Internet Operating System

Bill O'Reilly recently made a case that the new operating system is really the Internet. In part one he makes an argument that this new Information Operating System consists of components like search, media access, communications (email, voice, etc), identity, social networking, payments, advertising, location, time, image/speech recognition, and government data (including GPS).

Many companies are making a play to be your one-stop shop for everything you need with the biggest players being Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook. In part two he handicaps these player's offerings as well as many of the smaller companies.

Verizon iPhone

It seems U.S. iPhone sales are really reaching the point where Apple has to move on to other networks to expand. I run into so many people who want an iPhone, but won't leave Verizon to get one. So it's not surprising that there is more and more evidence that Apple will be announcing a Verizon iPhone at the WWDC conference this year.

Multi-touch Mice

Now that we have all gotten used to multi-touch phones the next area of innovation may be multi-touch mice. Check out this video from TechCrunch where they demonstrate a number of intriguing, mouse concepts coming from Microsoft's Research labs. The rumors are also running wild that Apple may soon release a multi-touch mouse.

Minority Report coming to PCs

Microsoft announced their answer to the Wii, called Natal, at the recent E3 conference. Natal goes beyond the Wii in that you don't need any controllers. The cameras in the unit detect the movement of your body and reacts accordingly. So you can punch and kick for a fighting game or pretend you have a steering wheel in your hands for a driving game. It has face recognition and voice recognition as well so it can automatically log you in and have a conversation with you. It should make for some very interesting games, but can also be used for controlling interfaces with just the movement of your hands.

Natal was announced as a peripheral for the Xbox 360, but Bill Gates just indicated that they will make Natal available for PC's as well. That would not only make for great games, but it could be used to control a media center computer, interact with people in a Second Life like system, control a computer from across the room, or a million other possibilities.

Do you remember the futuristic man-computer interface in Minority Report? Natal would not only let you do everything that Tom Cruise did (sans the transparent screen), but actually be better, because it doesn't require the user to wear gloves. It's another case of reality catching up with science fiction faster than anyone thought.

Google Chrome OS - Wait and see

Google announced their Chrome OS operating system last week. But of course, you already knew that because it was virtually impossible to miss that story through all of the hype in the news. This lightweight, open-source, browser-based operating system will be free and available in the second half of 2010.

All of the Internet has been abuzz about Chrome OS, but there are plenty of reasons to skeptical of new OS. Google has said they are targeting netbooks with with OS. Unfortunately, netbooks are one of the few places Chrome OS makes sense.

Google offers Android for the smart phone market so it won't play there. On normal laptops and desktops people are looking for all of the applications and capabilities of the other OS's, like Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux. You don't want to get that new computer and find that you can't run that application or game that you need for work or pleasure. Of course, the number of Chrome OS apps will increase over time and offer more capabilities, but Google has said the apps are all just web pages and usable in any standard compliant browser. So why not get Windows or OS X and be able to run of the normal programs as well as all of the Chrome apps. If cost is an issue you can go with Linux and get the same benefits.

Even on netbooks this is an issue, as evidenced by all of the people who pay more for Windows XP on the netbooks instead going with the free Linux distributions. They pay more because of the familiarity with Windows and all of the applications that are available. The same would hold true in a Windows XP (or Windows 7) vs Chrome OS comparison as well.

So who would be most interested in the Chrome OS. Certainly those alpha-geeks who love the latest technologies would be candidates will probably try it for a while (before it fades out of fashion). Those who like the minimalist look and approach of an OS that is also faster and runs on lesser computers might use it. Lastly I could see it eventually offered on very low-end computers for people who are not as tech-savvy and don't have heavy needs.

Unfortunately the potential markets don't seem very large or ones that can grow much, which doesn't bode well for Chrome OS. That being said, Google sticks with the technologies and continues to improve them, so time will tell whether Chrome OS ultimately succeeds or fails, but the initial signs don't look promising.

iPhones connect people to government

In an imaginative way for people to interact with government, Boston has released an iPhone app that lets people snap photos of potholes and other nuisances and send them to the city to be fixed. It's another great example of "there's an app for that".

Firefox 3.5 Released

Mozilla has released Firefox 3.5 today. You can download it for free. Firefox 3.5 ads some new features and some HTML 5 tags, but the most important improvement is speed. They claim it is twice as fast as Firefox 3 and ten times faster than Firefox 2. With Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari claiming dramatic speed improvements its good to see Firefox improving their performance as well.