Eric Schmidt confirms Chrome OS is on schedule for the second half of this year.
At that time we were told a rather vague “second half of 2010″ and, now that we’re entering the second quarter of the year, forgive us if we were starting to get a bit doubtful about that timeline. But, Google’s Eric Schmidt is here to assuage our fears, speaking at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit and indicating the little OS is still on track for that same, rather vague release window. That we’re still not getting a more specific date makes us think we’re probably looking at a release toward the end of the second half of this year, but just the same it seems like you shouldn’t wipe that Chrome-powered netbook off your wishlist for this upcoming holiday season just yet.
Or, that “chrome powered digital signage display” off your wishlist.
via Eric Schmidt confirms Chrome OS is on schedule, on target — Engadget.
Sometimes I think we get so caught up in the industry buzz about digital signage that we forget what it is all about – communication!
It runs Chrome! Now imagine how easy this would be if everything in there was a gadget! Check out the full review on the Panic Blog.
A lot of people have been asking about why we have gone so quiet in Rise Vision and why we can’t talk about what we’re building next and we knew the quantity of these inquiries would only increase with DSE next week, so we thought it was time to share a bit about where we’re going.
We have been watching digital signage, technology, business and consumer trends and we realized a few things:
- Displays will no longer be passive one-way dialogue devices, within the next year or two it will be rare that you can’t touch and interact with a display, they will become two-way dialogue portals, communicating in all directions, all at once.
- Everyone will have a physical and digital life; a digital presence on one or more social networks that compliments their physical place in the world and the message needs to reach them in both places.
- The personal display, or what we are currently calling mobile devices, will dominate and the large public format display will become a beacon seeking to draw our personal devices in to whatever message they want us to participate in.
- The software and hardware to drive all of this is a commodity, those of us who make a living in digital signage will need to adopt products that provide a platform from which to create unique value for our clients, otherwise we are just order takers, creating nothing innovative, left with only one tactic to win business – fight on price.
- The days of locked in, long term, heavy cancellation fee contracts are gone, no one in their right mind will accept this anymore. Our platform has to be flexible and allow our partners to come and go as needed, ramp up or contract on a moments notice.
- Our partners need the freedom to extend what we do with no restrictions so that they can move as fast and as nimbly as they possibly can – our partners need open source solutions with extensive API’s that provide them with the ability to create what they want, when they want.
- Our partners need a forum to bring their innovative wares to market, the means of creating and selling their intellectual property on a mass basis rather than one-off customizations.
- Simple is the order of the day. If there is demand for crazy complexity by 20% of your market that causes the remaining 80% to spend all of their time trying to remember how to use your application then don’t do it. Make simple, easy to use and eloquent products. These are the web apps that will dominate tomorrow.
- All innovation is happening on the web. Okay, maybe not all, but what is left is such a small fraction it isn‘t worth considering. Our platform has to leverage open web formats, formats that no one can claim ownership of or demand royalties from, we need to leverage and re-purpose what is readily available in HTML today and HTML5 tomorrow.
- The sky is the limit for digital signage. Our market is growing by leaps and bounds and our partners need the tools to scale their businesses in an unlimited way, with no restrictions or capacity worries.
Given these inevitable trends we don’t think this is about digital signage any longer, we feel the market is even bigger than we all thought and we refer to this opportunity as a digital display convergence.
To meet this convergence we realized we needed a radical new approach, and we knew we just weren‘t big enough to make this all happen on our own, we needed a really big lever so we borrowed the biggest one we could find – Google – and we set about creating:
- A web platform for display management on top of the Google global network – there isn‘t anything bigger, more robust, reliable, or scalable.
- An open sourced browser app that runs on almost any operating system, device, and network, and it has open API’s for everything.
- Display content based upon HTML and HTML5 – we want you to re-purpose and cross-publish web assets everywhere – and add any content you please with the Google Gadget API.
I know the above is vague and to be honest it is meant to be. We’re not ready just yet to reveal all but within the next few months we will begin beta testing on a very limited basis and if all goes well we will have a full release by early summer. To all of our partners many thanks for you patience, we’re hoping you’ll find the wait well worth it.
Now this seems much more interesting to me than the iPad for a digital signage appliance. Inexpensive, open source, open, open, open. You get the idea, I am stuck on “open” as I don’t want Apple dictating what I can and cannot do with their device. And I am especially stuck on appliances that are intended to leverage HTML content and web services rather than local, client side proprietary applications.
Watch the video, very entertaining, must say Michael Dell handle the interruption incredibly well.
Michael Dell pulls Mini 5 Android tablet from his parka, offers to put one in yours in ‘a couple of months’ video — Engadget.
Update: for more on the closed iPad see Ipad is Ibad.
Interesting post by David Haynes on his blog Nanonation jumps on iPad buzz, starts developing to it.
David is wondereing what the iPad means for digital signage and he is intrigued that Nanonation has immediately jumped to announce that they are writing a digital signage app to support it.
As much as I am a huge Apple fan, own many Apple devices and will buy the iPad and as much as I am a software developer for digital signage, I just can’t see how the iPad fits in just yet. I am sure most of my co-workers just hit the floor given my usual stance on all things Apple.
Here’s why.
From everything I have read the iPad looks to be one heck of a device but what just keeps hitting me hard is the level of control that Apple has applied to it. This is an iPhone for all intensive purposes and Apple doesn’t let anything run on it unless they approve it. They won’t even let Flash run on it because they don’t want Flash based apps circumventing their apps control.
I believe in open source, open systems, few if any restrictions and I believe in leveraging the web to reuse all resources that reside there. Putting the App store censor board between myself and my client is not something that I want to get involved in. But, if HTML5 based apps on the iPhone keep going the way they are and this becomes a great device to run a browser on, and I can point that browser to my app, then for sure I can see the iPad finding it’s way into digital signage. Till then I am playing wait and see.
Interesting implications for digital signage. We made our displays location aware so that they could show local weather based upon where the display is – configured once by the user and then sent to all displays and the content is smart enough to ask the display where it is before it goes and get’s the local weather – kind of neat, simple to do and real easy on the user.
Now with Twitter local trends you could use just that same approach. Something like show Tweets within 1 mile of the display location. Needs refinement I know, but interesting implications…
Twitter Blog: Now Trending: Local Trends.
Now this is interesting. Imagine devices throughout a home or work place that recognize who you are and present what you saw last, or your preferences, or that you have one new message. This article talks about how family members could share a tablet, I actually see it the other way, many “tablets” throughout the home or work place, embedded, that recognize you, they leverage your cloud computing and the fact that you are no longer tied to that one computer and they present your display preferences to you wherever you might be. Now that is interesting. I walk into the kitchen, the tablet on the cabinet door presents my favorite news articles, music, photo’s and switches to my skype profile. I leave and it goes back to the default. Wow that would be fun.
“for the gadget to automatically recognize individuals via a built-in camera”
via Apple Sees New Money in Old Media – WSJ.com.
