.
- ianf ⌘
@patrick "This sounds like it would be perfect for Arringtons CrunchPad" and @Matt Cutts: "that would be pretty neat, wouldn't it?" - possibly, only Arrington needs the OS by last friday, not "in second half of 2010," when first "Chrome'd" hardware is supposed to arrive. On a personal note, I'd probably be more enthusiastic had they managed to bring out a stable Chrome browser for OSX, not solely the old Windoze… first things first.
- ianf ⌘
@ianf: Like your "rock dots" in fàït accômplí :)
- Joel Webber
Nifty design goals.
- Mark Essel
I hope standart Linux tools will be available :-) Vim, ssh should be there!
- Eren Türkay
Someone said "I hope they're not reinventing the wheel" -- I hate to break it to you, but that is what Google does best: reinvent. Search Engines, webmail, jabber, web browsers, linux for phones, email ... all of them had already been invented once ;-)
- Joel Bennett
If we never reinvented the wheel, we'd still be using tree trunks to roll things on.
- Rich
a great opportunity for linux, IMHO. And anyway, another player in the field of OS, which is good ;-)
- Marco Castellani
I hope Chrome OS will bring real innovations to Linux (which is already innovative). Not only Google's logo!
- Thierry R. Andriamirado
from email
This is big. Like... Biblical Big.
- Mike Troiano
Oh, yeas? And what epochal software, pray, has the Bible brought forth? I can only think of the virus of religion itself, but that's hardly a cause to celebrate [spoken as true atheist].
- ianf ⌘
Chrome OS will help kill Silverlight and other non-open tech, preventing msft and others from recapturing the web. (though I expect that it will support Flash by necessity)
Björn Klose, Mike Chelen, Thomas Mader and 136 other people liked this
Good point.
- Robert Scoble
I hope it doesn't. After all we need good media delivery platforms.
- Swaroop
Including GNASH - the open source alternative - would solve that problem
- Bogdan Costea
yeah, nobody really needs flash. kill it.
- Zio Bonino
Chrome OS might be a compelling case for SVG/<canvas> + <audio> tag replacements for flash. Dunno what SVG's perf is like on WebKit tho.
- Matt Mastracci
Microsoft will port it. It's all about codecs & DRM. Ogg Theora isn't all that great.
- Rodfather
Is that Steve Jobs disguised as Zio ?
- Swaroop
@Swaroop Yes, we do. Like HTML5.
- Benjamin Dobson
@Swaroop eh eh, I've got flash disabled on all my systems :)
- Zio Bonino
@Benjamin I'd prefer HTML web apps over native apps anyday. But it'll take time for it to mature
- Swaroop
Rodfather, I don't think that will be an option for msft :). If Chrome is built the way I would do it, there is no installation per-se -- everything runs in the browser and the config in stored in the cloud (and cached locally). The computer is a pure appliance.
- Paul Buchheit
@Zio You're the real Steve Jobs
- Swaroop
Microsoft moves much too slow to force new standards these days.
- Louis Gray
@Louis: IE8 flunking ACID test :)
- Swaroop
What about more standard codecs like h.264? That isn't open and is in hardware already.
- Rodfather
h.264 is established and must be in there, but it's not a platform like Silverlight is.
- Paul Buchheit
A world with no Flash and Silverlight. I can't wait.
- Paul Grav
Yeah, it's too bad they didn't open-source it. This stuff with Mono is silly -- if you want to make a real standard you need to make the real implementation be open.
- Paul Buchheit
MS are about 10 years too late with Silverlight. And they'll most likely be dragged kicking and screaming into supporting HTML5.
- Paul Grav
Zio sez (hopefully humorously): "yeah, nobody really needs flash. kill it" -- have you ever watched a single YouTube video in your life? Like seventeen gazillion other people across the wired world. yeah, you're right, nobody needs Flash. ha!
- .LAG liked that
Remember Dave Clark in 1992, "We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code."
- Guy Vander Heyden
.LAG: most YouTube videos are playable without Flash now. My iPhone plays most of them and it doesn't have Flash. Certainly by the time the Google OS came out YouTube would be converted completely to non-Flash capability.
- Robert Scoble
Robert: The youtube flash application helps read the flv files on Youtube's servers and provides a UI (decoder too).
- Swaroop
Even Google admits they're not sure I'd bit for bit html5 video is less bandwitj consuming than flash. And flash isn't just media delivery, also interesting games and apps like tonepad, splicemusic.com's online sequencer, etc (I'm musically inclined, so most of my examples will be along that line) and please don't suggest we redo it all in java
- Ed F
from Nambu
Does this mean the next Silverlight release is codename Seppuku?
- Jay Cuthrell
Maybe we'll see commercials encoded in movies if everything is open.
- Rodfather
Flash is too established to kill off right now, so I'd be surprised if Chrome didn't include flash support. It will take many years to get rid of that thing. First they need to fix the standard browser to not be so broken (lack of video, multi-file upload, etc), then they need everyone to switch to the new html5 solutions.
- Paul Buchheit
Scoble ...that may be true, and YouTube plays on my Pre without Flash (yet)...but that doesn't mean that "nobody needs Flash." really? what would replace it?
