Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Pollette. I
Speaker 1: am an editor at how stuff works dot com. Sitting
Speaker 1: across from me as a guy who knows a whole
Speaker 1: lot about tech stuff, that would be senior writer Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: Throughout human history, we've been dependent on machines to survive fate,
Speaker 1: it seems, is not without a sense of irony. Very nice,
Speaker 1: thank you. Okay, So today's topic is an interesting topic, actually, yes,
Speaker 1: because it's so close to so many things and yet
Speaker 1: it's not the same as any one of them. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that came from a Beatles song. No, No,
Speaker 1: it's a it's chromo, yes, And it has ties to
Speaker 1: a great many different other technologies and is sort of
Speaker 1: a standalone thing. And I think that's why so many
Speaker 1: people are confused about it, because it seems like a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of different stuff, but it is its own
Speaker 1: standalone operating system for computers. Yeah, this is um There
Speaker 1: are a lot of reasons why this is a confusing topic.
Speaker 1: For some people. Now, a lot of our listeners have
Speaker 1: probably been following the development of CHROMOS over the last
Speaker 1: uh well more than a year now, because Google initially
Speaker 1: announced CHROMOS back in two thousand nine. Yes, July seven,
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, by my reckoning, Yes, that is that's
Speaker 1: the date I have on this blog post where they
Speaker 1: called it. That was titled introducing the Google Chromos uh
Speaker 1: So Yeah, Google announced this back in two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: and then essentially the message was that this was going
Speaker 1: to be a cloud based operating system, it was meant
Speaker 1: for computers, and that we would start seeing it on
Speaker 1: machines and around the end of Yes, now as we
Speaker 1: record this, it is the very end of and indeed
Speaker 1: we have seen the first computer with this up ring
Speaker 1: system uh loaded in as its native OS. But the
Speaker 1: program itself is still very much in beta mode, which
Speaker 1: to Google, you know, kind of part for the course. Really,
Speaker 1: Google is king of the beta. Yeah, and um, I
Speaker 1: think it's safe to say, um that I still only
Speaker 1: speaking for myself personally, I think there there is uh
Speaker 1: there are some details out there about what chrome os
Speaker 1: is supposed to be, and I think they're pretty accurate
Speaker 1: based on the bets that they've released, but I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that we know all the details enough to be
Speaker 1: definitive about some parts of it. Like, um, I think
Speaker 1: I think a lot of the information that's out there
Speaker 1: still is more marketing material than it is hardened fast numbers. Right.
Speaker 1: And there are people out there right now who are
Speaker 1: using Chromos because as probably the pilot program Google shipped
Speaker 1: out um, they shipped out notebooks, computer notebooks. Uh. The
Speaker 1: the technical name for it is the cr DASH for
Speaker 1: eight UM. And so there are people who applied to
Speaker 1: be in this pilot program and Google sent some of
Speaker 1: them these machines with the intent. You know, they specifically said,
Speaker 1: use these machines as your primary machine. That's the only
Speaker 1: reason we're sending this to you, so that you can
Speaker 1: really give it a test and we can see make
Speaker 1: sure we iron bugs out and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't do them any good if you just
Speaker 1: you know, use that like once in a while. So
Speaker 1: they wanted testers who could use it as their primary
Speaker 1: machine as much as possible. Um, it's interesting, it's actually Chromos.
Speaker 1: You might hear people talk about how Google it takes
Speaker 1: us sort of open approach too. They're operating systems. Chromo
Speaker 1: S technically is not really an open system. It's based
Speaker 1: upon source code from chromium OS, which is the open system. Yes.
Speaker 1: That actually reminds me of macOS ten, which is based
Speaker 1: upon b s D, but which is an open source system.
Speaker 1: But again macOS ten itself is closed. I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's Apple. You kind of expect that from Apple, but um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's basically a derivative of that is a derivative
Speaker 1: of BSD, or it builds on bs D and is
Speaker 1: its own operating system. And that's similar to what the
Speaker 1: CHROMOS is. Yeah. Um, also it's uh, it's related to Linux. Yes,
Speaker 1: the Chromium o S is UM and uh it's important
Speaker 1: to note too that it is not Android, which is
Speaker 1: Google's operating system for global devices. Yeah. This this is
Speaker 1: another point that becomes really confusing for people who aren't
Speaker 1: really following the store, because you've got the Android platform,
Speaker 1: which is just now really starting to get some some
Speaker 1: identity in the market. Right there are people who know
Speaker 1: what Android is, um, because of all the different commercials
Speaker 1: for various phones as well as the tablet devices like
Speaker 1: the Galaxy Tab. So people know what Android is and
Speaker 1: they think of that as the Google operating system. So
Speaker 1: why would Google come out with the Chrome operating system.
