I saw this article over at Digg. The full article was very interesting as to how Google is combining technologies to create something that is an interesting competitor to Flash. It's called Silverlite and the article suggested that there were some problems installing on a Mac, I'm assuming he might have meant the PPC version of Leopard, my Intel MacBookPro had no problems installing the plugin for video chat.
Still, it is very informative and it seems that Google's push for a Cloud or Internet Operating System is slowly coming to fruition. I have to say that I'm still a bit skeptical but I've kind of forced myself to living in the cloud for most things and I haven't been let down too much just yet. I still find myself using Gmail more than Apple Mail. I love that I haven't used Microsoft Office very much. Though if I do school work at work I can only use Office. I still wish that Google Docs would operate better offline. I haven't really checked it out on the laptop, again it is an Intel laptop and some things seem to work better on it then the ole PowerMac G4 (PPC).
Side-note: I've hijacked Bear's laptop. I've been having issues with either the monitor or the graphics card in my PowerMac G4. There is a fuzziness that comes over the monitor and I'm not sure if it's because the monitor is 8 years old or if the graphics card is 6 years old. Either way I've offloaded all of my data and I'm using it as a Guest machine. Hence my desire to live in the Cloud and test it out. At some point Bear is going to want to work on his Laptop at the same time that I will need to do some computer work. At that time I can log into my PowerMac G4, and deal with the fuzziness, as a Guest because most of the information I work with will be in the cloud. Either Google's or my college since I keep most of my school work at the college Cloud - which really is Google. I just can't wait till next year when we've paid off the Laptop bill and can use our credit to purchase me a brand new MacBookAir! I'm dying to work with that computer I love the fact that it is so thin and light compared to the MacBookPro or the MacBook. I really do prefer the Air. And I can share my CD/DVD on my PowerMac G4 with the Air if I need to so I'll still keep my PowerMac G4 for a long while. At least until the hard drive finally gives out — maybe longer because I will probably just replace it with some bigger in the Future. I know Richard Stallman seems to be against Google and Cloud living calling it a trap. I even have my own doubts about Cloud Living but I can't criticize it without living in it but here's an article that I wrote questioning this. And one more about someone being locked out of their data by Google. I still have a fear that this could happen to me.
Back to Google Silverlite - at this time I don't have any friends that use Gmail to play with Video chat but I already mentioned that earlier. Still it is very interesting how Google is seems to pushing more towards Open Source products. I'm wondering how HTML 5 is going to be embraced by most web masters when it's completed since some of the specks are including more media types like Video.
We will have to wait and see.