- .LAG liked that
So Google's NaCl http://code.google.com/p... (now integrated within Chrome/Chromium) was just a temporary workaround, right?
- Jérôme Flipo
Use HTML 5 instead!
- Minh Bui
Is it just me or does Native Client (NaCl) remind you of the Microsoft Active X approach?
- Daniel Chow
But who prevents Google from taking over the net?
- Andreas
youtube videos play on iPhone/iPod Touch as they are higher res mp4 files NOT flv files. It was a big deal when Steve negotiated that deal with youtube.
- vijay
You have Moonlight to run Silverlight applications in Linux. Not perfect, but then an application made on Silverlight is "not perfect" by definition
- Marcos Marado
The point here is that Google has no motivation to include Silverlight on these machines, and installing software likely won't be an option (it's a web appliance), so it will be absent from a lot of netbooks, just as it is absent from iPhones. That cuts into market share, which is a bad thing for a platform that is trying to compete with more universal tech like Flash and HTML....
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- Paul Buchheit
@DanielChow: NaCl has very little overlap with ActiveX, apart from running native code. It runs in a provably safe way, and explicitly does *not* allow it to access arbitrary host APIs. But it can be quite useful when you need to run code that would be too slow in Javascript (even on v8): e.g., heavy encryption/decryption, possibly codecs, definitely game physics, and so forth.
- Joel Webber
There is a time and a place for Flash and Silverlight so I hope it will run it. There are simply some things you can do which aren't possible, or practical in html/css/javascript.
- Steve Temple
Paul: why wouldn't Chrome OS come with Moonlight? And if not, why wouldn't you be able to just install it? And third, why the hell would people want Moonlight for? I never installed it and not even once felt the need to!
- Marcos Marado
from fftogo
because of moonlight http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlig... the potential userbase of silverlight is greatly improved, agree that projects which don't consider compatibility are limiting their potential
- Mike Chelen
@mindboosternoori Ryanair site uses silverlight: http://www.ryanair.com/site... that's the only website I know that uses it - for this you would need moonlight :)
- Ihar Mahaniok
Flash is needed for the google os to be useful in education. Many education based websites are flash based.
- Willowdale
@Paul "Google is probably paying OEMs to ship with this OS, so instead of paying $x/machine to include windows XP, they will get paid $y/machine to include Chrome." - paying present tense, already? Isn't it enough for OEMs not to have to pay hefty licenses to Redmond, etc., while being able to ship with a free, stable OS+browser combo; they need to be paid to do that as well?
- ianf ⌘
I sure hope so. I think the wide array of JavaScript libraries have been killing Flash for years. Silverlight was never really a player. The only think keeping Flash afloat is video
- Scott Radcliff
I don't know what's under the hood of Silverlight (nobody knows), but Flash is basically a sprite engine controlled by Actionscript, which is basically an adapted version of Javascript anyway. It's nicely packaged though, and has an army of developers, so it won't go away that easily, at least not until there are Flash-to-Canvas/ HTML5 porting tools/ translators and the like.
- ianf ⌘
to follow that logic...photoshop is needed as well
- Chris Hofmann
somebody call me when http://playboyarchive.com is working in Chrome OS (it's currently implemented in Silverlight)
- Karim
If it gains any traction at all, MS will just make Silverlight version that will run on Google OS. Sure google could block it, but they haven't done so with the Chrome browser.
- Jeff Weber
Interesting. I doubt the Google OS will get that big anytime soon though.
- Scott Radcliff
from email
Silverlight doesn't have a chance now...I wonder what would Adobe Air do.
- Saad Kamal
not really, if google want to be open then they will need a plugin architecture for it and then MS could just port for it. I really don't see this troubling mainstream users any time soon.
- Darren Stuart
Though I agree with the view that MS monopoly may erode as alternative devices get adoption over PC/Notebook, and these devices will mostly run on open source OS, but it may take years to create a significant change in every day usage of normal users. In the end, OS choice is mostly done by manufacturers, and they would be happy to get paid by open source vendors for putting their OS on...
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- Kaan Bingol
People want media. Hulu, Netflix, Kindle, iTunes, etc. They need to address that or they are DOA.
- Hayes Haugen
Hayes, what makes you think it will lack media support?
- Paul Buchheit
I don't think it will lack licensed media support but what deals they are able to make will be crucial.
- Hayes Haugen
Hayes, i thought you were going to say that Netflix was using Silverlight. ;-)
- Karim
Yes, they are, what is their deal with MSFT? Can they do non Silverlight distribution?
- Hayes Haugen
i believe the Netflix non-Silverlight distribution is a format called "DVD" that works over the "Snail Mail" protocol. ;-) but clearly if Google is paying OEMs to install Chrome OS, they can pay Netflix to go back to Flash which Chrome OS will probably support "by necessity" ;-)
- Karim
How can Google make money from Chrome OS? Or does it want to make money from it except through advertisement? I still can not imagine that all software and service are free and sponsored by advertisements.
- Derek Wei
All Chrome OS questions are answered by today's Fake Steve Jobs ;)
- Hayes Haugen
Is there a need to make money? If more and more people eschew desktop offline applications in favor of online web based apps, it means more pageviews, more eyeballs, more advertising inventory, plus has the side effect of undermining a big competitor's cash cow.
