Still As Life

Google Chrome, the most recent browser to join the fray. Is Chrome just a browser though?

I have to say I don’t think so. The release of Chrome reinforces my views that Google are directly targeting the operating system and integrated applications market. Be warned that the below is entirely my thoughts and theories based on my own observations and are not in any particular order but hopefully make sense.

Think about IT, Google already have a suite of applications and the support of Sun who tried to push cloud computing a while back (but failed). Now this suite of applications runs through the browser, not as feature rich as their counterparts like Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, Open Office and so on, but with enough features for most general consumers.

If you can run most applications through the browser, then the operating system can be reduced. At this stage, the only things that you really need to run on a local computer are graphic or data intense programs, such as games, video processing, 3D rendering etc, however, ultimately as bandwidth increases, these could potentially be run over the internet as well, further reducing the operating system. All you would need is to boot into the browser. It’s already built in to Windows and OS X, Explorer and Finder. Of course these are limited as far as internet activity goes, but you get the idea.

Google have been working on Android, a mobile operating system, now a computer operating system would be much more of a challenge to make immediately viable, despite the huge amount of BSD and linux distributions around that could be used as a basis. A browser is a logical step in this direction.

Separating tab processes, if you are running one application, you don’t want another to crash. When you are running them in a browser this doesn’t change, separating the processes makes for a nice stepping stone into what could potentially be an operating system.

Now, here’s another thought, Google pours how much money into the Mozilla Foundation, so why use Webkit as the layout engine for Chrome instead of Gecko? Afterall, Gecko is the one that Google have been funding so extensively.

Did you know that Webkit is a KHTML fork that was started by Apple? Webkit is also a more advanced layout engine than Gecko, the features that are available in it that are used in the iPhone and are slowly seeping into desktop Safari virtually do away with the need for plugins like Flash and Silverlight (not entirely, but it is getting there). Webkit is also funded by Nokia for use in the S60 browser. So, with two mobile browsers using it as the layout engine where none currently use the Gecko engine (that I’m aware of), Webkit is a tried and true engine for mobile devices.

So, Webkit has established mobile support from both one of the largest mobile manufacturers and from Apple for both the iPhone and desktop versions of Safari. While Opera and their Presto layout engine is the best for Windows Mobile devices, it is not open source and despite its quality, it doesn’t have the budgets of Nokia and Apple pushing it’s development. Webkit makes sense to use for the layout engine on Android, and subsequently for Chrome.

So, we have 3 mobile operating system producers utilizing Webkit, I don’t know the exact market share figures, but Nokia are the dominant mobile manufacturer and almost all of their phones use the S60 operating system. Apple’s iPhone has snapped up a large share of the market as well considering their inexperience in this area and Android has the potential to end up very widespread as well, all using variants of the same layout engine. There is a huge amount of potential here for Google to extend their mobile advertising, not just on Android phones.

Migrate to the desktop segment and what do you have? Safari is on every Apple computer and is also available on Windows, Chrome is supposedly going to be available on Windows, Mac and Linux. Then there are a number of other smaller browsers using Webkit. With the distribution of Safari and the potential distribution of Chrome, it would be entirely possible for Google to start gradually offering features of their applications that are only fully available on a Webkit based browser, and then ultimately, only on Chrome.

Doing something like this would be a risky path and would have to be done very slowly and gradually or it would alienate millions of users, but there is potential there for it.

Now, the Google CEO - Eric Schmidt - is also on the Apple Board of Directors, so he has interests in furthering both companies. So it makes sense as well, that Google is going to benefit Apple and Apple are going to benefit Google, at least to some degree.

Lets head in a slightly different direction, I was reading Simon Griffiths thoughts on Chrome today and came across a new development from Mozilla that I hadn’t heard of before, Ubiquity for Firefox.

Ubiquity takes a variety of Google Applications and takes them out of Google’s interface to integrate them into a quick and easy to use system. Simon explained it very well:

“…you open up a dialogue box with a keystroke and then type a command. This allows you access to functionality in a few keystrokes. With Ubiquity you can add maps into gmail, add calendar items and much more all by typing a few keys.”

If Google controls the interface, they control the advertising. If ubiquity combines many of Googles applications without the advertising, this represents a possible exposure reduction of many, many millions, the more it expands in popularity, the greater the reduction.

