racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

Google’s Chrome OS has been a novelty because of the idea of putting everything on the Web. Now that Apple will be releasing its upcoming OS X Lion soon, it seems they’re taking a page out of the Chrome OS playbook by adding a browser-only mode.

Beta versions of Mac OS X Lion feature a “restart to Safari” mode, which can be used to leave your current session and open a browser-only session, sans the desktop, finder, dock and other desktop UI elements. You’re basically left with something like Chrome OS’ interface–just the browser.

This option can be accessed from the user lock/login screen, which means you can boot right into Safari-only mode if you don’t want to access your desktop. Perhaps this is some form of guest-only mode. Some early reviewers say it’s a good way to troubleshoot your computer in case a catastrophic error happens and you need to research how to troubleshoot. Still, with Lion’s new auto save and and restore capabilities, you can return to your regular desktop and all your apps and sessions will still be there.

Will this new feature be a challenge to Chrome OS? Probably not, since Chrome OS was designed primarily to be a browser-only OS. OS X Lion, on the other hand, is a full-fledged desktop operating system and you would need to boot it up until the login screen before you can access Safari. In contrast, Chrome OS promises to be lighter and quicker, although you will need access to either a Wi-Fi network or 3G. Then, there’s the price. If you compare prices, the latest Chromebooks from Acer and Samsung are about half or almost a third the price of the cheapest MacBook.

Will OS X Lion’s browser-only mode put Chromebooks to shame?

For those who have rooted their Android Phones, here’s some bad news for you: You won’t be able to rent movies from Android Market.

The reason according to Google:

“You’ll receive this ‘Error 49′ message if you attempt to play a movie on a rooted device. Rooted devices are currently unsupported due to requirements related to copyright protection,”

Is Google actively pushing out people who’ve decided to hack their Android OS Phones into CyanogenMod and Replicant?

Nevertheless, knowing how hackers are such an innovative group, they’ll find a way to get around this problem and be able to rent and run movies from the Android Market in a couple of weeks … but until then, better stick to http://www.lovefilm.com/.

Article from PC Mag | Image By Cyanogen (Steve Kondik) http://www.cyanogenmod.com and Android Developers http://developer.android.com/index.html (ZTE Blade) [see page for license], via Wikimedia Commons

Business is business. If you can take out a competitor by being the best at your line of business or services all the better. But what if the one who wanted you erased was already the best at what they do? This is the case of Facebook vs. Google.

Facebook admitted to hiring a PR Firm, Burson-Marsteller, to spread news about how Google’s “Social Circles” is violating privacy rights.

As several reports have detailed this week, two former journalists now employed by Burson — John Mercurio, late of Roll Call, CNN, and National Journal; and CNBC’s erstwhile Silicon Valley correspondent Jim Goldman — were making the rounds pitching this hooey to various outlets in an attempt to capitalize on Google’s increasing tangles with the feds, and intense public interest in online privacy.

Wow, talk about kicking a guy when he’s down. Facebook has already passed Google as being the most visited site of 2010 and they still want to depreciate its obscure GMail feature.

Both companies will survive this brouhaha, but for the meantime Facebook looks just like a bully.

Article via: Wired | Image By Facebook (facebook.com website) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Google just announced the Chromebook. A notebook with the Chrome Operating System in it. It allows the user to have no other program on it except the browser: Chrome.

If you aren’t familiar with it yet, it’s basically a netbook that uses only the cloud (in this case, Google’s web apps) as its Office Suite. The user can save his or her files to the cloud. Although it does have offline features for some of the critical web apps, you will still largely depend on being connected to the web to use the Chromebook.

Chromebooks will be made available on June 15 in the following countries:

• US
• UK
• France
• Germany
• Netherlands
• Italy
• Spain

Article via: Google Blog | Image via Chromebook site

It seems that Apple wasn’t the only one tracking locations but Google does so as well.

Google and other mobile ad metrics companies like Flurry and Mobclix is being sued for supposedly data location/device identification numbers harvesting and introducing a code that sends back metrics to them.

The complaint asserts that Android users have downloaded apps that include embedded information-harvesting code–APIs for gathering advertising and app usage metrics–that sends detailed information about users, including their locations and unique mobile identifiers, to mobile advertising companies.

All of the three defendants: Google, Mobclix, and Flurry gave no comment as the investigation is underway.

Article via Information Week | Image via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)