The best form of flattery

Recently I gave an update presentation to the staff of the ARM San Jose Office on Web 2.0 technologies and why they are important to ARM and what we doing to enable them. I also managed to fit in quick overview of what Augmented Reality is from a mobile perspective and how Web 2.0+ARM will totally change the way in which we look at the world around us.

I was delighted how many people showed up, and as I expected with an audience with such a broad range of skills, the questions ranged from the technical details of what we are doing with JITs to concerns regarding the privacy of Social Networking sites. However it wasn’t until a week later that I got a question which completely stumped me.
My colleague in the next cube said simply: “What do you think of Chrome OS? I’ve tried it out and it seems pretty fast even running in VMWare.”

I was somewhat phased.

He went on: “I downloaded it and tried it at the weekend and it’s really quite fast, but seems just to be a cut down version of Linux with the Chrome Browser stuck on top of it.”

“Er… um. You are running Chrome OS!!! on your Mac in VMware?” I was rather shocked, as I really hadn’t been expecting a preview release to occur without much fanfare and excitement from Google itself. Surely this could not be true? However, here I was being told by a very credible source 6ft from me that he had it up and running.

So like any good researcher I started Googling and discovered that there were in fact a plethora of YouTube Videos and preview versions of Google Chrome OS out there on the Internet. The only problem was they were all FAKE!

And no I am not going to give any of them credence by posting links on this blog.

But surely this must be the first time an OS has warranted such fervent speculation, such desire to part of the buzz and such opportunity to get the last laugh, that people actually go to the length of making not just slide shows and YouTube videos but actual Linux binary distros (if that’s not an oxymoron) of something that has yet see the light of day.

Wow!

Flash 10 on ARM Powered Devices

I thought this was good overview of why Adobe is focusing so much effort with ARM on getting Flash 10 onto ARM Powered Devices.
And Yes the entire Adobe building really is Energy Star Compliant!