Speaker 1: I've I've actually heard will have tech tournal lests say
Speaker 1: that this is a bad idea to come out with
Speaker 1: a separate operating system just for notebook computers. What I
Speaker 1: think is funny is that that's what other companies are
Speaker 1: doing already. Yes, I guess what they're saying is they
Speaker 1: thought that maybe the era of separate operating systems is
Speaker 1: slowly coming to an end, and we are going to
Speaker 1: see a get ready for you, guys, convergence emerge where
Speaker 1: we see the same operating system used across an entire
Speaker 1: variety of gadgets, from computers all the way down to
Speaker 1: cell phones. Yes, we're not there yet. So perhaps what
Speaker 1: people thought was that Google would just lead the way
Speaker 1: and create an operating system that would go across this
Speaker 1: entire range of hardware, and that way you didn't have
Speaker 1: to wait for things to converge. Google would just kind
Speaker 1: of lead the way. That would like like some generation
Speaker 1: of Android, maybe two or three generations down the line,
Speaker 1: would be robust enough to be a cloud based operating
Speaker 1: system for a computer. That's not what's happened, and Google
Speaker 1: has essentially said the same thing that other companies have said,
Speaker 1: which is that mobile devices and computers are two separate
Speaker 1: things right now, and while we may be heading towards convergence,
Speaker 1: we're not there yet. So it's it's weird for me
Speaker 1: to hear people criticize Google for making this decision when
Speaker 1: other companies have been doing this. I mean, you brought
Speaker 1: up Apple. Apple has the Mac os that's for their
Speaker 1: computer systems, then it has iOS, which is for their
Speaker 1: mobile systems, which includes the iPad, And of course Microsoft
Speaker 1: has Windows seven, Windows Mobile seven, which I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: You're right, well, it was at one point Windows Mobile
Speaker 1: I think I think they only got up to six
Speaker 1: for Windows Mobile, Yes, but then they went to Windows
Speaker 1: Phone seven, so I'm sorry, Yes, Windows Phone seven, which
Speaker 1: again the seven makes it confusing to some people because
Speaker 1: you know, people are thinking, you know, Windows seven, I
Speaker 1: know what that is, but Windows Phone seven is different. Now,
Speaker 1: I would say that all three of them have done
Speaker 1: a pretty good job making their mobile operating system in
Speaker 1: their computer operating system look pretty similar. I should say
Speaker 1: that the Chromos I haven't really seen, but the Chromos
Speaker 1: does use the Chrome web browser that is out for Windows,
Speaker 1: Mac and Linux um as it's one of its major
Speaker 1: underpinnings because so much of what you do with the
Speaker 1: chromos or will do with the chromos, is done and
Speaker 1: the cloud, and we should probably talk about Yeah. So
Speaker 1: the idea here is it's actually a pretty simple one,
Speaker 1: and we've talked about it in the past about cloud computing. Chromos.
Speaker 1: Chromos is a specific approach to cloud computing. The idea
Speaker 1: here is that your computer would be a very thin client.
Speaker 1: It would not need to be particularly powerful in any way,
Speaker 1: because all it would really need to do is run
Speaker 1: this operating system, and then the applications would really just
Speaker 1: be kind of links to online services. So let's say
Speaker 1: that you want to use a word processing program. You
Speaker 1: could use something like Google Docs, where the you know,
Speaker 1: you, you you have an interface that you use on your computer,
Speaker 1: but the documents, the word processing, the actual the actual
Speaker 1: program exists on another computer a server. Um technically actually will.
