But then I thought about it…

The idea of a dedicated net device is great but it looks like the current netbooks all fail miserably at their supposed primary function. The problem is ergonomics: web browsing with its mix of cursor navigation, page scrolling and occasional text entry makes special demands and, while today’s awkward mix of keyboard and trackpad / trackpoint input is just about workable (especially if the trackpad offers scroll areas), it’s certainly not efficient or pleasurable. 

So what’s the answer? A live screen with handwriting and speech recognition would look to fit the bill. However, while I love my tablet PC’s slate mode for taking notes in OneNote or working on images, I always end up opening it up to get at the keyboard when browsing.

The bottom line is that we need some new input system dedicated to working in the browser. As this needs to work when the keyboard is hidden it needs to be an onscreen solution so it’s down to the operating system (this also has major advantages in terms of universality and no hardware costs). Here Windows 7’s touch-screen capabilities look particularly interesting.

Currently the new Microsoft Surface technology seems to be focused on kiosk-style applications as recently demoed by Ross Burridge at CES. I’m more interested in what this might mean for everyday use and the particular demands of working in the browser.

Presumably it shouldn’t be too difficult for Microsoft or OEMs to come up with an onscreen solution. In fact small panels in the bottom left and right, one offering thumb-based navigation/scrolling and the other thumb-based mobile-phone style predictive text input should do it, with a full-width onscreen keyboard for dedicated text input.

Does anyone know if this is being worked on? In any case, I’ve decided to hold off for Windows 7 for the netbook purchase.

PS. You might want to check whether your trackpad has scroll areas – generally indicated by lines to the right and bottom – that you didn’t realise were there. They’re easy to miss and could save you a lot of unnecessary and awkward onscreen navigation.

Fast-forward four and half years and guess what? Google Mail, as it’s now known, still has that little BETA label under it, and it shows no sign of buggering off.

Over at the Royal Pingdom they’ve gone through the whole Google catalog and counted the applications that are in beta today. While 22 out of 49 may sound reasonable – Google is always coming up with innovations, after all – when you realise that these include Google Mail, Docs, and Product Search, you have to wonder if Google interprets the word beta in the same way as the rest of us.

The chaps over at Network World thought exactly the same thing, so they put it to Google: what exactly does beta mean to your product development cycle? The answer says a lot about how online computing is changing the way we go about things.

“We believe beta has a different meaning when applied to applications on the Web, where people expect continual improvements in a product.  On the Web, you don’t have to wait for the next version to be on the shelf or an update to become available.  Improvements are rolled out as they’re developed.  Rather than the packaged, stagnant software of decades past, we’re moving to a world of regular updates and constant feature refinement where applications live in the cloud.”

So Google’s online products are constantly evolving things, that much is obvious to anyone who’s used them – but by this logic those beta labels won’t ever be removed. In ten years time Google Mail (BETA) will be the most complete in-progress software available, and Chrome (BETA) will still be the new kid on the block next to the arthritic Internet Explorer 18 and Firefox XIII.

Maybe it’s a perception thing, with Google afraid of looking like one of the boring mainstream. Or perhaps it just likes the cushion those beta labels afford it should anything go wrong. Either way, Google’s own NeverEnding Story is beginning to get a little bit silly.

Just last night, our own Dear Leader was on the radio talking about Microsoft’s latest salvo in the browser wars. This morning, the battlefield has changed completely, thanks to the surprise arrival of Google Chrome.

To be precise, Chrome isn’t here quite yet: the beta is due out later today. For now, I’ve had to content myself with reading the product notes, which Google has oddly elected to release in cartoon form. Cute, but hardly practical.

Still, it looks like a lot of good ideas have gone into Chrome, and there’s one idea that excites me in particular:

As I say, we’re still waiting for the beta, so we don’t yet know how this works in practice. But running each tab, and each extension, as an independent process should, in theory, enable Chrome to make very effective use of multiple CPU cores.

Thus, not only is Google set to shake up the browser wars; it could actually make “cloud” computing as stable, efficient and responsive as local software – or more so in many scenarios. That would set the scene for a revolution in our very model of personal computing.

Of course, for now this is all just speculation. But even without seeing the software, I can confidently say this much: Google hasn’t lost its knack for disrupting the market.

8. Use of Your Content. Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.

You don’t have to be a lawyer to see that basically you were handing over your all rights as originator and giving Adobe free rein to make money from your photos however it saw fit!

Adobe responded quickly to dowse the inevitable flames with John Nack quoting the PSX team as saying “The original terms of service implied things we would never do with the content within Photoshop Express.” More importantly the relevant terms and conditions were quickly updated and are entirely different and much more end-user friendly in all ways.

So is that the end of the matter? Well it certainly means that the conditions are no worse than those commonly found on photo sharing sites such as Flickr and so should be no bar to joining up to Photoshop Express and taking it for a spin (it’s well worth a look if only to see what modern Flex-based RIAs are capable of).

However is this a case of “there’s no smoke without fire”? After all you don’t normally leave lawyers to just come up with something off the top of their heads (expensive) and then post it up to see if anyone complains (very expensive). And did no-one at Adobe think of looking at how other photo sharing sites managed copyright before launching such a major new service?

Moreover, while the Terms and Conditions have been updated, at the time of writing, the Photo Express FAQ still reads:

“What rights do I have to my photos?”#! Excuse me – splutter – but that phrasing is just bizarre. To my mind the implication is that having transferred all rights going to Adobe I now need to be told which rights Adobe is kind enough to let me retain.

Am I the only one that’s not entirely convinced that this all an innocent mistake but smacks of something a little bit deeper like a planned policy?

But before I get accused of an anti-Adobe conspiracy theory, I’ll float another question that I intend to return to shortly in a follow-up post: Are there really no circumstances in which you’d be happy to sign up to those original terms?