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By Melissa MacDonald, June 2, 2011
GALWAY– This week I interviewed Eric Houston about the new laptop he’s been seen with: it’s Google’s unreleased Chrome Operating System and laptop model CR-48. He was chosen to receive the laptop in a worldwide beta tester program. I sat down with him to ask all the questions everyone’s been dying to know about this brand new piece of tech.
How did you get chosen?
Eric: I applied for the Chrome pilot test back in December 2010 and filled out a survey about computers, coding, and college (Yes, I’m going. I’ve been accepted into Manor College in PA for Computer Sciences) and some other personal details. They also asked me, “Why should we let you in this program? And I answered, “Because I’m awesome.” I’m one out of 40,000 (testers) in the world, and one out of 20,000 in the US.
What does the job of Beta Tester entail?
Doing whatever I want with the laptop, benchmarking, using it as though I don’t know computers as I know now, and messing around with it in general to see if there’s any problems with the OS.
So it’s a new Operating System and a new laptop model?
Unreleased, yes.
What are the specs for the tech nerds?
16 gig SSD, 2 gigs DDR3 ram, matte finish, Verizon broadband card that can be activated with a paid subscription, island keyboard, touchpad, and built-in camera. It will be on sale July 15th for $200-$500 UDS. The OS is Linux as well and it has a developer console for people who know what they’re doing.
Is it worth the money?
Yes, it’s for internet addicts because it has to be connected to the internet 24/7 to function fully with all the different apps, and unlike Macs, there’s no viruses!
And for those of you who might need this, here are the…
Nerd Translations!
SSD: Solid State Drive. A super fast (and super expansive) kind of hard drive that doesn’t use rotating electromagnets to store data. It can startup an operating system in as little as 15 seconds!
RAM: Memory for your computer. The more gigs of RAM, the faster your computer can handle multiple tasks. 4 is generally the max that most computers can handle.
OS: Operating System, (like Windows 7).
Linux: A free basic operating system for advanced computer users. Most commercial OS’s are based off of Linux.
Developer Console: a command program that allows advanced users to “look under the hood” and fiddle around with the capabilities of the operating system.
Cody • Oct 11, 2011 at 2:03 pm
That may be true Eric, but you don’t have one of the commercial laptops that have branding all over them. That laptop will go on sale as one of Acer’s or Samsung’s, so the company needs to make a profit, so they charge more. That is made from barebone parts and is not a specific company, that way that specific CR-48 laptop will go for sale a lot cheaper if it were to be sold instead of the standard commercial models. And i still want to buy it if you are interested.
Eric J Houston • Jun 7, 2011 at 6:31 pm
Believe it or not, alot of students actually offered me money for this laptop already. I had to tell them that the laptop was not for sale though. If you want to buy this laptop it’s going to come out on July 15th!