Since they control Chrome, there is the potential for Google to integrate all of their applications into it in a similar way to Ubiquity, and thus allowing them to retain their advertising. So as Simon suggested, Chrome is in direct competition with Mozilla’s Ubiquity.

Anyhow, just some thoughts on everything happening in this area at the moment. What do you think? Are Google going too far? Not far enough? Perhaps getting too power hungry?

Popularity: 37% [?]

I received a completely unexpected present from a good friend of mine a couple of months ago, a new Palm Treo 750 running Windows Mobile 6.

I am quite fond of the design of the Palm Treo’s as they manage to incorporate an (almost) full keyboard along with a reasonable sized screen (240px * 240px) without the need to use a sliding keyboard. Sliding keyboards are prone to getting broken much easier in my experience, especially when I’m using them.

Unlike it’s predecessors and most other Palm phones, the Treo 750 runs Windows Mobile instead of Palm OS, and there have been some interesting things implemented in Windows Mobile by Palm. To my understanding, Palm have an exclusive license with Microsoft, allowing them to actually modify Windows Mobile 6.

One of the things I find the most useful is how it displays SMS and other messages in the form of a conversation, similar to how Gmail displays emails, and how Palm OS displays messages received. The addition of a search box on the Today screen is also extremely useful. Simply start to type a number or name and it will search your contacts and make suggestions as you type.

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Popularity: 39% [?]

Adobe have released the beta of Photoshop Express, a free, cut down (even more so than Photoshop Elements), web based version of Photoshop and photo sharing service which currently provides up to 2gb of space per user.

So far I have been unable to get the register page or the test drive page to load in Firefox, however it seems to be working in Safari.

Registration is fairly straight forward, name, email address, password, personal sharing url (basically you.photoshop.com), birth year, and country. Currently, the United States is the only country available to choose from the drop down menu. It let me register with the US as my country and I was given the following:

Check my email, hey I got my verification email straight up, I would’ve been annoyed if I didn’t. The verification page works in Firefox and tells me I am now able to sign in. No big surprise, the sign in page doesn’t work in Firefox.

So, signed in using Safari and I am greeted with a simple interface where I can choose to either upload photos, edit photos/create albums, view/share photos, or browse community photo albums.

The upload section is fairly straight forward and easy to use, though it is a little on the slow side when it comes to actually uploading photos.

As far as editing photo’s goes, it comes nowhere near a replacement for the real thing, but it does provide some useful features and makes some of the filters in Photoshop easy to apply for a user that doesn’t know how to use them.

As you can see from the screenshot, the tools are broken into 3 groups, Basics, Tuning, and Effects.

Basics

1. Crop & Rotate - Your photo comes up with an adjustable box overlaid on it, you simply drag the corners of the box or the entire box until your image is where you want to crop it to. If you want to rotate, there is a button for clock-wise and a button for counter-clock-wise.
2. Auto Correct - A series of small versions of the photo are displayed along the top of the editor with corrections automatically performed by the software. The user simply has to choose the one they like the best and apply it.
3. Exposure - Works the same way as Auto Correct, simply choose from the various different levels of exposure, as worked out by the software.
4. Red-Eye Removal - You are given a black cross-hair that turns red when you mouse over eye’s. If there is a red-eye, simply click it and the software will remove it. I don’t have any photo’s with red-eye’s on my laptop, so I can’t test the effectiveness of this at the moment, but it does seem to be very simple. Trying it on a photo without red-eyes though returned grey patches over the faces in some instances.
5. Touchup - This is a touchy tool and is probably one of the most complicated tools in Photoshop Express. It works simply by clicking on the photo and either leaving as is, or dragging it in/out for a bigger or smaller touchup, you can of course drag it out using a slider after the first click. However, it seems to me to work similarly to the clone tool in Photoshop, except that the software determines the clone source instead of the user. Often it seems to be inaccurate or inappropriate. It seems to only work well in a large area of similar things, such as the sky or trees.
6. Saturation - This works the same way as Auto Correct and Exposure, just choose your preferred saturation level from the choices made by the software.