- Ray Cromwell
That's the key, Google wants everything online. They figure the more people online, the stronger they become, and the more money they make. At least that what was said at the Chrome launch.
- Scott Radcliff
from email
I'm amused that the "backwards compatibility" argument against alternative operating systems has slowly turned into "does it support flash", and when you unpack that it really means "does it play YouTube". I suspect Google will make sure ChromeOS cna play YouTube and they don't need Flash to make sure of it.
- Nick Lothian
Is it possible that Microsoft will write Office for the Web using Volta instead of Silverlight? Could be a showcase announcement for their attack on GWT
- Ray Cromwell
I think Microsoft is going to focus less on the front-end of the web and more on the back-end, middle tier and database sides. Azure is a big deal that consumers aren't talking about because it's not flashy but will be pretty important to developers (and especially enterprise-level applications) when it's finally ready because everything becomes an interface to the cloud. Microsoft is...
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- Lindsay is :)
Azure looks really cool. Hint: so did Blackbird.
- Michael R. Bernstein
lol blackbird (scary redmond flashback) - a good example of azure platform utilization can be seen via jon udell's elmcity project - http://blog.jonudell.net/elmcity...
- mike "glemak" dunn
Nosense, I want silverlight, flash, html and any other technology in my desktop & mobile phone. Silverlight? yes, there you can develop under Python, Ruby et al, instead of the outdated javascript.
- Sebastian Wain
Good Point, Paul. The web has to be free from proprietary software. And to h.264, sorry OGG Theora is free and superior.
- Ryo
It looks like with Native Client, you should be able to write your Chrome OS app in any language you feel like. So far, they have some examples in C/C++, but one of the things they ported is a Lua interpreter. If Adobe isn't going to invest heavily in fixing the show-stopping bugs on non-Windows versions of Flash, it's inevitably going to die, and there's really nothing either Google or Apple can do even if they wanted to support Flash better.
- Victor Ganata
...ActionScript3 is ECMASCript-compliant. I know nothing about standards bodies, and shii like that, but what if Adobe dropped ActionScript and said, "You can now use pure Javascript to build Flash applications..." It wouldn't be a big leap. I'm pretty sure that would shut-up all the Flash haters. And to the folks who say Flash is hanging around just because of video...well, video is...
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- .LAG liked that
Actionscript is just the glue for the more advanced what-iffy graphic functionality of Flash. They can not drop it for Javascript, because it contains additional graphic primitives that JS lacks. But it's not the JS-or-Actionscript that makes it a target for hate, it's other things. Nobody denies that it's pretty capable, but it is also badly written, eats up memory like no other, makes...
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- ianf ⌘
I like this post!
- Mohammad Abdurraafay
from iPhone
I honestly don't know how necessary Flash is. Apple seems to be doing fine without supporting it. But certainly Gnash and Swfdec should be implementable on Chrome OS. The fact is that without Adobe's full support on a given platform, Flash apps will always be second class citizens on alternate platforms, and so far, there's no indication that Adobe is interested in fully supporting any platform other than Windows.
- Victor Ganata
ianf ...you bring up great points about Flash's detriments, as does Victor, but until there's a better way to bring video to the Web, I can't see it disappearing. Adobe seems to keep improving the Flash VM, hopefully they'll address those CPU-hogging issues and make a more efficent runtime. Yeah, I hate hearing the fans kick-in when visiting a Flash-heavy site too. <sigh>
- .LAG liked that
alternative to flash video such as ... html5 :) (requires ff3.5) http://www.dailymotion.com/openvid...
- Mike Chelen
from IM
Ed, only??? thats one of the main reasons cited for the continued requirement of flash on popular sites like youtube
- Mike Chelen
Ed, those other uses can be accomplished through pure Javascript, video was the last remaining stumbling block
- Mike Chelen
Still waiting on non-Flash recreations of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch... or this: http://www.youtube.com/watch... Well aware of how someone mentioned higher up how you can combine javascript and svg to get nifty flash-like effects. I want apps like that though ^ Only real alternatives I've seen are Java-based ones, and those runs even slower than Flash.
- Ed F
Pardon me, but the OP is a ridiculous conclusion. For that to be the case, Chrome OS would have to kill Windows, OS X, etc altogether. Paul, I understand your viewpoint as being an ex-Google person, but that's just NOT going to happen. Right now the video specification from HTML5 has been dropped because of an impasse, meaning that we may be transitioning from 1 closed-source boss - Flash - to another - H264. Good luck.
- LANjackal
But why do these type of apps have to be written in Flash at all? You can easily do the same thing in C, C++, ObjC, Python, Ruby, etc., with the Native Client API that they're building for Chrome. http://code.google.com/p...
- Victor Ganata
I'm just saying, it's not like Flash is the end-all/be-all. As Apple well demonstrates, some people can live quite well without it.
- Victor Ganata
Victor ...i think the answer to the 'why do these have to be written in Flash at all' question is because Flash is installed on such a significant portion of Web browsers. But I recall that Adobe Flex had a competitor, Laszlo/OpenLaszlo, which compiled apps to SWF or to Javascript. Who's to say that Adobe doesn't have the same capability of making SWF apps into JS ones? On one hand, it...
