While on the Topic of Google
January 11, 2006 3 Comments
While on the topic of Google, I ran across this interesting read from Jason about his predictions for Google for 2006. He was lucky enough to be backstage after the recent Google keynote at CES. He foresees a calendar (which I think most people do) and an office suite, but goes a huge step further by prophesising: by the end of the year they will come out with a Linux-based OS and offer it for free to PC makers. Those PC makers will love Google for giving them a free OS and Google will love extending the reach of their money maker: google Adsense.
Now that would be extremely interesting, although I'm not sure 2006 is the right time frame for a Linux-based GoogleOS. I think at some point one is nearly inevitable though. One bit of news that already did come from Google in 2006 is that they released their own DRM. Isn't that borderline evil? I still have never seen an argument that lead me to think that DRM was anything but extremely bad for consumers. According to this article, Google Video is only going to work on Windows, so not only are they creating yet another silo for video options, they're creating yet another silo that we can't even check out. Not exactly how I had hoped they'd start the year out.
Google, DRM
–jeremy
Jeremy's Blog 
Its not being tested in secret yet, because I haven't actually watched any Google videos with Windows yet.
I do believe DRM is in theory a good thing.
as long as it doesnt alienate a sector of society
DVD css
WMA
iTunes
all alienate against major sectors of society.
Non Windows and Apple machines
Non X86 machines
Linux
and most removable devices.
I wouldnt take someone elses assumption Google Video will be windows only.
Google engineered
video.google.com
in flash so works in linux mac and windows
There is no reason that a secure webbased payments system could be used to deliver the the purchased media from video.google.com.
Desktop integration will be windows only for the time being.