Today, Google announced a new project - a web browser called “Chrome.” (A Windows-only beta will be launched on Tuesday.) This could be a major transition for Google, taking them right into the desktop space and fighting Microsoft head on where Microsoft reigns. It could be, but I don’t think it is.

Instead, I suspect that, at least for now, Chrome will serve as something of a reference design for other browsers. Google has a vested interest in technically solid browsers that people want to use. Until browsers have minimal overhead, almost never crash, and are made incredibly speedy, web applications, such as Google’s Docs or GMail, can never take off.

What this means is that even if Google is not really interested in dominating the web browser market, it still makes sense for them to have their own browser. This browser can simply serve as a way for Google to introduce and demo new features they would like to see in every browser. Plus, by making it open-source and saying that “We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward,” they are just inviting people to take their work and add it to every browser.

This theory also explains their heavy emphasis on technical details of the browser, rather than user features. If you want to win the average user’s desktop space, you focus on cool features, not stability. If, instead, you want to push underlying technologies into other browsers, you focus on technical details.

It still remains to be seen if the open-source license they choose will be one that enforces copy left or not, but I think it is safe to say, if this theory is correct, that as much of it as possible will be released under a license that does not enforce copy left, meaning that Google’s code could be made part of closed-source code.

We will not know Google’s true intentions with Chrome for some time, but I am inclined to believe this is not about dominating the browser market, but, rather, about pushing all web browsers forward and making them work better with web applications - particularly Google’s.

I am a Comcast subscriber. Where I live, I get great speeds. Streaming content from Hulu (standard def) works just fine, downloading a Linux ISO image is fairly quick, web surfing is great, and so on. I have not always been pleased with the service, though. There are long periods where I lose connection to the internet intermittently. Worse, about once a year Comcast’s service (at least in my area) goes down for several days at a time. In other words, my experience with Comcast has been mixed. Sometimes it is fast and great, sometimes it is completely unreliable. Comcast’s recent move, though, just takes it too far.

Comcast has just announced that they are going to be metering bandwidth and putting on a monthly cap of 250GB. Fine. I don’t have a problem with that. I would have a problem with a 15GB cap, but 250GB is OK. What I do have a problem with, though, is how they are informing customers if they exceed the cap. Comcast provides absolutely no way of knowing where you are, until you go over. That is crazy! They actually suggest that I should go search for a utility to install on each of my computers and then add them all up! OK. I have at least 6 computers in my house accessing the internet on a daily basis. So I now need to collect everyone’s computers once a week and check what the numbers say? Thanks a lot.

Just to add to all of this, the first time you go over, you just get a call. If you go over again in the next 6 months, they terminate your service for a year? What? How about slowing me down or charging me more? Just terminating my service is going to make me furious and lose them revenue. It makes no sense. Plus, they don’t even let you pay for more bandwidth.

So where do I go? That is the real problem here. Comcast has an absolute monopoly on decent speeds where I live. I can go to DSL from Embarq, which is slow, even for DSL, or I can go to dial-up. Believe me, if anyone else where here offering fast speeds, I would have switched long ago. I guess there is just nothing I can do. Hey Comcast, why don’t you just double our fees and only let us use 1GB of bandwidth. It’s not like you have any competition.

Sorry for the off topic rant. Back to the Linux news on Friday - unless Comcast takes my suggestion.

You may remember that just a few days ago I wrote about the apparent incompatibility between some Foxconn motherboards and Linux. I concluded:

My belief is that these issues are not at all malicious, just a mistake that no one bothered to look for. The good news is that developers will probably learn soon that these mistakes lead to bad situations.

More recently, it seems that more light has been shed on the situation. A ZDNet blog post says that Foxconn has said that the problem seems to be in the BIOS software they purchased from American Megatrends and that they will be releasing a fix very soon.

I told you so.

If you think I wrote this post just to say “I told you so,” though, you are mistaken. There is a lesson to be learned here for PR people.

Let’s look at three cases where Linux users were blocked out of something: Citibank’s website, Foxconn’s motherboards, and the Fox News website. In the case of Citibank and Foxconn, the story turned into a huge anti-Citibank/Foxconn story. On the other hand, the Fox News story, at least eventually, turned into what could easily be seen as a positive story for Fox. Why? Really the only way in which these cases are different is that in the case of Citibank and Foxconn, the customer support essentially blamed the user. In the Fox case, however, Fox not only promptly fixed the problem but was also very transparent about the process.

The lesson for customer support people: don’t blame the user.

Windows and Mac OS X are names from the history of early computing, from back when computers used big, bulky slow OSs. Technically, of course, computers still use OSs, but they are simple, small, fast windows to the cloud, rather than full OSs. What people used to call “web browsers” and now just “computers.” WiMax and other similar technologies blanket the globe, providing high-speed data access everywhere. “Desktops” are no longer used, just tiny pocket or bag-size UMPCs as well as the occasional laptop. Instead of using desktop applications, everyone uses web applications.

All of this could come to be reality in the future, perhaps even the not-so-distant future. Think about it. Web 2.0 applications are already competing with almost every desktop applications you can think of. UMPCs are taking off fast. After all, can you think of a major computer company without a UMPC? Apple, HP, Dell, Acer, Asus, and tons more all have them. And, finally, many of these companies are adopting an instant on Splashtop or Splashtop-like system. The technology is all here. And it runs Linux.

With the OLPC project in troubled times, Negroponte recently announced a new version of the XO laptop, the XO2, which will be shipped in 2010. The concept is cool: two touch-screens put together like the pages of a book, but is the new design feasible or helpful to the children? I am not so sure.

