Google’s announcement regarding the imminent availability of Chromebooks running Chrome OS hoists a further flag for the future of computing: it’s in the cloud. The two newly detailed bits of hardware are designed basically as web based platforms – they are not there to store files or programs, but to interface with cloud based services and storage. Effectively this is what tablet computing has also been based on, so it really should come as no surprise, but it certainly does help to point the way forward. If you don’t want to buy another netbook, by the way, Chromium OS is available as freeware, and can be downloaded to a memory stick and installed on an existing machine (in theory – we haven’t tested it!).If you are all going to be working in the cloud then you will need some storage space to put your files in. A new one came to our attention this week in MiMedia. You get 7Gb free, which is a pretty reasonable starting point, and is probably sufficient for many to use as a back-up facility. For general cloud space for current projects check out Dropbox, with 2Gb free, and Boxnet, providing you with 5Gb of easily synced space. Actually add them all together and you will probably have enough space for most of your needs! Just for the record, much of this publication has been keyed remotely via an iPhone, Apple Bluetooth keyboard, and cloud space from Dropbox, swiftly synced on return to base using QuickSync. If you need more free space than these services offer, you can always buy more from each of them, or those dear chaps at Microsoft can provide you with SkyDrive to give you a whopping 25Gb online for free!
Regular computing might require the very best of browsers to take advantage of cloud services, and this latest test of the best offers some interesting results. Google’s Chrome browser takes the top two positions, and Opera then bounds into 3rd and 4th slots, before a Beta version of the next Firefox. Note the lowly position of various versions of Internet Explorer. If you are using these, then maybe you urgently need to get something from higher up the listing! Just for the record, this week Google Chrome celebrated hitting 160 million users.In tablet talk, as Google was giving a shed load of these devices away this week at its I/O conference, we had to take a closer look at the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. Running Google’s latest Android variant – Honeycomb, specifically devised for tablets – this unit has been given some very positive comments. Perhaps here Samsung has its first serious contender in the tablet market.
In the UK a new campaign has been launched to help get more people onto the net. Some 100,000 volunteers will help Race Online 2012 to get millions more people online – it is suggested that over 9 million people in the UK have never used the internet. Strangely the number is roughly similar to those people in the over 65 (men) and over 60 (women) age group. Good luck to the volunteers – sorry, but I think it could be hard going!Getting back to the more mundane subject of books, one potentially huge sector of the e-book market is in student text arena. The guys at Mashable tell us this week about six companies aiming to digitize the textbook industry.
Meanwhile, in newspaper world: The Sun has decided against a paywall for its web based offering; whilst Metro has produced an A5 “pocket sized” guide to summer entertainment – the first such publication that it has produced as a giveaway with its free paper. Some 300,000 guides were produced with distribution taking place on Friday May 13.QR codes continue to grow at an astonishing rate, and continue to find new applications - 101 are on offer in that little link! One digital guru forecasts a QR explosion over the next two years.
Meanwhile, some interesting numbers from Business Insider suggest, in their words, that the iPad is becoming the only PC that matters. Forbes seems to agree with its take on why publishers are finally saying “yes” to Apple.In the world of digital print equipment, the team at Morgana are celebrating a record quarter at the beginning of 2011. With worldwide sales reaching a record high, it would certainly appear that recent product introductions have had the desired effect.
Finally, do keep checking back to see what will be featured in our next edition, PIND 53. Details of our next edition will be added to this link during the course of the week. For an RSS feed of PIND, copy this link into your feed reeder; and for the GenesisNews Print Daily, take a look at the link and take out a free subscription!
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