Speaker 1: It will exist on several because of redundancy issues. Redundancy
Speaker 1: is very important in cloud computing because, of course, if
Speaker 1: one server goes down and there's no redundancy, you've just
Speaker 1: lost lots of customer data and customers don't tend to
Speaker 1: like that very much. No, not really. They seem to
Speaker 1: be um down on the whole. You just lost all
Speaker 1: my stuff, you know. Angle They don't like that. So
Speaker 1: the idea here is that you would have these applications
Speaker 1: that you would really just have kind of a window
Speaker 1: to those by you know, clicking on a little icon
Speaker 1: and it would open up the interface, but the application
Speaker 1: itself and all the data there and would exist on
Speaker 1: other machines. And there's some kind of great applications for
Speaker 1: this because that means that you aren't tied to a
Speaker 1: specific machine. Your information would all be tied to your account,
Speaker 1: your Google account in this case. So theoretically you could
Speaker 1: go to any other device that's running the Chrome os,
Speaker 1: log in as yourself using your Google profile, and then
Speaker 1: have access to all your information, and then when you
Speaker 1: logged out, you wouldn't have to worry about that information
Speaker 1: sticking around the computer because it's not living in that
Speaker 1: computer anyway. It's living on computer potentially thousands of miles away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's one of the reasons Google is doing this, at
Speaker 1: least according to uh the Google Chromos website, which I
Speaker 1: would encourage you to to go to it's it's Um.
Speaker 1: They do a lot of explaining in very simple terms. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know for the non techie related person, which is
Speaker 1: good because you know that pretty much describes me in
Speaker 1: some ways. Um. You know it's it's very user friendly
Speaker 1: information about what the chromos it's supposed to be. And Uh.
Speaker 1: One of the things they want to achieve is they
Speaker 1: want to be very very thin. They don't when they
Speaker 1: boot up a laptop that has chromos on it. They
Speaker 1: said they wanted to be something along the lines of
Speaker 1: seven seconds. Uh. There you're not loading a lot of
Speaker 1: information uh in the computer like you would with other
Speaker 1: operating systems. They wanted to be basically the Internet and
Speaker 1: everything else is there. They don't want you to have
Speaker 1: a lot have to worry about things like updates where
Speaker 1: you have to deal with regular updates. This all happens automatically,
Speaker 1: uh theoretically without you knowing that it's going on. Again,
Speaker 1: haven't had the opportunity to try it myself. Another thing
Speaker 1: they don't want you to have to mess with his drivers. Um.
Speaker 1: Google print uh is supposed or cloud print as supposed
Speaker 1: to take care of printing for you. But you know,
Speaker 1: if if you have a if you have a particular
Speaker 1: type of printer, you might have to download a driver
Speaker 1: for your Windows or Mac or Lenox computer in order
Speaker 1: to have it, you know, be able to communicate with
Speaker 1: that device. Um and if you buy a new printer,
Speaker 1: or if you take your laptop to work and you
Speaker 1: want to print on the office printer, which is a
Speaker 1: completely different kind of printer, you have to deal with that. Well, theoretically,
Speaker 1: the cloud Print service is supposed to help you take
Speaker 1: care of that, and they want they don't want you
Speaker 1: to have to deal with all the little bits and
Speaker 1: pieces of a traditional operating system. And indeed, um, you know,
Speaker 1: we actually have an article about about this on the
Speaker 1: side written by Nathan Chandler, one of my other writers.
Speaker 1: Um and uh you know, based on his research, he
Speaker 1: found that Windows seven takes up to sixty times the
Speaker 1: disk space of Google's Chromos. That's huge and millions of
Speaker 1: lines of code. Now, of course, Windows seven will also
Speaker 1: let you use Windows programs, uh, you know, current Windows
Speaker 1: programs as well as software developed in the past, and
Speaker 1: a lot of instances. I mean, it can do a
Speaker 1: whole lot of things, but it's it's designed for a
Speaker 1: desktop or a laptop with a robust processor and a
Speaker 1: hard drive and possibly disc drives and things. The Google
Speaker 1: OS isn't really supposed to support all of that. They
Speaker 1: Google seems to intend it specifically for UH mobile computers,
Speaker 1: UH laptops and netbooks primarily. And they only are this
Speaker 1: is another departure I thought was fascinating. They only are