The first reason for my skepticism about the new XO2 is the planned price point, $75. The original XO was supposed to come in at $100. Instead, it ended up costing nearly twice that price and the price has not since been dropped down to my knowledge. Now, Negroponte is proposing to add two touch-screens and Windows, all while dropping the price below the original target, which has not yet been reached even without the touch-screens, in just two years. If you ask me, especially considering the current state of the project and the history of the project, the new price is a goal that will not be met.

The second reason for my skepticism, and perhaps the more important one, is the idea to include two touch-screens. Why? It is being touted for its abilities as an e-book reader. Really? You need two screens to make an e-book reader? The Kindle and Sony Reader each have just one screen.

Plus the touch-screen plan has some significant drawbacks. The students will now have to learn to type on a touch-screen, which cannot make the already difficult process of learning to type any easier. Then if the students get a job involving computers, which is almost every job now, they are going to have to get used to typing on a different type of keyboard. And don’t tell me that in 15 years everyone will use touch-screen keyboards, because no one can predict the future of technology 15 years out.

So is this new version of the XO going to be a failiure? Not nessesarily. There is still a fair amount of time for things to change. Also, just because the price point may not be reached and the design may not be ideal does not mean no one will buy it. Then again, I would not bet on this new design succeeding. If someone can explain why I am wrong, go ahead. I hope someone can.

Just a few hours ago, Apple announced a much-rumored new product - the MacBook Air. If you have not already seen the news, the Air is basically a 13.3″ MacBook Pro that is really thin. I hate to give Apple any more hype since they are already so good at making hype, but this thing really is thin. I am sure you are wondering why I am writing about an Apple product on a Linux site. Well, since both the Air and the Eee are considered ultra-portables, they potentially have an effect on one another, so I decided to figure out (or at least guess at) what that effect will be and whether it will benefit or hurt the Eee PC.

The most obvious way the Air could effect the Eee PC is competition. Logically, since both are ultra-mobile PCs, they would compete with each other, right? Not really. The Air is almost $2000 and comes with high-end components compared to the Eee’s minimal resources and $400 price point. Additionally, the Air has a 13.3″ screen compared to the Eee’s 7″ screen. Even once the Eee comes out with larger screen models, they will still be far, far smaller than the Air. Both of these factors make it very hard for the two products to compete.

Even if these two products do not directly compete, they could still generate hype for each other. For example, someone who sees an article about the Air might become interested in a small laptop and look for something less expensive, leading them to potentially buy an Eee PC. In that example, Apple’s amazing marketing ability (you really can’t argue about Apple being great at building hype) is benefiting the Eee PC, but the other question is could the reverse happen? I don’t think so. Someone looking at a very inexpensive tiny laptop, the Eee PC, is not likely to become interested in a higher-cost alternative.

While many Linux users may be frustrated when the Air dominates all the technology news for the next week, it is worth considering that the Air will probley generate many additional sales for the Eee, already Asus’s most successful product.

An interesting piece of news from Asus’s press conference is that the Eee PC is their “most successful product ever,” according to Engadget. This is potentially huge news for Linux on two levels.

First, Asus is no small company. While they may not be well known to many people, if you have ever been in the market for a new motherboard, you know the name Asus. For a company of this size, saying a product is the most successful product ever is no small statement. Granted, motherboards are rarely “successful,” but they sell other products too. Hopefully, the huge success of the Eee PC will cause Asus to try using Linux on more devices. It already appears that they are open to this, since they have put a technology called Splashtop (or ExpressGate), which is a fast-booting Linux system, on some of their motherboards, but this success should make them even more anxious to try out Linux on more devices.

(Note: I am sure someone is going to say “but it was the hardware that made the Eee PC sell.” That may be true, but do you think that Windows would run as well as Linux on a device with such limited resources? Also, without Linux, the price would have been higher.)

Second, the buzz the Asus Eee PC will (or at least should) get for announcing a WiMAX equipped model and being called the most successful product ever by Asus should help it to sell even more units. See the first point again.

Since there appears to be no news today, I decided to share something that happened to me today. I accompanied a friend on a trip to Office Depot to get a new power cord for a laptop (not mine.) My friend asked the sales person who found the power cord if it would be better just to get a new laptop, since the cord was so expensive. He turned the computer over, saw the XP license sticker, and replied that at least this laptop had XP, not Vista. Needless to say, I was quite surprised to hear a sales person implying that one should prefer XP to Vista. Of course, as we all know, there’s a better solution to this problem.

Zonbu, maker of the subscription-based Zonbu Desktop, is expanding its offerings to include a laptop, according to LinuxWorld. At first glance, the Zonbu computers seem no different from the other inexpensive Linux computers, except a little cheaper, but what really makes them stand out is the new cellphone-style (get the phone free with a contract) approach. The $280 price tag for the laptop ties you into a two year $15.00 per month charge. (You can get the computers with a shorter contract or no contract, but it is far more expensive.) For this price you get transparent updates, free online support and hardware replacement, and 50GB of online, backed up storage. The idea is that the machine only comes with a small (60GB for the laptop, 4GB for the desktop) amount of local storage and additional online storage.

Another interesting thing to note about the Zonbu Laptop is the hardware maker, Everex. Everex is the company behind the gPC, another inexpensive Linux-based PC with a more standard buy-the-hardware-once approach.

Although the idea of a worry-free PC is great and it would help a lot more people back-up, in reality the market seems small. Many people will be nervous about having their data stored remotely (particularly with a small company), and when you factor in the service plan, the $200 gPC, with no monthly fee, sure seems like a better deal. Still, the Zonbu approach may be just what some non-techies are looking for in a computer.

(Note: I have not used any of the Zonbu products.)

Linux.com report’s that the One Laptop per Child (Laptop.org) has begun their “give one get one” program where anyone in the US or Canada can buy two XO laptops, one of which will be donated, for $400. The XO is a $200 Linux-based laptop designed to be used by school children in developing countries.