Google's Amazing Browser Experiments 234
Barence writes "On the day that Microsoft launches Internet Explorer 8, Google has unveiled a new site that showcases the Javascript performance of its Chrome browser. Called Chrome Experiments, the site includes 19 extraordinary animated games and widgets that push the browser to its limits. One experiment, called Browser Ball allows you to 'throw' a bouncing ball from one browser window to the next. Google Gravity, on the other hand, collapses the normal Google homepage into a pile at the bottom of the screen. However, you can still enter search terms into the box and watch the results drop from the top of the browser window."
I'll take my Firefox add-ons instead , thanks (Score:1, Insightful)
Hello Slashdot..? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a story: On the day Microsoft releases IE 8 -- the most popular web browser in the world -- Slashdot doesn't mention it, but posts a trivial article about Google Chrome benchmarks.
Limited platforms (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what it's all about in the demoscene, right? People are in awe when they see what you can do in 64kB on a PC and what a 6502 can do with cycle-exact programming. Yet anyone interested more in results than in technical experiments will simply expand the platform and make these demos look like child's play, because that's what they are: An exercise in testing the limits of a very limited platform. HTML and the javascript browser API should never have become the basis of a UI standard. The privacy problems, performance deficiencies and the baroque API will haunt us for decades. Look ma, I'm using a 2GHz dual-core processor to simulate a couple of 2D balls bouncing around in almost fluid motion.
What's the point (Score:2, Insightful)
Firefox and it's addons allow me to do anything that I want and more. Although I do like Google chrome I'm sticking with Firefox. They develop for the sake of improvement and not just for the sake of "look at me!!" like apparently Google does.
Linkage (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'll take my Firefox add-ons instead , thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hello Slashdot..? (Score:3, Insightful)
IE8 is not the most popular browser in the world since no one uses it currently, and I rather doubt it will gain the dominance ie6 once had.
Four words "to little to late"!
Re:Hello Slashdot..? (Score:2, Insightful)
Besides that wake me up, when Microsoft finally will implement ecmascript 4.0 (never everyone should use silverlight instead) and svg and when it does more than 20% in ACID3!!!
IE8 is an important release for Microsoft heads who do not have recognized that the world has moved 5 years along and is five years ahead of ie8 standardswise! But besides that it personally leaves me cold, because I know that the web again will be slowed down in the possibilities by this release for at least another 5-6 years. Hell there are even people who insist on ie5.5...
Sorry but if I could i would not even test anymore against ie8 but leave the Microsoft using people out in the cold with a decent link to the latest safari/firefox/chrome you name it!
Re:Works in Safari too (Score:3, Insightful)
...Apple is hoping will make the lack of flash on the iPhone a moot point.
This certainly does make Flash obsolete. What we really need now is an open source program that makes creating such content as simple as it is in Flash.
Re:Hello Slashdot..? (Score:5, Insightful)
Tinfoil hats... Go!
Re:so nothing that's actually useful, then? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously though, what exactly is accomplished here?
First and foremost it's a marketing stunt. If you launch an "experiment" in any other browser than Google Chrome they warn you that it might not work (but allow you to "Roll the dice" and try.
Second, it shows that it's possible to do pretty things using the common web standards alone, without proprietary plugins like flash or silverlight.
I'd rather see that time spent getting a proper version for Linux, and extension support.
That's really close minded. The teams working on Chromium/Google Chrome are not the people behind these demos and the lack of Linux and extension support is being worked on - I'd rather wait a little longer than them becoming a major clusterfuck. Besides, these demos are really just a fun prove of concept.
Javascript performance (Score:5, Insightful)
There's been a lot of stories lately about new browser releases and how they have the fastest Javascript performance yet.
I asked why Javascript performance was such a big deal, and I didn't feel any answers I got were particularly convincing.
These experiments however have answered my question much more convincingly, the answer is not that existing applications need it but that future innovations in Javascript can achieve some pretty amazing things if Javascript implementations are efficient enough.
Re:Hello Slashdot..? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just to give a serious answer. Microsoft has lost the minds of the developers with their IE6 shenannigangs, it is their luck that this has not trickled down to the average users and corporate departements.
But even if Microsoft would come out with a browser 10 years ahead of the competition (which they clearly wont they just have reached the years 2003 given the state of ie8) it would get a lukewarm response. With IE6 and stopping the development for 6 years because there was no competition while everyone moved forward, and having to feel the pain to support it up until now, there is probably not a single web developer out there on this world who does not hate Microsoft!
If you have to sink 20-30% of additional time into this browser if you get beaten constantly because there are some issues exactly on this browser and that goes on for years, there is no way in heaven or hell Microsoft could redeem itself in the eyes of the people who had to suffer through the IE6 for so many years!
Re:Limited platforms (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:'Useful' example (Score:1, Insightful)
For those complaining that none of the examples do anything 'useful', check out this- a js animated sphere of your blog tags:
You wanted to find something so mindbogglingly stupid that we'd all forget the other examples didn't do anything useful?
Seriously, if you have a couple of links to display...display the damn text. Having to hover the mouse around and wait until the tag you want to surface to where you can click it is the farthest thing from "useful" I can think of.
Very useful, in fact! (Score:3, Insightful)
>Second, it shows that it's possible to do pretty things using the common web standards alone, without proprietary plugins like flash or silverlight.
THIS RIGHT HERE!
The whole point of this is to show that there is no need for stupid plugins like Flash and Silverlight.
When HTML5 comes around with support for Video and Audio, the experiments that depended on Flash can be amended to work with them.
When i saw these experiments, i cried manly tears of joy.
Let this be the beginning of the end!
To hell with plugins!
Re:Limited platforms (Score:3, Insightful)
"HTML and the javascript browser API should never have become the basis of a UI standard."
Amen. The problem is that some people believe that their work doesn't count unless they do it the hard way.
Re:What's the point (Score:3, Insightful)
Look, we all know where this is headed. Google is a web based company and they want to develop web based applications. Think about all they are doing in this space. Things like Chrome and that Native API browser stuff. They want to deliver applications over the web and are exploring all the possibilities to get the performance they need.
Web-delivered full-scale applications is what Google's goal is, I just know it. It's like a throwback to the Java days, but different.
I don't see a better alternative (Score:3, Insightful)
As a cross-platform UI standard that allows a mix of server-side and client-side code for server-hosted apps that nonetheless can run on high-latency links, Ajaxy HTML with the HTML5 extensions doesn't seem terrible. It certainly has much better performance than doing something equivalent in X11 over ssh, for example.
Re:Obvious user question (Score:5, Insightful)
... get where this one is going?
HR is full of morons? Seriously, on the corporate intelligence scale, people in HR rank only slightly above the people that sweep the floor.
Re:Obvious user question (Score:4, Insightful)
I beg to differ. Many people sweeping floors are very intelligent and educated, but through accidents of birth or geography have been forced to flee dangerous conditions in a 3rd world country. Since there is a failaure of western countries to recognize experience or academic credentials of foriegners, these people are forced into low level unskilled jobs to support themselves and their families.
In many cases the people sweeping the floors are more intelligent than the HR people.
Re:Obvious user question (Score:3, Insightful)
people in HR rank only slightly above the people that sweep the floor.
With no exaggeration, I can say that the people who sweep the floor provide a much more useful service than most HR departments. I wouldn't impugn their intelligence (or species for that matter) by suggesting they are inferior to HR.