By now it’s old news that Google’s OS is entirely based on the cloud. Even though apparently there is some simple file storage, everything is clearly meant to be taken and used online. That is precisely what concerns me regarding the digital divide in the post’s title. This “always online” philosophy might be fine for countries like the US or other places in Europe and Asia, where network connections are available pretty much everywhere and most, if not all, of the population has financial means to use this infrastructure.  It’s certainly not like that here where I live, in Brazil. Sure, metropolitan areas have plenty of mobile network coverage. But bandwith is scarcer and data plans are very expensive, and the averge citizen is very far away from being able to indulge in these luxuries. Wireless networks are also not quite as frequently found as they are elsewhere.

Of course none of these problems are related to Google’s Chrome OS or in fact to any technological issue. However, the developing world’s infrastructure limitations are bound to become even more limiting as our everyday tech becomes more dependent on exactly this kind of infrastructure.

I’d love to try spending a few days with a Cr-48 as my only machine down here and see how it goes (wink, Google), but I strongly suspect things would not go so smoothly here as they did for the reviewers in the US.

Oh yes, and before I forget, at last someone heard my cries and got rid of the useless Caps Lock key! Google has replaced it with a much more useful “search” key.

I believe we are about to see some interesting times in the PC retail market.  If Dell’s offering of Linux notebooks catches on (or even if it doesn’t, but they manage to market it properly), we might see a flurry of manufacturers offering their consumers this choice, if only for fear of getting left behind.  Once people start seeing a price difference between Windows and Linux PCs, and everyone hears about the infamous Windows tax, Linux might get a lot more exposure among regular users, as people might be willing to give it a try (“it’s cheaper, so I might as well try it, if I don’t like it I can always get a copy of Windows at discount prices anyway“) .  This would pressure hardware manufacturers to provide decent Linux support.  In my previous, now defunct blog, I had stated that 2007 might be the year where we see desktop Linux take off.  I also said everyone says this every single year and so far it hasn’t happened.  Who knows, this year it might turn out differently?