Speaker 1: installing it in an O e M basis original original
Speaker 1: equipment manufacturer. If you hear computer people talk about that,
Speaker 1: that's what they mean. It's installed at the factory. You
Speaker 1: don't download it if you want. If you have a
Speaker 1: computer now and are waiting for Google Cloud or the
Speaker 1: Chromos to come out, and because you wanted to download
Speaker 1: it and try it out, they say they're not going
Speaker 1: to do that. They're only going to pre install it
Speaker 1: on machines before they leave the factor. Yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: I mean in a way you can kind of understand
Speaker 1: that approach. I mean, for one thing, we're we're talking
Speaker 1: about an approach to computing that not everyone's going to
Speaker 1: be comfortable with. UM. For one thing, gaming is a
Speaker 1: big issue for some people. They say, well, if I
Speaker 1: have a cloud based computer, then that really limits what
Speaker 1: I can do as far as gaming is concerned. And um,
Speaker 1: I'm sure Google would say, yeah, this really wasn't intended
Speaker 1: for that. I mean, you could still play all the
Speaker 1: casual games that you find online, um, you know, like
Speaker 1: the flash based games and stuff, and you could use
Speaker 1: other services is to uh stream games to your your
Speaker 1: device potentially. Um, but that's you know, it's it's it
Speaker 1: does limit you as far as that goes. It also
Speaker 1: limits you, like you were saying, the kind of software
Speaker 1: you can use. Now again, Google could argue that using
Speaker 1: web based applications, ultimately the the opportunities are limitless, right
Speaker 1: that you you would have way more choice and uh
Speaker 1: and at a variety of price levels of various applications
Speaker 1: to do the things you need to do, and you
Speaker 1: wouldn't have to you know, download anything. You would essentially
Speaker 1: purchase it. The little icon would pop up on your
Speaker 1: screen and then just by clicking it, you would go
Speaker 1: to the cloud based service. Um. That's uh, that's pretty
Speaker 1: enticing to me, at least for at least for a
Speaker 1: secondary computer. And I don't know that I could use
Speaker 1: it as my primary machine. Um well, first of all,
Speaker 1: it would have to have applications that were there were
Speaker 1: compatible with the stuff that we you here in the office. UM.
Speaker 1: And in some cases that's just not gonna happen. I'd
Speaker 1: have to have I'd have to have a machine with
Speaker 1: a more powerful native capabilities and operating system that was
Speaker 1: computer based, not cloud based. Um. They also uh, but
Speaker 1: I should point out I feel compelled to point out. Um,
Speaker 1: you might think that you know it isn't with a
Speaker 1: new OS. Uh. Well, it's Linux based, so of course
Speaker 1: there are there are many, many, many Linux based apps,
Speaker 1: open source, UM and otherwise. But Google also has its
Speaker 1: own web store two for uh applications that you might
Speaker 1: run on the Google OS. So don't think that uh,
Speaker 1: it would be um uh you know, less likely to
Speaker 1: have a breadth of software. And of course if it succeeds,
Speaker 1: more people will develop for it. There will be people
Speaker 1: who are willing to give it a try. Certainly, UM,
Speaker 1: I don't know how compatible it is with traditional Linux applications.
Speaker 1: There may be a lot of them again, things like
Speaker 1: images probasit, thing like GEMP or Inkscape. Uh might be
Speaker 1: too much for an operating system like this, and it
Speaker 1: would have to be stored in the cloud. Again. UM,
Speaker 1: but you know, we'll kind of have to see how
Speaker 1: that goes. But it does. It doesn't seem like hardcore
Speaker 1: gamers or people who are doing a lot of high
Speaker 1: end digital editing, video editing, audio editing, people like that.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not really going to be useful for them,
Speaker 1: but for people who are doing day to day productivity stuff,
Speaker 1: especially stuff that you can do online. It is intended
Speaker 1: to be an online operating system after it, um, I
Speaker 1: think I think it may end up being useful and
Speaker 1: certainly affordable. Yeah, the online operating system is another really
Speaker 1: important part. We we kind of just assumed that when
Speaker 1: we started talking about this, but that that's something we
Speaker 1: should mention. Since this is cloud based and all these
Speaker 1: applications are essentially tied to the web. You have to
Speaker 1: have an Internet connection in order for this computer to
Speaker 1: actually be useful. It's funny you would mention that I
Speaker 1: found out something I did not know about the chromos.
