From the looks of the cascading Chrome logos being projected up front, today’s keynote is likely to be all about the Chrome browser, and my least favorite Google project, Chrome OS.
Vic Gundrota back up on stage today. 600k viewers getting access to the various live streams.
Today’s keynote will be about the platform none of us owns: the open web.
The stats: 160 million active Chrome browser users today.
Lot of work went into making chrome work well on Mac and Linux, they have also moved to a 6 week dev cycle. Lots of security and performance gains being made. The good news is that all modern browsers are aggressively implementing HTML 5.
Speech. Demoing adding speech API with one line of HTML 5. Great demo. Speech recognition for search worked flawlessly. Also demoed speech translation
JavaScript performance is good and potentially good enough for most applications. Wonder why this is downplayed.
2D canvas performance can leverage GPU support and it works well. Web GL also shows great performance gains for web graphics. HTML 5 apps are going to be getting better. Which makes me wonder why Google is propping up Flash.
Chrome Web Store in now going global. It’s being translated in 41 languages. In app payments will also be available. In app payments can be integrated with very little code. In app purchases will cost publishers 5%. That’s a lot lower than 30%.
Angry Birds publisher is showing off Angry Birds for the web. All HTML 5 Web GL and Canvas with hardware acceleration. It gets 60fps on most modern platforms and with browser client side storage you can play offline. They built some Chome specific levels. When in app purchases go live the Mighty Eagle will be available in Chrome. Previously only available only on iOS. The whole app is hosted on App Engine.
Arron Koblin showing off a new music project on the web. The demo and music are fantastic. It’s like being immersed in a 3d animation. Amazing. It has a mine craft like build environment so you can contribute to the project. Uses the 3.js library. Very nice demo of the state of web graphics.
Of course with all this capable on the web why do we need an OS? Enter Chrome OS and the Chrome Book. Sounds like the next generation of the cr-48. Lots of improvements: better hardware and firmware. Demoing file management using PDFs, music, video, and photos via the new Chrome OS file manager. Including importing photos from an SD card right into Picasa. Great integration which is available via an API to all Chrome OS developers.
Disconnected access will also be improved. GDocs, gmail, and calendar will use these features.
Chrome books will be built by many vendors. Samsung, Acer but man are they ugly. These devices will cost about 300-500 USD and will be available shortly from Amazon across the world. Available June 15th.
Of course this type of device plays well in the enterprise. As most apps become web based why do we need computers with full OS stacks. 50k companies applied to test the cr-48. Google surveyed these companies and they reported that 75% of there users could switch to a Chrome Book. Google has created a web console to manage Chrome Books in the enterprise. A fuul hardware and software system for 28USD per user per month. Wow. 20 USD for schools and government. Also available June 15th. This is pretty nice. It’s the future. Maybe I was wrong about Chrome OS?
Looks like everyone here is getting a free Chrome Book on June 15th.