Chromebook sales are up, PC sales down

Look at that, just after I go out and purchase a Chromebook of my own, sales numbers for 2013 and first quarter 2014 are hitting the web. The results are straightforward, PC sales continue to decline and Chromebook sales are on track to possibly double over last year.

Mixed into the numbers are some dramatic numbers out of the Microsoft camp, where the Surface division is reported to have accrued losses upwards of $2 billion in the last couple years.

As for the Chromebooks, they clocked in for a little over 2 million unit sales last year, not bad, but they rang up over 1 million sales in the first quarter of this year alone, on track to 4 million then?

There is no doubt that mobile and Chromebooks are taking over the majority of sales these days, these numbers only prove it.

Google improves your security, adds SSL to Chrome Extensions

Google has improved security but ensuring your connection from your Android device all the way to the browser on your computer is secured using normal HTTPS connections. Specifically, Google has added TLS/SSL to their chrome.sockets API.

You may be wondering if all Chrome extensions are secure or not, and for the most part, I think you will find that they are. Standard websockets have been in play for years, and they are fully SSL compliant. This news simply provides developers an alternative, Google-built for Google-products, tool to secure Chrome extensions.

New Chrome OS interface in the works

We don't know if this is going to be a permanent change, or just an option, but we've got a little view of a new user interface for Chrome OS. It is called Athena and there is little more to it at this point.

Thanks to François Beaufort over on G+ or sharing the news and the screenshot.

This is certainly an early look at the new interface, but we are excited that it may offer some customization and is designed more to be touch friendly.

HP Chromebook 14 - The touchpad

You may think it silly that I am about to commit an entire post to the touchpad of the Chromebook, specifically for the HP Chromebook 14, but I assure you there is enough to be said about it. Let's take a look at how it differs from other touchpads and what nifty tricks it has up its sleeve.

Fist and foremost, the Chromebook foregoes the traditional 3 piece model of a touch area, left and right buttons. In place is a single touch area with a single click action to it. The touch area moves the mouse cursor, as expected, and the click operates your primary mouse button click. From here, further actions are made possible through multi-touch capabilities and key combinations.

Chromebooks - HP Chromebook 14

I just wanted to say quickly that I have a new HP Chromebook 14 in hand and will be bringing it to this blog. Is there anything you guys would like to know?

This unit has the 14-inch display with 2GB of RAM and the 1.4GHz Intel processor. The display itself runs at 1366 x 768 resolution, but it also has a mock 1536 x 864 mode to better utilize the screen size.

The battery is giving me about 6-7 hours of use for my blog writing / research needs. The dual speakers on either side on the bottom are a little easy to muffle in the lap, but provide decent enough sound, for a laptop. I have not yet tested connected headphones, will let you know later.

Android apps on Chrome OS, is it worth it?

I have been thinking about this for a couple days. I suspect I'll get some backlash for saying this, but I am not sure we need Android apps on Chrome OS.

Now hold on, before you start throwing things at me, please hear me out.

TVPRO, a set-top box built for video conferencing

I had the chance to look into the Kickstarter campaign for a new set-top box called TVPRO. I will admit that I really like the idea behind this device, but am afraid that it is just a little too late to the smart TV party.

The likes of Google's Chromecast and other vendors' running Google's Chrome OS are already on the market, tackling much the same tasks. In the Google camp again is new news about the upcoming Android TV. I won't even go into all of the other offerings, including Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, TiVo and more. With all of this competition already at market, TVPRO must have something up its sleeve to make a go of this? Is it their fitness training system called Reshape, perhaps.