While watching the video for the new Cr-48;  ”How to remain calm despite what’s about to happen to your Chrome notebook,” Zimmer says he noticed a long mathematical equation on a chalkboard at the 2:23 mark in the video.

To many people, this probably didn’t jump out much more than the backgrounds of Dexter’s Lab cartoons. But Zimmer decided to give it a shot.

I’m a writer because I can’t do math. There’s no way I can describe the level of thinking that went into this better than this excerpt from Zimmer’s own account of the process:

All we got was X = 90091/191605050401140404051920181525 ~= 4.7*10^-27 and we were not even sure of this one number because of barely readable numbers in the original video…

The first path we explored was in Physics, 1.66*10^-27 being the atomic mass constant u. Having X=2.83u didn’t make much sense: too far from 2.0x or 3.0x where the closest element I knew are. Then my friend Joachim Rambeau tipped me off with an idea on “Chrome UX” being the name of the team that released the video. There was an X in there! With the equation X=(U/Chrome), U being the mass of uranium (~238u depending on isotopes) and “Chrome” the mass of Cr-48 or related isotopes, we found ourselves very close to the 4.7 ballpark…

…we realized “900.91″ did actually reference the goo.gl url shortener. The division obviously meant a slash in an URL, and then we had to make sense of the 191605050401140404051920181525 to find an URL.

I tried to convert the 30 numbers into 4 characters, like all goo.gl URLs. Didn’t have much luck, I was trying to prepend “00″ at the beginning to have 32 characters, but couldn’t make sense of the resulting sequence “00191605 05040114 04040519 20181525″.

That was when I noticed there were far too many zeroes in that sequence, even without the ones I added. So I tried different splits, and ended up with “19 16 05 05 04 01 14 04 04 05 19 20 18 15 25.″

I translated it to letters and got “s p e e d a n d d e s t r o y”. Obviously, at this point my fingers were very shaky, but I managed to type goo.gl/speedanddestroy in my browser and got to a form telling me that I was the “first to figure out our MENSA-certified puzzle” and would receive a Cr-48. WIN ! ;-)

I don’t know about you, but I’m going out to buy some books on physics before Google releases another ad.

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In 2009, Google announced that it was readying to step into the OS ring, which has been dominated for the most part by Microsoft and Apple. Tuesday was essentially the weigh-in for Google’s Chrome OS, accompanied by the Google CR-48 netbook.

The Hardware

The Cr-48 has entered with its 12.1-inch screen and matte black finish, not unlike the matte black MacBook many grew so fond of not so long ago.

It boasts 8 hours of useful life on a full charge, and for our less patient readers, it starts up in only 10 seconds.  Waking from sleep is instant, almost as though it is already on, and it also remembers your last activities before you shut it off and resumes your programs upon turning on again.  It won’t cook you breakfast, or make you toast, but it will never forget anything.

Google has skipped out on traditional platter hardrives and instead opted to go with flash memory. A great choice on their part, simply because efficiency is more valuable than size since Chrome OS is cloud-based you’ll never run out of room now will you?

Like most laptops and netbooks nowadays it has a webcam, but unlike laptops and netbooks nowadays, no Caps Lock key. To me, this means stop yelling on discussion boards, and keep searching for what you want.  It also has a large, clickable touchpad, again, similar to a MacBook. And familiar to Mac fans, 2 fingers does the right click.

Cloud Computing

Google has taken the meaning of a “netbook” to the next level, and really, all hardware aside, it doesn’t matter what this CR-48 looks like. You could litterally torch it on the barby — as Google did in the video below — because there’s nothing on there to lose. Google makes a strong point that hardware is indispensable, trust the one who holds your data.

With cloud-based computing and cloud storage, basically your whole computer is tied directly to your free Google account. If you lose that netbook, light it on fire, drop it out of a plane, or more typically, just want to use a friends computer — assuming it also runs Chrome OS — you’ll be greeted by all your installed apps, themes, inbox and bookmarks just the way you’re used to. Sort of like a corporate intranet with user profiles, just taken globally, which is what Google plans to do. And it’s all possible because it’s hanging out in the “clouds.”

Cloud Computing is the future, I won’t deny that, but a  major hurdle it currently has to overcome is the “always-connected” requirement. It’s a setback for the Chrome OS and the Cr-48, and is due in part to a 3G connection.   If you thought Android was a data hog, wait till you see Chrome OS. It introduces a whole new kind of flexibility, but what about where there is no 3G? You’ll be basically looking at a blank screen, no data will be present whatsoever, just an empty shell. Currently the CR-48 is setup for Verizon’s 3G network in the US, Google has not announced any plans in other countries, but I’m sure they are in the works.  Verizon’s data plan includes 100MB a month free, anything beyond that will cost users $20 (1GB), $20 (3GB) or $50 (5GB) per month. That’s pretty steep if you ask me, and could hurt the devices sales.

Conclusion

The Google Chrome OS and CR-48 show a lot of promise. They have the potential to become huge in the market of bringing the app model to desktops, all the while appealing to users who are on the move and primarily use a computer for the web, docs, and emails.   It will also ease the minds of users about ever losing data again, because it’ll be safe in the Google cloud.  

See the commercial below.

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