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- .LAG liked that
Ed, such apps are possible with Javascript and HTML5 multimedia features, the question will be how difficult developers find it, and whether the performance is fast enough
- Mike Chelen
LANjackal, there is a question of degree in that Flash + H264 uses proprietary software and codec, while HTML5 + H264 requires only the codec. while OGV is no longer part of the spec, it can certainly still be used to have completely open video formats, and recent comparisons have shown it performs well http://people.xiph.org/~maikme...
- Mike Chelen
Silverlight's 3 is looking pretty impressive today but tend to agree
- Charlie Anzman
What everybody seems to be missing about Flash is that it works because there is one implementation which is mostly backwards-compatible and the same across platforms. It beat Java because, among other reasons, Java just didn't work the same across JVMs and platforms. The problem with HTML5 is that it will have a different implementation for every browser, and that means your app/game...
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- Gabe
We just added a "Best of day" link at the bottom of the page. The best part is that it works for friend lists too, so you can have a "Best of day from family", etc. Thanks to Matt Cutts for the suggestion (http://friendfeed.com/mattcut...)
haron, Andre P. Siregar, Ronald and 159 other people liked this
awesome, but pls bring this to the iphone too... i really miss best of day on the iphone
- Zee.
Suggested Tuesday, implemented Thursday. #wonderful
- Mitch
Nice! I was just thinking about this today, but it'd also be awesome to have a "Best of" link for user profiles as well, so it'd be easy to see which of a users (or yourself) updates/posts were the most popular
- Haggis (Sean Loyless)
This is huge news for me, thanks!
- Robert Scoble
from iPhone
What Sean said. It will also be useful to decide whether to subscribe to a user or not.
- Vishy
I agree -- soon I hope.
- Paul Buchheit
The "by list" portion is very important. Well done.
- Louis Gray
*falls on floor*
- Johnny Worthington
w00t! I got a "file not found" error on the iPhone, but I'm hoping that's temporary. This is rocking--thanks for adding this feature!
- Matt Cutts
You guys are full of incredibleness today
- Charlie Anzman
Boy, you're just cranking the improvements out! Amazing stuff!
- Rick Cogley
sweet
- Alfredo
this is good. how about also adding best of week and month and putting the same tool on searches as well?
- Thomas Hawk
Awesome...I've really missed this since the redesign.
- Mark Krynsky
And guess who comes up twice as soon as I click this new feature...? Paul Buchheit!!! :-)
- Ton Zijp
This is great but hopefully will be expanded to groups, users and saved searches too? And agree with Thomas about best of week/month too.
- Kol Tregaskes
Friendfeed, you ROCK!
- alfred westerveld
I found the link long before this post. Very cool.
- Russellreno
Can we get email/IM alerts for "Best of Day" for lists? I would love to get these pushed to me. Thx.
- Steve Rubel
WOW I love you guys I missed the feature sooooo bad!!!
- Dobromir Hadzhiev
I've been waiting for this for ages. Fantastic.
- Meryn Stol
great tks a lot
- marsupilamima
The iPhone links are now fixed (thanks to Ben)
- Paul Buchheit
Noticed this one! FriendFeed rocks! Best of day from family,Linux,Madagascar,Francophones,SocialMedia,music.. great!
- Thierry R. Andriamirado
This feature was on the previous version of friendfeed.... Why not put the link on the TOP of the page as well ?
- David Berrebi
For long I wanted nested comments. Now, I cannot comment somebody's comment.
- Nitin Nanivadekar
Long Live 3.5mm: HTC Makes The Switch - http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009...
Robert Felty, Hein Roehrig, Evan Parker and 6 other people liked this
My god, I can't believe Google is entering the friggin OS market
Burcu Dogan, J. D. Ebberly, Brian Hill and 4 other people liked this
In a good way, or what?
- Louis Gray
Oh Louis, you don't know me do you? lol. I love it,this is absolutely a future game changer. Look at Chrome, JUST LOOK AT CHROME. It changed how browsers work now. I just became a Google Fan-boy I think. Google can have all my data if they want. I love this.
- Holden
What are you talking about? Just wait until they start making vacuum cleaners. Wait, do they have online games, yet?
- MiniMage (FakeLifePerson)
MiniMage: wtf?
- Holden
Just my way of hinting that Google seems to be trying to get in on everything they see. And before someone screams "Friendfeed mob," I'm not trying to be mean.
- MiniMage (FakeLifePerson)
A Google should. If they want to succeed as a business they have to do such things. Search can't be their only main driver of revenue
- Holden
Dude, friendly debate is always come no worries :)
- Holden
They're biting Palm's webOS :)
- Rodfather
RodFather: O wow they are arent they? Didn't think about that at all
- Holden
Sounds like it. Webkit & HTML 5 would be the OS. Apps probably written in javascript.
- Rodfather
Rodfather: Google said that the apps will be built in standard web languages. Direct hit at the Pre
- Holden
Oooh. I felt bad for Palm when they became the underdog. It was like when IBM dumped the PC and when Netscape went away. I prefer it when the firsts stay in the games they created. And now I'm wondering who started the whole search engine bit. Time to go search--and I won't be using the service that started that.
