Chrome OS Receives Extreme Makeover With Material Design and Google Now 112
MojoKid writes Late last week, Google quietly began inviting people to opt into the beta channel for ChromeOS to help the company "shape the future" of the OS. Some betas can be riskier than others, but Google says that opting into this one is just a "little risk", one that will pay off handsomely for those who crave new features. New in this version is Chrome Launcher 2.0, which gives you quick access to a number of common features, including the apps you use most often (examples are Hangouts, Calculator, and Files). Some apps have also received a fresh coat of paint, such as the file manager. Google notes that this is just the start, so there will be more updates rolling out to the beta OS as time goes on. Other key features available in this beta include the ability to extract pass protected Zip archives, as well as a perk for travelers. ChromeOS will now automatically detect your new timezone, and then update the time and date accordingly.
Not a huge change. (Score:4, Informative)
Honestly, the most noticeable change was that the font changed on the tabs and URL bar.
Re: Not a huge change. (Score:2)
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Can you see with the roof of your mouth? Ahh, you meant palette.
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Honestly, the most noticeable change was that the font changed on the tabs and URL bar.
Oh gawd, this obviously means that Firefox will have to make the same change in their Chrome-clone browser. I dread it every time Google makes a change because I know it'll be in the next release of Chromefox...
OS versus apps versus UI (Score:2)
You know, by now I'm used to articles in the mainstream news who confuse an operating system, applications (which may or may not ship with an operating system), and the look/feel that a particular GUI puts on both. However, a web site like Slashdot - self-proclaimed home of "news for geeks" - should be able to do a little bit better.
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! IS THIS FOR REAL? (Score:1)
HOLY MOTHER OF FUCK, is this for real?
I've just been reading The systemd Project Forks the Linux Kernel [distrowatch.com] from DistroWatch, which I presume is what you were referring to.
This isn't an April Fool's Day joke, is it? It is dated March 30, so I have to assume that it isn't.
Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. Systemd is utterly destroying the Linux community. It's doing this so much better than Microsoft or SCO could have ever done.
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if they just actually did that and made systemd only work with that fork, maybe, mayyybe distro maintainers would wake up and smell the coffee and tell them to fuck off.
the systemd guys want to create a distro around the init system eventually anyways.
Re:JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! IS THIS FOR REAL? (Score:4, Informative)
The supposed source Ivan Gotyaovich does not appear to be exist, and the "Gotya" is a bit of a hint.
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Paranoia Strikes Deep (Score:2)
You don't know anything about what you're talking about, per the usual. It looks like you've been listening to gweihir too much. There were at least two other projects looking to replace init, and half a dozen more providing some form of process tracking. Lumping two things that you hate and fear together must feel good, but systemd's development and adoptation has been a public process, and both systemd and pulseaudio offer important technical improvements (that apparently you don't understand). I realize
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Do regale me with your interpretation of what "appeal to emotion" means. I didn't address most of what you wrote, you're right. You don't really have a clue what you're writing about and I would rather have you shut up (or at least tone down the paranoia) instead of taking the time to educate you. It's not your field, you don't understand what is happening or why, it's better if you just stick to your expertise.
If there is one point of confusion that I do want to clear up, it would be that systemd is not a
VM Version available? (Score:2)
I would like to run this as a secure browser in a VM that I can revert to a clean state regularly.
The only ChromeOS VMs I've seen are very old. Anyone know of a good source for current ChromeOS as a (vmware) VM?
Material Designnot really suit for an OS (Score:1)
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don't worry, they'll release something other to be the end-all UI style next december.
yeah.. that's their fault. the problem with say android is not how it looks, it's that they keep changing the visual guideline every year to something different.
the result is that nobody even tries to follow it.
Mmmm delicious material design (Score:4, Interesting)
Contextless, textless, unlabelled icons I take it then?
No separation of data using small 1 pixel width dividing lines, shading, or anything really, just one big flat white (or whatever colour they choose) mess?
Difficulty in easily identifying data because it's not highlighted or accentuated in any particular way?
