Google's Cr-48 netbook

If you haven't heard, Google is releasing its own operating system, called Chrome OS (check out this marketing video). It's based on Linux, but is tailored solely for use with online, web-based applications, such as Gmail and Google Docs. They are also releasing a netbook, called Cr-48, that comes installed with Chrome OS. The whole idea is that all your data is stored in the (mysterious, but reliable) cloud, so if something bad happens to your computer, none of your data is lost. It's almost like we're returning to the dummy-terminal days of yore. A pre-production version of the netbook has been given to a number of people so that Google can get feedback on the device and improve upon it before releasing it to the public.

One thing that differentiates Cr-48 from other netbooks is the keyboard. Google modified it slightly to better integrate it with the OS. The "Caps Lock" key was replaced with a "Search" key, which opens a new tab in the browser. The function keys (F1, F2, etc) were replaced with keys that perform tasks such as controling the brightness of the screen, controlling the speaker volume, and going back and forward in the browser.

The touchpad works as follows: Tap it with one finger for a left mouse click, tap it with two fingers for a right mouse click, drag two fingers across its surface to scroll. People online have expressed frustration with this setup, but this is exactly how the touchpad of my Asus Eee netbook functions and I'm satisfied with it. Cr-48 comes with a single USB port with extremely limited functionality. It doesn't support anything other than a mouse or keyboard, not even a thumb drive. It comes with an SD card slot, although Chrome OS currently doesn't recognize it. A headphone jack is included and is fully functional. It has a 16GB solid state hard drive.

In terms of internet connectivity, Wi-Fi and 3G (which is on Verizon's network) are supported. You get a free 100MB per month of 3G bandwidth for the first two years. The netbook doesn't have an Ethernet jack, so you're limited to wireless connections. It comes with a VGA port, allowing you to plug in a larger monitor or a projector.

The idea of an OS which stores all of its applications and data in the cloud is an interesting concept, but I'm in no hurry to start using it. Even though Google provides very well designed online applications, I would imagine that they are not as powerful as their desktop equivalents. Cr-48 sounds more like something you'd take with you on the road or to the coffee shop to do casual work.

Java: The Next Generation

A few weeks ago, plans for the next version of Java were released. It will be split into two different versions in order to more quickly get a new version out the door. Two key features that were originally slated to be released in Java 7, will be pushed back to Java 8.

One of these features is called Lambda, which adds closures to Java. From what I understand, a closure is like a function that can be assigned to a variable. This means that the closure can be passed as an argument to another function, and then called inside of the function's body. If the closure is declared inside of another function, it has access to the parent function's local variables. Many languages support this. Here is an example of how closures can be used in Javascript (taken from Wikipedia):

// Return a list of all books with at least 'threshold' copies sold.
function bestSellingBooks(threshold) {
  return bookList.filter(
      function (book) { return book.sales >= threshold; }
  );
}

The function filters the bookList array, returning only the books that have sold a mininum number of copies. It does this by passing a closure into the filter() method, which gets executed on every book in the array. If the closure returns true for a particular book, then that book is filtered out.

The other major feature that was pushed back to Java 8 is called Jigsaw. The goal of Jigsaw is to break the JDK into separate modules. This would help applications boot up more quickly. It also would help in situations where a JRE is packaged with the application. This JRE could be reduced in size by only including the modules that the application needs.

Java 7 is slated for release in mid-2011 and Java 8 is to be released sometime in 2012.