- MiniMage (FakeLifePerson)
I think it's good news for the Pre & Palm. It'll be easier to port apps over.
- Rodfather
MiniMage: Dude I was depressed when Netscape went away, same with Geocities. i was like damn, that sucks. RodFather: That is true, web languages are becoming the "universal" if you will
- Holden
Though using iPhone apps show how for at least small displays that developers can improve beyond web pages.
- Loren Heiny
from iPhone
Loren: iPhone Apps are great and all, but mobile Apps will move to the cloud. It is going to follw the same exact pattern that PC's did
- Holden
This FF chat is live on TechGeist btw figured someinteresting points were being brought up[
- Holden
Any other thoughts out there on the potential game changer this is?
- Holden
Can't wait to try it out!
- J. D. Ebberly
Google Chrome Operating System - http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009...
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John Serra, Matt Cutts, immaterial and 3 other people liked this
I like the idea and can't wait to see the new OS in action.
- Dimitar Tsonev
cool but haven't they announced it a little far in advance?
- immaterial
Yep, because of this: "Google had planned to unveil the project on Wednesday but moved up the announcement after receiving inquiries from The New York Times, which reported the company’s plans on its Web site late Tuesday. Ars Technica, a technology news site, also reported the outlines of Google’s plan late Tuesday." http://www.nytimes.com/2009...
- Jérôme Flipo
If by "far" you meant "months" instead of "hours" :) the reason may be that they'll need help from the open source community (see http://code.google.com/contest...). I think transparency is crucial for collaboration, and hiding the real motivation wouldn't be very smart here.
- Jérôme Flipo
*nods* yes I meant that it won't be available until the second half of 2010 ;-) which still seems a little long term, given the already existing kernel & browser, although i don't really know enough about behind-the-scenes aspects of operating systems
- immaterial
First in Google for [google os] and [google operating system] is Ionut :) Wonder if one day Google's product (if released) will push Ionut off the first spot for his blog's name?
- Philipp Lenssen
Google just dropped a bomb on the industry. We all knew this day was coming: Google (Chrome) OS: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009... (link via @niall)
Jeremy Franklin, Andrey Stefanenko, Saad Kamal and 18 other people liked this
Epic, history changing news!
- Benjamin
What is the bomb? I don't get it.
- Dave Winer
Google OS mean google operating system like windows, that's the boob
- Benjamin
@Dave Winer: Lightweight OS, supported by a big player, built on standard tech. Nothing revolutionary, but the combo is like Google Docs to Microsoft Office.
- Matt Mastracci
Well its a start, might open up doors to a proper OS maybe something smooth like linux who knows but at least a start
- Benjamin
Matt: I don't think anyone is considering this revolutionary but it is no doubt a bomb on the industry as Ryan stated
- Holden
Benjamin: it will be built off of the linux kernel
- Holden
Chrome ran on Linux before this supposed earth shaker, right?
- Dave Winer
Holden: totally agree, re: bomb. It's an exciting project.
- Matt Mastracci
Dave: it does (sort of, thru development snapshots), but not in an officially released way. The combination of Chrome + Linux + Android's app/security models on a stack tuned for netbooks is the big thing, IMHO.
- Matt Mastracci
Dave: Ya, sorta. What Matt said pretty much.
- Holden
Also, combine all of Google's open-source components released recently (Gears, O3D, NativeClient [oops], GWT, etc.) and you start to build a compelling platform that's more than just plain web.
- Matt Mastracci
This sounds like the Sun/Java thin clients that were hyped years ago.
- Peter Axon
Eleven questions about Google's Chrome OS--got any more to add to the list? http://technologizer.com/2009...
Matt Cutts liked this
bloody hell. went to twitter and noticed 'google chrome OS' was trending. Wondered why chrome was news, then noticed *OS* http://www.guardian.co.uk/technol...
Matt Cutts liked this
Google Chrome OS: Web developers rule! :) - http://ajaxian.com/archive...
Dobromir Hadzhiev and Matt Cutts liked this
Google launches a project to reinvent the OS
- Régis Kuckaertz
from Bookmarklet
oh, i got it! sarah palin will be the google os spokesperson. that's why she stepped down. os will be real mavericky
Brian Watkins, Jérôme Flipo, Daniel Dulitz and 10 other people liked this
Google Prepares To March Into Microsoft’s Capital - http://parislemon.com/2009...
sweta, Joel Webber, Dobromir Hadzhiev and 8 other people liked this
I'm thinking of changing projects. Stay on established and very profitable ad related project or switch to something very hush-hush, high risk/high reward with a <50% chance of actually shipping?
Matt Cutts, Tyson Key, Joel Webber and 3 other people liked this
Or perhaps I should just go back to MIcrosoft -- got a feeler from a former co-worker today too :)
- Joe Beda
Tell us what the hush-hush project is so that we can better evaluate your options. :-)
- Gary Burd
I'm pretty sure if I'm asking the question like this, I've already made up my mind. I should sleep on it though.
- Joe Beda
I know which I would choose :)
- Paul Buchheit
You're looking to join Microsoft again? Is that why you posted your badge?