Tuning

1. White Balance - This works the same way as Saturation, Auto Correct etc, except that it provides you with completely automatic, or choices for the sort of lighting, so you have options for sunlight, flashes, clouds, shade, incandescent lighting, and fluorescent lighting.
2. Highlight - Works the same way as Auto Correct and simplifies the adjustment of highlights, however, it does severely limit the amount of adjustment you can make as it is automatically determined be the software.
3. Fill Light - As with Highlight, it is a choice based on what the software decides, and seems to work similarly to adjusting the brightness.
4. Sharpen - Very simple to sharpen parts of a photo. Click anywhere on the photo to select the section you wish to sharpen and a box will appear around it. You can drag the box if you wish. Up the top, a selection of different sharpened options become available for that section of the photo. It works the same way as Auto Correct etc, except you can sharpen specific sections, rather than only the entire photo.
5. Soft Focus - Works the same way as Sharpen, except it creates a blur or “soft focus” on specific parts of the photo.

Effects

1. Pop Color - This is pretty cool. You are given an eyedropper and all you do is select a colour from the photo. The software then determines everywhere else that colour occurs and allows you to change the colour from a selection of rainbow colours. The rest of the photo is turned gray scale. Alternatively, you can choose from one of the 3 presets which also give interesting effects.
2. Hue - Lets you choose from one of the pre-determined choices, similarly to Auto Correct, and re-colours the photo the same way that using the hue layer overlay option does in Photoshop.
3. Black & White - As the name suggests, it turns the photo black and white, but it gives you some choices with differing levels of black and white balances, it can create some cool effects.
4. Tint - Works the same way as Luminosity in Photoshop, it takes a colour and makes the photo monochromatic based on that colour. The choices are rainbow colours.
5. Sketch - Is just like the Sumi-e filter from Photoshop. It provides choices which obviously have variations on the brush width and pressure.
6. Distort - Provides 5 different distortion effects. These effects all work by dragging an ellipse around the area you want to apply them to and it performs the operation. The effects are all pre-determined, so they will always have the same effect, on any spot on any image (though sky would not be as affected by them since its mostly variations of the same colour). If you use a lot of these effects, it becomes very slow and difficult to use. You are able to select each effect individually when you click it, which makes it difficult to apply two effects to the same spot. They are easy to remove though.
   • Twirl - Performs a twirl on the selected area.
   • Stretch - Stretches the selected area vertically.
   • Bulge - Creates the appearance of a bulge in a selected area.
   • Ball shape - Works similarly to the sphereise filter in Photoshop.
   • Fuzz out the details - Seems pointless except for blurring out faces and the like. It creates a big pixelated patch over the selected area.

All in all, Photoshop Express is fairly easy to use, I expect that the speed problems will be fixed before the final release, and hopefully some of the distort effects will become more user-friendly when there are large amounts of them. I’m also hoping it will work in Firefox. Aside from that though, it seems like a pretty good tool really, especially for someone that has no experience with Photoshop or photo editing.

I can’t compare it to the likes of Picasa or Flickr as I have never used these services. Thus far though, it is looking like a very decent product to be brought to the online photo market. Not to mention, it’s free as well.

One of my biggest qualms with it is that neither ctrl + z or cmd + z perform an undo function, you have to click the undo button if you don’t like it. You also have to use the scroll bar, not the scroll wheel when scrolling through albums and so on.

Something that particularly stands out to me is that it seems to be based in Flash, and it is one of the most user-friendly Flash interfaces I have ever used, and coming from Adobe, I wouldn’t expect anything less.

Popularity: 50% [?]

Paypal have released an FAQ on safer browsers for users in light of the large amount of phishing scams over the past year. Ultimately, you can still fall for the scam, but there are anti-phishing features built into various newer browsers. The most prominent one is in IE 7 which prompts you to enable it and then uses different colour address bars for warnings and so on.

In their FAQ, Paypal exclude Safari and reference Internet Explorer 7+, Mozilla Firefox 2+ and Opera 9.1+ as having anti-phishing features.

It is a let down on Apple’s part, especially considering how nice of a browser Safari is. I personally use it minimally since I’m an avid Firefox user, but I cannot deny it is a light and fast browser, using far less RAM than Firefox, as well as being more stable.

Considering it is a nice browser and is becoming more widely available on Windows as well, it would be nice to see more security features in it.

Hopefully we will see Safari join the ranks of the other 3 big browsers soon.

Kudos to Microsoft for being in the lead with their anti-phishing filter.

Popularity: 62% [?]