Yep, love that material design. It's clever stuff.
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but but it's google! so it must be wholesome and good while innovating and saving the earth
i swear the google zombies are worse than apple fanboys.
yeah google used to be good now it is destroyed by MBAs
who wants to sort email anyway.....
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Why not merge with Android, already? (Score:2)
Why not merge with Android, already?
My Chromebooks are pretty poor performers and as the months move on they get slowly worse.
Why haven't Google already replaced the ad-hoc, stripped-down Linux distribution with their much more sucdessful other ad-hoc, stripped-down Linux distribution?
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Why not merge with Android, already?
Android is unable to do any of the things that make ChromeOS worth buying, such as:
- update all the devices together, with the same unbloated version, direct from Google, signed by Google (not the manufacturer), and allow developer access to run any code you want that can't be turned off by the manufacturer
- promise updates for at least five years after end-of-sale
- update in a painless manner, free from interrupting dialogs where the user equivocates over the update, consents to it
Re:Chrome OS is a joke (Score:5, Insightful)
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If you mount it on your wall, sure. But a laptop on my lap fills up my field of view much more than the 40" TV in my living room does.
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Not if you already have it like that.
Re:Chrome OS is a joke (Score:4, Informative)
No? Watching http://trailers.divx.com/divx_... [divx.com] just fine on my Acer C720; CPU hasn't bumped over over 40%.
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I downloaded it, and played it off my chromebook's SSD. If I had wanted, I could have thrown it on an external hard drive or USB stick.
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Link me a test file to play, and I'll play it and let you know how it goes.
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Nah, then you'll come back at me with "oh no, I meant the SuperSecretUltra H264 profile, the "High 10" profile isn't good enough for the real modern world. What's with only using ASCII characters in the subtitles - everyone knows that the cost of supporting UTF-8's extended character set is essential for everyone's laptop and also going to magically kill your computer's performance."
If you cared at all about actual real life rather than FUD, it'd be easy to link me one.
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burden of proof is on the person who made the assertion ("chromeos pants heavily when you watch a 1080p MKV on it"). :)
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I asserted that "an obsolete video format knowing that nobody uses DivX or considers it a viable codec any more" plays just fine, and it does. :)
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Because I already own the fucking video. What would you do, convert it just because "hey it ain't fittin'"?
I can watch 1080p MKVs on my crappy Samsung S4 Mini without a hitch, it works, doesn't consume much power (30% battery for a 2h long movie is pretty darn good) and yeah the phone resolution is crap but I don't care. I care about playing the damn video.
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This guy did: https://rolandh31.wordpress.co... [wordpress.com]
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Please tell... which computer and software would you use to convert a 10 GB large, 2h long 1080p video to 1366x768 in 2 minutes? Keeping embedded subtitles in is a requirement.
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So close to 8 minutes on a top machine. Not two.
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Absolutely no problem on my Acer Chromebook 13. 1080p60 Youtube videos play just fine, too.
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Or a movie coming off torrents in that format.
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you're only giving google a head start on tracking your kids' every move online. not the greatest move a parent can make.
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Out of interest, do you have any evidence that they are tracking people's every move online? I think it would be a big scandal if it were true.
For example, obviously they scan Gmail accounts to deliver targeted advertising, but do you have evidence that if you use a Yahoo email account they monitor the content of your email?
What about your Facebook posts, do they read those? Or your online banking sessions, do they track them?
Or did you mean something else by "tracking your kids' every move"?
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So the anonymous coward gets modded 3, informative for making an unfounded blanket statement of paranoia, and you get modded 2 for pointing out multiple ways he's wrong. Except for the fact that this dynamic is the new standard for the cesspool Slasdot comments have become, it's all pretty silly.
And it has nothing to do with the merits or shortcomings of ChromeOS. Any website that tracks you (be it Google's or anyone else's) tracks you pretty much regardless of what platform/browser you're using to access
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"New standard", hah. It's been this bad for the better part of a decade. That's part of the reason why RON PAUL was so big here.