- Joe Beda
Exactly.
- Paul Buchheit
Post a sha1sum of the secret project's codename? :)
- ⓞnor
@nor: you could probably brute force codenames given a sha1sum ;)
- Amit Patel
The current codename is very lame/nondescript. In any case, here is the sha1 digest: ed5c3a685e80974c278c3fe4c963b7bd3890cd8d. Knock yourself out.
- Joe Beda
That's the coolest codename ever.
- Adewale Oshineye
I believe, given egnor's position, he might attempt a dictionary attack.
- Tudor Bosman
Dan is just stirring.
- Rob Schonberger
Ok, reversed. Fascinating! And of course you want the high risk skunkworks awesomeness! Otherwise what are you, some kind of zombie software engineer, munching on brains and punching the clock?
- ⓞnor
@nor my feeling is Joe had already made up his mind to pick the hush-hush project... the wording of the question gives it away :)
- Bindu Reddy
That's my feeling too, just giving a little extra push in that direction. :)
- ⓞnor
Thanks guys ;)
- Joe Beda
So this means Joe will be able to stop eating brains? Yay.
- j1m
By process of elimination, I'm assuming that would be Google Time Machine?
- j1m
GTM won't be released until last year.
- Paul Buchheit
Re: louisgray.com: Google Says Yes to Launching An OS (Based on Chrome) - louisgray.com - http://www.louisgray.com/live...
Ihar Mahaniok, Josh, CW™ and Matt Cutts liked this
"The time for me to be an Apple fanboy and claim OS X superiority has come and gone. I too am eager to see what Google has up their sleeve, and what this will mean for mobile devices, netbooks and core operating systems. I think the iPhone trumps the Android platform, but I want to see this Chrome OS. Chrome is all I use when on Windows."
- Louis Gray
I'm eager to see it too. But it would have to use google gears in a clever way. You know, a thing that always bothered me about netbooks is that the only times when I'd want to use a netbook is when I'm actually not connected to the net. Hence, the name is not really apt for me. This would mean that the Chrome OS would be totally useless to me, but I believe Google has some aces up his sleeve, using some Gears variant.
- Zio Bonino
RT @Suzzicks: Dude - Google [os guy] should totally be a GIRL! (all-powerful and stuff!) I nominate me, despite previous work in PC ads :)
Matt Cutts liked this
Ok, this is me, peeing. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009...
Louis Gray, laura, Kamilah Gill and 6 other people liked this
*phew* Yes, Gina, that /is/ exciting. ;-)
- James
I want *in*! How do I get in?? I guess I'll have to listen to everybody. I've never messed with OSes yet.
- Kamilah Gill
Revolutionary Espresso Book Machine launches in London | http://www.guardian.co.uk/books...
Samuel Driessen, andrei_c, Kyle Studstill and 32 other people liked this
"It's not elegant and it's not sexy – it looks like a large photocopier – but the Espresso Book Machine is being billed as the biggest change for the literary world since Gutenberg invented the printing press more than 500 years ago and made the mass production of books possible. Launching today at Blackwell's Charing Cross Road branch in London, the machine prints and binds books on demand in five minutes, while customers wait. Signalling the end, says Blackwell, to the frustration of being told by a bookseller that a title is out of print, or not in stock, the Espresso offers access to almost half a million books, from a facsimile of Lewis Carroll's original manuscript for Alice in Wonderland to Mrs Beeton's Book of Needlework. [...]"
- ianf ⌘
from Bookmarklet
Right now these machines cost a bundle, but, with economies of scale, can "One Hour Bookstores" be far behind? Goodbye print-on-demand, welcome print-on-a-whimsy cottage industry!
- ianf ⌘
The great question is why order from Amazon, when you could pop in and have it made up for you, whilst you wait.
- David Bausola
Perhaps. It rather depends on the range (breadth) of genres and back-order titles in each venue. Traditional publishing is in many senses a license to print money, and so the industry isn't too keen on giving it up. If "Expressoed" copies turn out to be as costly as traditional ones, prospective buyers may opt for better "offline" quality from the big A. Then again, they may not... book...
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- ianf ⌘
Amazon has been using print-on-demand at their processing centers for a while to handle low-volume titles, the logical next step is for it to move out even closer to the end users. Its very similar to the fax machine actually: initially FedEx installed fax machines at their local offices and offered fax as a premium service, sending the fax across the country to the nearest FedEx office...
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- DGentry
Denton, indeed. Thus on-demand is not a product; imagine the use case: I'm about to take a journey. book a flight, it's long haul, so I order a book (profile & recommendations); the book stand at the airport prints it up for me ready for collection on the way through to departure lounge (or collect at departure as business service).
- David Bausola
moo cards are another example.
- David Bausola
Yes, Denton, but there always will be that £175.000 threshold such a machine costs, which will limit frequency of their occurrence. Amazon may yet end up the winner, because of the economies of scale in distrubution, esp. if/ when beleaguered traditionals elect to lower their prices to stay afloat. It's tricky business really.
- ianf ⌘
Think of the remix capabilities too. Selection of chapters from different books. Pick and Mix editorial in a book format, lovely. Just in time + bespoke = everyone's happy.