Speaker 1: What's in doing research for this because I had heard
Speaker 1: some of this material. But uh, Chrome notebooks are actually
Speaker 1: going to have data plans from Verizon Wireless up to
Speaker 1: a hundred megabytes of free three G data every month
Speaker 1: for two years. Megas free that much. Um. But but
Speaker 1: then again, these these computers are supposed to have both
Speaker 1: WiFi and three G. So it's not like three G
Speaker 1: is the only way you get data. Like for most people,
Speaker 1: I think WiFi would be the primary way they would
Speaker 1: get data. So as long as you were in someplace
Speaker 1: where there was a WiFi hot spot, you'd be good
Speaker 1: to go. And when you're somewhere where there's not a
Speaker 1: WiFi hot spot, then hopefully you'd be able to access
Speaker 1: a three G data network. Yeah. Plus well, I mean
Speaker 1: WiFi is faster even three G UM. But yes, if
Speaker 1: you want to a limitless day pass, uh, you'd be
Speaker 1: paying per day for three G access or Verizon access.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Maybe it's orgy by next year, and
Speaker 1: depending on when this law launches. Um, if you want
Speaker 1: an additional one gigabyte of information per month, it's twenty dollars.
Speaker 1: Three gigabytes would be thirty five dollars, and five gigabytes
Speaker 1: additional would be fifty dollars per month. So that's pretty hefty.
Speaker 1: If you're planning on doing a lot of computing on
Speaker 1: the road, maybe for business that would be worth it
Speaker 1: because you could probably get reimbursed for that, But if
Speaker 1: this is for personal use, that may not be Uh,
Speaker 1: that may not be the best option for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean if you if you're able to click
Speaker 1: in on WiFi networks, like if you've got WiFi hotspots
Speaker 1: or you know, you're mainly using this around your home
Speaker 1: or office, it's not that's not going to be an issue.
Speaker 1: You can just use the WiFi to get access to
Speaker 1: the data and you don't have to worry about incurring fees,
Speaker 1: you know, going over your cap, unless, of course, your
Speaker 1: I s P has a cap for your just your
Speaker 1: regular Internet usage. Some some peas do, and some of
Speaker 1: the caps are I don't know. Relatively, it depends on
Speaker 1: who upon whom you ask. Um. I've heard one person
Speaker 1: sayifty gigabyte cap per month is low, yeah, and for me,
Speaker 1: two gigabytes is more than enough. But then she was
Speaker 1: specifically talking about being able to back up a full
Speaker 1: computer hard drive to the cloud. I think you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to do that more than once a month.
Speaker 1: If it were, you know, a really big hard drive
Speaker 1: and you were using a cloud based backup system, then
Speaker 1: you could only do it once or maybe not even once,
Speaker 1: depending on the size of your hard drive. Now I
Speaker 1: can't imagine doing that, um, But then it's because I
Speaker 1: don't tend to use the online data services for backing
Speaker 1: up my hard drive. It's funny you would say that,
Speaker 1: because I would think with the with Google's reputation of
Speaker 1: massive redundancy, and by redundancy if you're not familiar with
Speaker 1: that term, we mean Google servers have lots and lots
Speaker 1: of other servers with the same information on them. So
Speaker 1: if one of them breaks, basically Google is losing nothing
Speaker 1: because it's been the company backs up its own equipment.
Speaker 1: So I would imagine that if you had an account
Speaker 1: and had Google Chromos on your operating system, your information
Speaker 1: would all be backed up automatically by Google. And that
Speaker 1: is one of the things that they have have said that. Um,
Speaker 1: they're they're very strong on privacy. UM, they're very concerned
Speaker 1: with encrypting your information while it's on their servers. UM
Speaker 1: and sand boxing basically keeping viruses at in in a
Speaker 1: h quarantine quarantined environment, uh in order to prevent them
Speaker 1: from infecting the machines and infecting your information, um, you know,
Speaker 1: to the point where it becomes uh um corrupted, prevent
Speaker 1: anything from happening to it. Um you know they're they're
Speaker 1: they're talking those points up, So I would imagine it
Speaker 1: would be pretty safe. That the thing is cloud computing
Speaker 1: has a long running stigma for a lot of people
Speaker 1: that because that information is on you know, a computer
Speaker 1: or even multiple computers out there somewhere where they don't
Speaker 1: know where it is, it concerns them that someone could
Speaker 1: break in and and gain access to that information, possibly
Speaker 1: copy it, uh, sell it to people for for money,
Speaker 1: and who knows what all else. And you've got your
Speaker 1: sensitive information on there. Um Yes, the company, I'm sure
Speaker 1: we'll do its best to protect that information, but it's
Speaker 1: still causes people concerned. And I think that's why you
Speaker 1: see Google saying, hey, look it's all encrypted, it's all safe,
Speaker 1: it's all backed up. You know, no, nothing to worry
Speaker 1: about here. It's a it's a There two sides to
Speaker 1: that story. One side is that companies, big companies like Google,
Speaker 1: we'll be able to afford and design much tighter security
Speaker 1: measures than your average user is going to have access to.
