

Google's Invisibility Cloak - frisco
http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/05/google-operating-system-tech-enter-cx_ew_1205google.html

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aditya
linkbait?!

"Google employees not using the secret OS are employing various versions of
Unix, such as Linux or Ubuntu, and some older operating systems, like X11, he
says." _rolls eyes_

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frisco
i agree the author is probably an idiot (or, to be fair probably just not
technical and lost it in translation from their tech consult), but i guess the
thing that made me submit it to HN were the thoughts it triggered about a
potential google OS. it's not impossible at this point, and there are some
really cool things they could do with it.

imagine if the kernel had a low level "job manager," which could split up
processes and dynamically run parts on their infrastructure; effectively a
"map" operation. then, all parts of the process would be merged when results
are returned from google and the components executed locally are completed;
effectively a "reduce" operation. assuming a constant connection to google's
infrastructure isn't insane for, say, fixed desktops (business users,
anyone?). file storage could be run remotely, on GFS, which is highly
available and highly redundant (and massive for cheap). you could run "big
data" problems on individual employees' machines, since everything is
partially "run in the cloud" as needed. and, if the data store is GFS, there
would be basically no latency to the compute nodes.

there are just so many cool things google is set up to do for a future OS, and
this article made me think.

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randomwalker
Wow, you got all that from the article? I must have missed the subtext!

Seriously though, people have been speculating about a google OS for years and
years, and there hasn't been a shred of credible evidence. A far more likely
reason for concealing the User-Agent string would be that those computers are
running development versions of Chrome, perhaps on Mac/Linux, don't you think?

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frisco
You're absolutely right, it's way more likely here, and that's probably what's
going on. Whether there's credible evidence or not as to a Google OS wasn't my
point -- it's that the _idea_ of Google doing that wouldn't strike you as
crazy, and that just brings up the question "what could they do with it?"

Linus did a very, very good job for the single isolated box. A kernel that had
very deep ties to a greater infrastructure, a true internet computer, though,
would have a huge value proposition for a lot of users, especially in
business. I guess this thread could have been better titled, "Challenge HN:
Extend the Linux kernel to do low level process splitting and handle a remote
file system natively, to have the computer run partially on a distributed
infrastructure as needed." I'd be amazed if Google aren't the ones to do this.
If they aren't, though, we'll be welcoming some new names to the computing
billionaires' club in the next few years.

~~~
anamax
> Linus did a very, very good job for the single isolated box.

Actually, no. Linus solved a much harder problem, the social problem of
"freeing" a platform. Technology - not so much, but that's okay because lots
of other people had done that.

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ggrot
Calling lack of useragents an "invisibility clack" seems a bit of a stretch.

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pmorici
This article reads like sales pitch for "Net Applications" product. All of the
articles content comes from an interview with "Vince Vizzacarro, Net
Applications' executive vice president of marketing."

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dangrover
Brilliant PR.