- David Bausola
You can dream, David, but this won't be happening for a long time yet. Simple reason, copyrights. As with daily newspapers where you have to buy it all, but nobody expects you to read it cover to cover, so books are largely made up of parts you will read, those that you might, and those you'll perhaps browse through (all too often, I am afraid). Publishers will not permit selling of just some topical chapters of interest to you, you'll have to buy all the "superfluous" ones as well. Alas.
- ianf ⌘
Think of it as Tivo for Books.
- David Bausola
Bad analogy, also American-parochial one I'm afraid. You do not "subscribe" to chapters of books floating by, you buy a book whether you only intend to read the tasty bits on pages 92-101.
- ianf ⌘
I've been playing around with FriendFeed and this http://www.tabbloid.com/, to get nice productions as PDFs. The source of 'content' will depend on the open licence of creative commons BY-SA, and artists are getting to understand that. Stephen Fry on Twitter for example.
- David Bausola
Consumption/use habits are based upon what the technology of the time allows/affords. DRM tried to play havoc with the watching experience.
- David Bausola
Good concept but, unless you can freely mix-and-match, and you'll never be able to provide just that to general public, a niche product. Even if well executed one, as this seems to me. That said, I dislike PDFs just for the reason that they make potentially dynamic information static, and kowtow to absolute page extent aesthetics even on a screen.
- ianf ⌘
kowtow = good word ;-)
- David Bausola
Here's an example of what I'm thinking about, or as from the comments "The internet made better by the paper, and now the paper made better by the internet." http://noisydecentgraphics.typepad.com/design...
- David Bausola
I've read about these "Things Our Friends Have Written On The Internet 2008" which is a niche product with an enormous production cost-to-distribution ratio. Author never says what they charged for the 1000 numbered copies, but I bet it was a bundle, £39.95? Only when there are fully automated tools to do that (perhaps a suitable application for Wolfram/Alpha?) could this become of use for the public @large...
- ianf ⌘
They never charged for the paper - it was an experiment / proof of concept - I've got a copy - it's lovely. Yes, nice inclusion for Alpha.
- David Bausola
Nice (badly hidden envy), but it makes it even more of a vanity project. Tried to look it up on ebay (0 items found), and google for a copy for sale, without much success <http://google.com/search...>
- ianf ⌘
This is cooler than a kindle
- Matthew DeVries
I live VERY CLOSE to this store. If I try it out, I'll take pictures and post!
- Zach Landes
Here's a movie of the EBM 2.0 in action <http://www.youtube.com/watch...>. Perhaps, for a change, you should just walk in, cup in hand, and ask for an "Espresso"? (refill optional). Then curse them loudly for misinforming the public (and photograph that instead!)
- ianf ⌘
I am actually seriously considering doing that. Good idea, ian
- Zach Landes
What would make this a real bonus is when they can come out with the color edition. Ok, so I am thinking comic books here, but what an awesome way for a small comic artist to do on demand comics.
- Dan Morrill AKA Techwag
Dan, all dandy, except it won't be happening, not in this iteration of EBM. It's strictly publisher-controlled selective-backlist only, no option to come in from the street with print-ready manuscript in hand and do a small print run. Or, should that eventually be on offer, it will be prohibitively expensive.
- ianf ⌘
Hold on, I need to amend the above. In the video at around 50 secs mark, it is claimed that the client CAN upload own file, either electronically or from a CD. That information hasn't been mentioned in any press report about it that I've read - so the EBM can be made to accept non-list matter, but perhaps it is up to the actual machine's owner (in this case either Blackwell's or some...
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- ianf ⌘
Meanwhile, there's a better quality (same as above promotional) video here <http://www.boston.com/video...> and a Boston Globe report of a local Espresso installation says this: »[the bookstore] wanted the new machine to connect the store’s customers to millions of book titles. That part of the business has developed slowly,...
more...
- ianf ⌘
[^*] an euphemism for "the publishers are demanding extraordinary sums for us making it possible for them to make money off their back catalogs. In effect they want us, the franchiser of the EBM, to commit to sell a minimum # copies/year of each title @ current in-print prices (or some such)."
- ianf ⌘
ianf ⌘ - http://blog.newspaperclub.co.uk/ (as mentioned above, it's now in development)
- David Bausola
David, thanks for keeping me posted. It's not a light read though, so, before I embark on it later in the week (alas), could you please express it in High-Concept terms, e.g. what [physical size/ quality] "newspapers" you have in mind; and what this your "service to help people make their own newspapers" will be servicing: a single-point electronic drop-off box perhaps for client material - out comes a pack of 20-or-so 16-page tabloid papers prewrapped for dropping off a van at a stand?
- ianf ⌘
Hey Ian, It's not my project, I just know the guys behind it. (Sorry for the confusion - I mentioned it above as an example of what I was talking about - the process is dissimilar from Purefold). No idea how it's going to roll out - but it's a fine experiment to follow via their blog.
- David Bausola
Teenagers outnumbered by baby boomers on Facebook? Cue Facebook is dying posts in 3..2..1...
Joel Webber, Vivek Puri, Rasmus Lauridsen and Matt Cutts liked this
OhGizmo! Trace Of Time Whiteboard-Esque Clock Erases Itself Over Time - http://www.ohgizmo.com/2009...
