Google Is Keeping Chrome OS Simple. Maybe Too Simple. Via TechCrunch

Crazy Monkey Shoes are the new thing! Sergey Brin wears them again! From CrunchGear

You can find below 3 videos of the new Google Chrome OS.

From the google blog…

Today we are open-sourcing the project as Chromium OS. We are doing this early, a year before Google Chrome OS will be ready for users, because we are eager to engage with partners, the open source community and developers. As with the Google Chrome browser, development will be done in the open from this point on. This means the code is free, accessible to anyone and open for contributions. The Chromium OS project includes our current code base, user interface experiments and some initial designs for ongoing development. This is the initial sketch and we will color it in over the course of the next year.

Google OS that even your grandmma can understand

Sergey Brin Interview

[...] Call us dumb businessmen, but we really focus on user needs rather than think about strategies relative to other companies and whatnot

We believe the web platform is a much simpler way, where the machines are essentially stateless, more cache-like, but can still be performant. And yet much easier and simpler for individuals to use. Since that is a very important need in the market right now, that is what we are trying to fill.

Here is a video of the Google Chrome OS boot-up (7 seconds).

And one more: A concept video:

Currently, on the market there are tons of phones that an average *bling*bling* user can get his hands on. Nevertheless, there are 2 top phones that are ruling the market so far: The Apple Iphone and the Motorola Droid.

We all know the Iphone and how cool it can be..But what is with this Verizon Droid..We’ve seen so much fuzz about it, so many adds (if you did not see them, you can check them out below) and so many news.

The Verizon – Motorola Droid is the new thing, it has all the nice eye candy stuff, a strong marketing team behind it and it is fancy and fast.

Watch the following video to see an example:

What’s the this fuzz all about?

I do not own a Droid phone (perhaps i will get one for testing but who knows) but i do own an iPhone. From all these previews and videos it would seem that the Droid would strongly compete with the iPhone.

See here the famous add that announced the Droid – iDon’t :

Sadly enough, on the day that it launched (last week) there were exactly…2 people that bought it at a random store for Verizon. Amazing isn’t it? Compared to the average 300 people for iPhone… I think we can safely assume that, people are happy with the current products on the market (from this class of phones anyway) enough not to care about a similar phone that already has gone wild on the market.

Here is a fan-made reaction for the add above – supporting iPhone – iDon’t Care:

What about the pricing?

I believe that, in order to compete with the iPhone, the Droid should have been cheaper overall..But it seems that the pricing is very similar to the iPhone.. Not good. Why would i buy a first generation phone that may contain tons of bugs (proven by facts in general) when i can just buy myself a cool shinny iPhone that i already know works wonderful.

Here is a schema as presented by Mashable.com

But…it does…Google!

Yes it is. And it has so much cool features. It has a very nice GPS system (Tomtom, start doing better stuff already!).

But it still has a problem: Its the first phone of the generation and, the Android 2.0 is just launched. It will have bugs and other stuff. In my opinion, this is the iPhone’’s big advantage (not to mention the company behind it Motorola vs Apple, you’re kidding right?) : It is well known, it has already a base user (its a big number) and its already on its third generation.

Although i love my iPhone, this following add released recently is pretty funny

Conclusion

Many things can be said about the current state of the new Droid and many more things can be said regarding the future of it. But one thing is for sure: opinions about the new Droid differ very much, and about 80% of its users (the people that actually got it and not just bladder about it from the web – yes yes, don’t shout at me! ) say its better then the iPhone and its more friendlier. We should be happy though that, the market is starting to be very competitive and this means only good news for us, the consumers.

So, Verizon, send me a Droid so i can say iDon’t to my iPhone !

Do you have a Droid ? Do you own an iPhone? Share your thoughts with us about these two must-have gadgets!

Yes yes, we all know that it’s great, has many features..But we didn’t really see it in an actual use environment.
Perhaps Pulp Fiction might be the perfect case for the preview ?

And a bonus….

P.S. I’ve got my invite into Google Wave and i’m loving it!

Google bought Youtube for $1.65 billion. Eric Schmidt (Google CEO) admitted that, 3 years ago, he told the Google board that Youtube was worth around $600-$700 million. It is unclear why Google accepted this acquisition.

Part of Schmidt’s arguments were that, if the company (Youtube) is valued at $600-$700 million, then if Google would not offer a much bigger price for it, other companies such as Microsoft would buy them off and walk away with something that Google may want.

Was Youtube bought only so that other giants in the industry would not get them?

Did Google make a bad decision?

Post your opinions below!

Here is an edited excerpt of Schmidt’s deposition:

Stuart Jay Baskin, a Viacom attorney: And what was management's
valuation?

Schmidt: Much lower than we paid for it.

Baskin: And how was that communicated to the board?

Schmidt: I told them.

Baskin: So why don't you tell us what you remember telling the board
in connection with the valuation?

Schmidt: I believe YouTube was worth somewhere around $600 million
to $700 million.

Baskin: And you communicated that to the board?

Schmidt: I did.

Baskin: Of Google?

Schmidt: I did.

Baskin: What methodology did you use to come up with that number?

John P. Mancini, an attorney working for Google, objects.

Schmidt: My judgment.

Baskin: Was it based on cash flow analysis? Comparable companies?
What were you using as the basis for your judgment?

Mancini objects.

Schmidt: It's just my judgment. I've been doing this a long time.

Baskin: So you orally communicated to your board during the course of
the board meeting that you thought a more correct valuation for
YouTube was $600 million to $700 million; is that what you said, sir?

Mancini objects to characterization of the testimony.

Schmidt: Again, to help you along, I believe that they
were worth $600 million to $700 million.

Baskin: And am I correct that you were asking your board to approve
an acquisition price of $1.65 billion; correct?

Schmidt: I did.

Mancini objects.

Baskin: I'm not very good at math, but I think that would be
$1 billion or so more than you thought the company was, in
fact, worth.

Mancini objects.

Schmidt: That is correct.

Later...

Baskin: Can you tell us what reasoning you explained?

Schmidt: Sure, this is a company with very little revenue, growing
quickly with user adoption, growing much faster than Google Video,
which was the product that Google had. And they had indicated to
us that they would be sold, and we believed that there would be
a competing offer--because of who Google was--paying much
more than they were worth. In the deal dynamics, the price,
remember, is not set by my judgment or by financial model or
discounted cash flow. It's set by what people are willing to pay.
And we ultimately concluded that $1.65 billion included a premium
for moving quickly and making sure that we could participate in
the user success in YouTube.