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I'd rather pay $250 for a real laptop running an OS that has an actual software library. I'd also rather keep MY data to myself instead of storing it online where some corporation has full access to it and that requires an internet connection just to get at it.
Some of us use computers for more than Facebook and YouTube.
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"Some of us use computers for more than Facebook and YouTube."
The smugness here is pathetic.
Re:Chrome OS is a joke (Score:4, Insightful)
>>Could you imagine a prospective employee showing up to an interview with a P.O.S chromebook instead of a macbook?
Depends on the job person is applying to. If in the course of work his only tool is browser - then chromebook is a sign that this person knows his stuff and doesn't feel uncontrollable compultion to buy bling-bling stuff just because it's trendy and cool.
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Why is someone taking a laptop into an interview?
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I know- it's so terrible to have a sub-$200 laptop
that would be nice, in reality new Chromebook Pixel is $999, £670, AU$1,320
Re:Chrome OS is a joke (Score:5, Informative)
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And I see plenty of sub-$200 Windows laptops, which are far more useful.
Sure. Windows. Useful.
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and those are shite.
look, you can buy a crappy windows laptop for the same price.
which gets us to: do you want to buy a laptop that does one thing or a real laptop? with both you can use the cloud apps.
Re:Chrome OS is a joke (Score:4, Informative)
Now I realize some people want a mobile primary computer and this isn't the machine for them. Judging by the tablet market, people are quite happy to get machines that do one thing, so maybe it would be better if you saw this as a cheap tablet with a keyboard and USB ports.
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everything stored in the cloud
As a parent you are supposed to be protecting your children, not selling their souls to the most convenient advertising agency.
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I love my Chromebook. I use Chrubuntu and/or Chroots in developer mode when I'm not traveling. The ARM architecture has incidentally given me an incentive to become much better at compiling from binary. If you don't want to do that: there are plenty of x86/x64 Chromebooks to choose from.
Every time I go to the airport I powerwash my device and reinstall from .tar.gz backups when I get home.
ChromeOS is lovely, it always makes me a little sad when I have occasion to go back to XFCE or LXDE as my primary on-boo
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The "apps" that run on chromeos are toys and web pages^H^H^Happs instead of the standard software people expect, with the one exception
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laptops already have a fairly well defined meaning in people's minds from the fact that laptops have been around for 20+ years.
Yup. A clamshell design with a screen on the top and a keyboard on the bottom. For most of those 20 years though a laptop also meant it costs half the price of a reasonable car, weighs 10 pounds, has 45 minutes of battery life and zero capability until you bought software separately from a store. Trust me, consumers HATED those things. These new devices have more Gees so are like 5 times more capable!
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I know- it's so terrible to have a sub-$200 laptop that boots in seconds and that has everything stored in the cloud so if my kids break it I can replace it trivially.
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know- it's so terrible to have a sub-$200 laptop that boots in seconds and that has everything stored in the cloud so if my kids break it I can replace it trivially.
If your kid breaks your laptop, that's accompanied by an ass whooping to ensure it never happens again, right?
Intelligent countries with intelligent people don't treat laptops as throwaways items.
Nor do they store their vital data in "the cloud."
Google fanboys are not intelligent.
Re: Chrome OS is a joke (Score:5, Insightful)
The remaining 5% makes me money. So yes, it is that important to me.
Then don't buy a Chromebook. It is not a professional workstation. I don't have one either. But my kids do. Chromebooks are also popular with schools. They are cheap, and are difficult for students to screw up, because ... well because there is nothing on them. But if all you need is a broswer and Google docs, they are fine. You can buy five of them for the price of a Macbook.
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Unless you're taking a course in programming or programming as a professional, you don't really need a computer for computing.
Even for learning programming, a Chromebook is good enough. At my neighborhood school they start teaching Scratch in 4th grade. It runs in a browser. For older kids, they move on to the Khan Academy programming lessons, which use JavaScript, which also runs in a browser. A "real" computer isn't needed until high school, for the 5% of the students that take AP-CS, which uses Java.
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I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of eve
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