Lucio Riccardi, Amber, Franc ☺ and 17 other people liked this
"Designed by Il-Gu Cha, the ‘Trace of Time’ clock is made from stainless steel with a glass face that allows you to jot down meetings and other important events when they’re supposed to happen. But the single hour/minute hand actually features an integrated eraser which cleans the clock’s face as it sweeps around over a 24 hour period. So while the clock’s useful for planning out your day, you can forget about jotting down things you’ll need to remember later in the week, since they’ll be gone by tomorrow."
- Ross Miller
from Bookmarklet
really cool!
- vijay
Jul 11, 2009: SuperHappyDevHouse 33 at Cupertino DevHouse - http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event...
Matt Cutts and Amit Patel liked this
It's been a while.
- Amit Patel
Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics - http://gregable.com/2009...
Tony Ruscoe and Matt Cutts liked this
Dear Lazyweb: As we'll probably end up buying a house in the near future in some sun-drenched corner of the Bay Area, I'd like to learn more about solar panels. Please enlighten me.
Tracy, Steve Lacy, Laurence Gonsalves and 10 other people liked this
What are good solar panel brands? what are brands that I should avoid? Any particularly good or bad experiences with installers?
- Tudor Bosman
Where are the sweet spots in the 3-D graph of wattage / area / cost?
- Tudor Bosman
Are there any developments that could change the market significantly in the next few years?
- Tudor Bosman
Where can I learn more?
- Tudor Bosman
From what I've heard, the number one influence of economy of home solar is the tax incentives you get to install it. All these other little details like panel efficiency and sub angles are minor compared to the fat rebate you get from the government. Perhaps Steve Lacy could comment?
- Brian Johns
I asked the same question on Ask Metafilter; here's a link to the thread. http://ask.metafilter.com/126586...
- Tudor Bosman
Actually the main advantage is that solar cuts off the part of your bill that is most expensive. Top tier usage is much more expensive so even partial production by solar panel sharply reduces your bill. But you need a high electric bill to justify solar.
- Michael Muller
In sunny places you can actually get enough wattage during the day to offset all of your usage and sometimes put more energy on the grid then you use, so the power company pays you. You can also use a solar water heater system. Consumer Reports: http://blogs.consumerreports.org/home... California: http://www.gosolarcalifornia.ca.gov/index...
- Heather
Occidental Power in SF has a good reputation but they're also expensive. (We went with them for our new house.) If you have lots of space, using direct solar water heating will be optimum for "wattage / area / cost" compared to PV. For a PV retrofit onto a roof, remember that panels come in discrete sizes so check in advance how much coverage you can get. If you need a Class A roof by...
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- Daniel Dulitz
There are LOTS of companies that do home solar installation. They can recommend/privide panels. Not sure of the ETA on thin film solar or solar thermal for mass use, but lots of people use solar for things like heating the water in their house. This last possibility requires substantial plumbing work, however.
- Steve Lynch
from twhirl
How often does the Bay Area get hail? That's a major factor where I live.
- Robert Hafer
from iPhone
Decide if you want "cost savings" or "environmental savings". For pure cost savings on a large electric bill (large house with A/C) then getting a small-ish system (2-4kW) will have the fastest payoff. Large electric users can get some ROI for a small system in < 10 years. Systems that cover 100% of yearly kWh generally payoff in 15 years.
- Steve Lacy
I got my panels (in Mountain View) from Solar City and was pretty happy with the purchase & install process. I suggest that you call them (or any other installer) and have them do an eval on your needs. They nearly perfectly estimated the yearly output of my system.
- Steve Lacy
You could model the price of any solar system by it's components as such: Install + Panels + Inverter - Rebate = Net Cost. The biggest cliff points in cost are at the Inverters and Rebates. Inverters come in fixed kW sizes, and you want to run them at near peak capacity for efficiency reasons. So, the most cost-effective system will likely be dependent on your usage and how that compares with inverter capacities. Rebates are going down as we speak, so acting sooner is almost always better.
- Steve Lacy
If you want purely "cost savings" then going with solar hot water is the most cost effective. You may look into having both put on your roof at the same time. Solar hot water with a circulating pump can be had for a much smaller cost than PV solar, and has a very short (2-4 year) payoff time.
- Steve Lacy
We have BP brand panels, and they're just fine. I don't think there are any reliability issues with panels, so I wouldn't worry about it. There is an aesthetics issue, and some panels look nicer than others. Ours are all black, which looks nice, but are hotter, which means slightly less efficient.
- Steve Lacy
http://groups.yahoo.com/group... will be useful if you're in/around Mountain View
- Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy has great advice. One other idea: solar panels for electricity do not have to go on the roof of your house. When I got bids from 3 companies the location of the panels over 200 feet from my house did not increase the price at all. The metal racks supporting the panels can be positioned with more accuracy and less chance of wind damage. Our property, an acre, has lots of...
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- Michael Muller
Jul 05 2009 VID00063 - http://www.youtube.com/watch...
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Dana, Benjamin Golub, Ivan Zuzak and 4 other people liked this
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- Alec Proudfoot
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