from the the-report-of-my-death-was-an-exaggeration dept.
Google confirms its Pixelbook group has new laptops and tablets inbound
Last month, Business Insider reported that Google might be shifting employees out of the laptop and tablet division that brought us the premium, pricey Pixelbook and Pixel Slate, citing "roadmap cutbacks." But though Google originally declined to comment, the company now tells The Verge that its hardware division actually does have new laptops and tablets on the way.
While Google wouldn't talk details or timing, it did drop a big hint earlier today — as 9to5Google reports, the company led a session at its Cloud Next 2019 conference dubbed "Introducing Google Hardware for Business," where it suggested that a new device might help on-the-go employees in ways that the Pixelbook and Pixel Slate couldn't quite accomplish.
#g rumors death
Previously: Google Hardware Makes Cuts to Laptop and Tablet Development, Cancels Products
Related Stories
A report from Business Insider claims that Google has axed "dozens" of employees from its laptop and tablet division. BI's sources describe the move as causing "roadmap cutbacks" and that Google will likely "pare down the portfolio" in the future.
[...] Google's Hardware division is run by Rick Osterloh and is expected to launch a game streaming console later this month. The division is responsible for the Pixel phones, Google Home speakers, the Chromecast, Google Wi-Fi, and lately, the Nest smart home division.
Why is Google having a hard time cracking the hardware market?
Google says it's done making tablets and cancels two unreleased products
Google will not be launching a sequel to last year's Pixel Slate tablet, according to Business Insider and Computer World, and will instead focus its Chrome OS hardware efforts on traditional laptop devices like the Pixelbook. "For Google's first-party hardware efforts, we'll be focusing on Chrome OS laptops and will continue to support Pixel Slate," a spokesperson told Business Insider.
[...] Google went so far as to reveal that it has axed two in-development tablet products, moving the employees who had been working on them to other areas of the company. (Most have apparently joined the Pixelbook team.) The tablets were both smaller in size than the Pixel Slate and were planned for release "sometime after 2019." But disappointing quality assurance testing results led Google to completely abandon both devices. Google informed employees of its decision on Wednesday.
Also at TechCrunch.
Previously: Google Neglecting or Exiting the Android Tablet Business?
Google Hardware Makes Cuts to Laptop and Tablet Development, Cancels Products
Google Pixelbook Tablets and Laptops: Not Dead
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @02:06PM (5 children)
even old 8 bit computers had more local user functionality
a kid could learn to program on old kit. a kid cant on google's stuff without voiding the warranty.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday April 11 2019, @02:13PM (1 child)
You can easily put Linux on Google's ChromeOS products, which use coreboot. Not as easy with UEFI Windows boxes, IIRC.
So you're wrong.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bryan on Thursday April 11 2019, @05:43PM
Ever try it? When you bootup the device, you get a fullscreen (bios/uefi/coreboot?) warning that says "OS verification is off, press SPACE to re-enable". If you accidentally follow the directions and hit the space key, then *poof*, the device helpfully wipes itself along with all of your files and performs a factory reset. Instead of the spacebar, you need to press the special key combination to allow developer mode (Ctrl + D) to continue. Of course, this information isn't shown on the screen so you just have to remember it, and also remember to never let anyone else reboot your device.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday April 11 2019, @02:20PM
I got a Pixelbook almost exactly a year ago. The first thing I did is put it into developer mode. Install Crouton. Then several crouton containers with different flavors of Linux. These are cheap even with a decent amount of software -- about 5 GB each.
In the Chrome OS Downloads folder, I create a Linux folder. Then put all important files in there. Java runtimes. Eclipse. Node.js. Gimp 2.10 AppImage executable. And other stuff. Each Cronton container replaces it's distribution's Downloads folder with the Chrome OS Downloads folder -- so file sharing amongst the various containers is easy. On all my other non-pixelbook machines, I put all my development everything under a ~/Dev folder. So on each Crouton container, it takes only one symlink: ln -s /home/danny/Downloads/Linux/Dev /home/danny/Dev. Then all my containers have all of my development tools.
My warranty is not void. I have all kinds of programming tools. Multiple languages. Java. JavaScript. Python, and anything else is just an 'apt install' away.
The pixelbook is extremely thin. Beautiful. Nice build. Reasonably powerful (mine 8GB / 128 SSD, core i5).
Maybe it's not for everyone, but I'm having a great time with mine.
Oh, and it runs Android apps. So I could run Termux, etc. But why when I have multiple croutons. And am dabbling with Crostini. So I enjoy a number of favorite Android apps on the device as well. I have gobs of videos and mp3s, and some offline texts to read, so my pixelbook is great offline on a plane for example. And with all that, I've still got about 36 GB free space.
To each their own. But I think a Pixelbook is pretty sweet. There are few things I could do on a "real" laptop that I cannot do on my Pixelbook with multiple croutons set up. I can run multiple full Linux desktops at the same time, and cheaply.
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Thursday April 11 2019, @08:05PM (1 child)
No love lost for the Chromebook from me, but I will say the principle is solid. If you rate your ability to learn to program as the computer's utility, then you can easily program in a web based environment. Beyond that you can buy a VPS for further development.
Last year I bought a cheap Win10 laptop and put Lubuntu on within hours. With only 32GB of storage, it fills the same niche as a Chromebook. Surf the web, check email, youtube videos, and ssh into my web server. It is also cheap enough that I treat it poorly; when wrenching on my car it will be in the engine bay with me providing whatever reference material I need.
(Score: 2) by Teckla on Friday April 12 2019, @09:31PM
For kids interested in programming, booting directly into BASIC is a lot easier than the steep learning curve of setting up your own VPS.
Source 1: Was a kid that booted into BASIC and taught myself how to program with that plus the documentation that came with the machine.
Source 2: Have a VPS.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday April 11 2019, @03:49PM
A chromebook is perfect if you are sending your tot off to college to prepare for a spectacular career as a social media influencer.
A chromebook can access both Facebook on one hand, and Twitter on the other hand, and YouTube on the other hand !!!
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 2) by progo on Thursday April 11 2019, @03:59PM
If not, I'd be afraid of services being cancelled while my hardware is still in working condition.