Speaker 1: And most I'm gonna say most users don't aren't nearly
Speaker 1: as secure as they need to be. You know, they
Speaker 1: they have poor password protection. A lot of them are
Speaker 1: using open networks, although I'm seeing fewer cases of that.
Speaker 1: Now I'm seeing more people actually secure their wireless networks,
Speaker 1: which is nice, um, But I mean, it's just that
Speaker 1: people don't tend to practice very strong security measures. So
Speaker 1: you can say, well, Google is going to use state
Speaker 1: of the art security, so that's a good thing. However,
Speaker 1: Google is also a huge company and therefore, by virtue
Speaker 1: of being a big company is a big target. Each
Speaker 1: individual user out there using the Internet is not a
Speaker 1: huge target. Now that that you could still fall prey
Speaker 1: to scams or phishing attempts, that kind of thing, but
Speaker 1: it's not Most of us don't have a target on
Speaker 1: our backs. You know, we aren't walking around with with
Speaker 1: hackers looking to get access specifically to our machine. They
Speaker 1: want access to machines. They don't care who it happens
Speaker 1: to be, right, So you could argue, well, Google's better protected,
Speaker 1: but it's also a more empting targets. So you got
Speaker 1: to weigh both of those things against one another, and
Speaker 1: then you say, well, our Google security measure is going
Speaker 1: to be strong enough so that it doesn't matter that
Speaker 1: Google is a bigger target um or you know, it
Speaker 1: also depends on what you use your computer for. If
Speaker 1: you're not using your computer to do a lot of
Speaker 1: sensitive information kind of stuff. Like if you're not doing
Speaker 1: a lot of online shopping or online banking. Um, if
Speaker 1: you're not, you know, posting secret messages to that gal
Speaker 1: you like who happens to be dating the really huge
Speaker 1: football player and you don't want the football player finding
Speaker 1: out about it, that kind of stuff. Um, if you're
Speaker 1: not doing any of that, then maybe these aren't even
Speaker 1: concerns for you. But if you do tend to put uh,
Speaker 1: like if you do tend to shop online, or you
Speaker 1: do online banking, or you do you know, you you
Speaker 1: you do things like you manage benefits or medical records
Speaker 1: or anything like that online, it becomes a concern. Um,
Speaker 1: there are other concerns to you. I mean, like there's
Speaker 1: always a concern of well, if I lose connection to
Speaker 1: the Internet for some reason, then I lose all access
Speaker 1: to all my data. So let's say that there's some
Speaker 1: massive failure in WiFi and three G service, which at
Speaker 1: this point you're thinking, well, I probably have other things
Speaker 1: to worry about. But if if there were such a problem,
Speaker 1: then you would not be able to access your information
Speaker 1: anymore unless you were able to store at least some
Speaker 1: of it locally to your computer, whereas if you had
Speaker 1: your own computer, assuming that you still had power, you'd
Speaker 1: be able to access that. I don't know that what
Speaker 1: good it's gonna do at that point, with you know,
Speaker 1: the world apparently coming to an end around you, at
Speaker 1: least digitally speaking. But um, it's one of those things
Speaker 1: that people they kind of react to this idea of well,
Speaker 1: there could something could go wrong and I would no
Speaker 1: longer be able to get to the things that are mine. Um.
Speaker 1: And part of that I think is also just a
Speaker 1: sense of ownership, like when when your data rests on
Speaker 1: someone else's machine, it almost feels like you don't own it,
Speaker 1: you know, so it becomes and depending upon the way
Speaker 1: service agreements are worded, sometimes you don't own that at
Speaker 1: least you know, if those agreements were to hold up
Speaker 1: in court. Um, we haven't really seen that play out
Speaker 1: to any extent, like someone come challenging a a uh
Speaker 1: website or service saying okay, well, I know I uploaded
Speaker 1: my photos to your site, but that doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: own them. We'd have to see that kind of played
Speaker 1: out all the way through to find out, you know
Speaker 1: what the courts have to say about that. But I mean,
Speaker 1: these are those issues around cloud computing. It's existed since
Speaker 1: cloud computing really started up as an idea, and they
Speaker 1: have not really all been resolved yet. It's still i
Speaker 1: would say, cloud computing still pretty young concept. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's funny too. When we started talking about this,
Speaker 1: I I started thinking specifically about Google's compe Titian unwittingly
Speaker 1: helping it because I would say, probably most people aren't
Speaker 1: really aware that there is a Google Chrome OS. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, I think it's out there, but because it
Speaker 1: hasn't actually been released, UM, it's not really on a
Speaker 1: lot of people's radar. Now. Microsoft has currently has a
Speaker 1: uh cloud um ad campaign going on right now talking
Speaker 1: about the benefits of cloud computing and how you can
Speaker 1: use Windows to access information that is stored in the cloud.
Speaker 1: And I think it's kind of funny because right now
Speaker 1: Google's marketing legwork is all being done by it's arguably
Speaker 1: biggest competition, UM. Because once Microsoft educates people about this,
Speaker 1: when Google's Chrome OS is released, UM, they're Google is
Speaker 1: not going to have nearly as much work to do
Speaker 1: explain to to the layman what UH cloud computing is
Speaker 1: and the benefits of using it. They're gonna be able
Speaker 1: to say this is cloud computing Google style, and and
Speaker 1: you know you've already you already know what this is.
Speaker 1: Now here's how we do it, and it's going to
Speaker 1: be faster and better with the Chromos. And I started
Speaker 1: thinking about, wow, you know what, this is completely coincidental,
Speaker 1: I guess, because Microsoft wouldn't necessarily want to promote Google's
Speaker 1: new operating system. But this has come out in the
Speaker 1: last month or two, the ads that I've seen uh
Speaker 1: here late in so I thought about that and thought,
Speaker 1: you know what, that's that's kind of ironic. And I
Speaker 1: wonder if they're going to be regretting having taught people
Speaker 1: with the cloud is now. On the other hand, they've
Speaker 1: got a head start, um, you know, for using cloud
Speaker 1: computing as a marketing tool. But I don't think it's
Speaker 1: going to take Google much longer to get the Chromos
Speaker 1: out the door. And we'll see what happens then. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting because, um, one other thing I wanted to
Speaker 1: mention something something that published just recently as of the
Speaker 1: recording of this put guess anyway, was an interview on
Speaker 1: Business Insider with Paul Buchite, and I have no idea
Speaker 1: if I said his last name correctly or not. B
Speaker 1: U c h h E I t uh. He was
Speaker 1: an early employee of Google. Yeah, he was one of
Speaker 1: the first twenty five employees. I think something along those lines.
Speaker 1: He was also the guy who was essentially behind Gmail.
Speaker 1: That was his big project, and he left Google. Um.
Speaker 1: He worked with Facebook for a while then left that.
Speaker 1: But he had some interesting things to say about Google
Speaker 1: recently to Business Insider, and one of the things he
Speaker 1: said was he expected Chromos to fail. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: attributed that not to any inherent flaw with Chromos, but
Speaker 1: rather because the Android operating system has gathered so much
Speaker 1: steam that it's that's going to to cannibalize the Chromos
Speaker 1: operating system. And people are going to say, well, so
Speaker 1: the question we made at the very beginning, why should
Speaker 1: I get Chromos when Android is already out there? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Well they are they are designed for different devices. There
Speaker 1: are people who think that mac os ten and iOS
Speaker 1: are going to merge um and I think there are
Speaker 1: some similarities there, but I think there is a benefit
Speaker 1: to keeping them separate, as we were talking about before,
Speaker 1: because the iOS will run on devices that just simply
Speaker 1: cannot run the macOS, and the mac OS is far
Speaker 1: more robust and supports a far greater range of applications
Speaker 1: um and the iOS can ever support, but it needs
Speaker 1: a faster and more heavy duty processor operate and that
Speaker 1: would be uh, that would be sort of similar to
Speaker 1: this situation. But the Chromos isn't really designed to run
Speaker 1: on you know, a desktop, heavy duty machine, a pro
Speaker 1: level machine. Well, and and not all the apps on
Speaker 1: Android are cloud based either. A lot of them exist
Speaker 1: on top of the hardware of the actual handheld device.
Speaker 1: So so it's not exactly the same approach as Chromos
Speaker 1: in the first place. And I'm not sure that the
Speaker 1: Android experience would translate well to a computer, um like
Speaker 1: a like a laptop or or netbook or anything like that.
Speaker 1: It's it's meant for a different kind of of computing.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, Apple's really proven, uh that
Speaker 1: there are two different ways to use these kind of devices.
Speaker 1: And I say that because the success of the iPad,
Speaker 1: because Steve Jobs recognize that there there's a mobile way
Speaker 1: of browsing the Internet and using a computing device that
Speaker 1: is a lot different from the computer approach, which I
Speaker 1: would argue, is why there are you know, why the
Speaker 1: iPad uses iOS instead of a version of macOS because
Speaker 1: it you know, it's designed to do computing in a
Speaker 1: different way. So we'll see if the chromos is going
Speaker 1: to make an impact. I mean it's early days yet,
Speaker 1: the beta program just launched. As of the recording of
Speaker 1: this pod, guest Um, I actually applied for it. I
Speaker 1: have not received my CR forty eight yet. Um. Actually,
Speaker 1: I have no idea if they would even pick me.
Speaker 1: I would love to get my hands on one just
Speaker 1: to try it out and you know, see see exactly
Speaker 1: you know what I can do and what I can't do,
Speaker 1: and and really take it for a spin. Plus, I
Speaker 1: think that the it's kind of got an appealing bare
Speaker 1: bones designed to that laptop, right, And that's one of
Speaker 1: the other elements that we didn't really address here, um,
Speaker 1: but we can. We can just mention it very quickly
Speaker 1: before we wrap up. One of the reasons why a
Speaker 1: cloud based operating system may be really attractive is that
Speaker 1: you don't have to have such advanced hardware, so you
Speaker 1: can have cheaper computers because you know, you don't have
Speaker 1: to have a computer capable of running of really you know,
Speaker 1: processor heavy operating system, so you don't need the most
Speaker 1: advanced processor, you don't need all those uh you know,
Speaker 1: if your processor is not gonna be running super hot,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna need great ventilation and fans. I mean,
Speaker 1: you start to really cut down on the costs for
Speaker 1: the devices, which can in theory make computing even cheaper. Well. Um,
Speaker 1: and another thing that that I wanted to address really
Speaker 1: quickly is and then we didn't really cover the whole thing.
Speaker 1: It's really strange. It's Linux based, but everything runs essentially
Speaker 1: out of the Chrome browser. The Chrome browser is a
Speaker 1: building block of the Chromos And I'm still interested to
Speaker 1: see again, if you were accepted to the program, the
Speaker 1: beta program, I would like to see how you're supposed
Speaker 1: to run other applications on that platform. If everything runs
Speaker 1: essentially through the the Chrome browser, how other applications factor
Speaker 1: into that. And I'm used to things like Google Docs
Speaker 1: or Aviary or you know, Photoshop dot com, things that
Speaker 1: you can do where they are applications, but they are
Speaker 1: essentially on the web already. If you're installing theoretically installing
Speaker 1: other applications into your Chromos experience, how does that work exactly?
Speaker 1: Do you do you go to a website or does
Speaker 1: it run alongside the browser. I'm interested to see how
Speaker 1: that works. It's it's difficult for me to understand without
Speaker 1: actually having an opportunity to try it out for myself,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of our our listeners would
Speaker 1: probably agree it's it's kind of a different concept and
Speaker 1: it might require a hands on approach to really get it.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure a few of them already have this
Speaker 1: computer actually, based upon emails that I've received. Well, they
Speaker 1: need to tell us what's going on. Yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 1: guys gotta hook hook us up. You know we we
Speaker 1: do not have the bat line directly into Google headquarters, Yes, Commissioner,
Speaker 1: not anymore. Yeah, yeah, that was a couple of years
Speaker 1: ago when we had that. Yeah, it's pretty cool. So
Speaker 1: that it all communicated in high pitched squeaks beyond the
Speaker 1: range of human hearing. That was a little irritating. Beyond that,
Speaker 1: it was awesome, And they expected us to know what
Speaker 1: was going on down They need to start listening to
Speaker 1: our podcast more often and they would know you have
Speaker 1: no idea what's going on? All right, Well, with that,
Speaker 1: let's wrap this up. This was another fun episode. If
Speaker 1: you guys have any suggestions for topics, or you want
Speaker 1: to chime in on a discussion about chromos and cloud computing,
Speaker 1: let us know on Facebook and Twitter are handle There
Speaker 1: is text stuff h s W or you can shoot
Speaker 1: us an email. That address is tech stuff at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com and Chris and I will talk
Speaker 1: to you again really soon. For more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast
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