Android (finally) steps in the direction of WebKit and chrome

MG Siegler wrote to TechCrunch since 2009. It covers web, mobile, social, big companies, small companies, in fact all. And Apple. A lot. Prior to TechCrunch he covered various technology beats for VentureBeat. Originally from Ohio, mg attended the University of Michigan. He had previously lived in Los Angeles, where he worked in Hollywood and in San Diego where ... ? Read More

Why not chrome is part of Android? This is a question as old as time itself. Or at least a few years. But given that the same company, Google, makes both products, he never made much sense. Now they're finally taking steps to address this problem. A little. Can be.

As Google announced the team group WebKit-Dev today (to Google Peter Beverloo), now the Android team seeks to work more closely with the community of WebKit. Yes, it's a bit strange that so committed to "open" the product is not actually works with the open source community — but hey, better late than never.

Andrei Popescu Writes:

We wanted to give an update on the WebKit on Android. Some time ago, we started the higher Android port of WebKit. For a variety of reasons, this work took longer than expected and was never completed. We understand that the incomplete Android port that exists today in WebKit ToT caused quite a lot of confusion and inconvenience for the project as a whole, and we are very sorry for this.

The full story is a bit trickier than it seems on the surface. While Android has its own separate browser which are not branded as "Chrome", both share some code. But they are not the same thing, and two separate commands work on each. For whatever reason, Google decided not to brand the Android browser like chrome, and do it now may cause some confusion since no chrome OS is another operating system, built by Google, Android.

So here is what happens now: Google Android team going to start giving another, slightly modified build Android browser that is fully open source. Think of it as Google chrome chrome. Android code will be deleted, and probably everyone will be able to use this code to build a new mobile Web browser based on WebKit.

That's all in the tech talk:

We plan to start with a build script webkit.org which will be compiled of chrome in the DRT for Android using the Android NDK, SDK and tools. We look forward to a quite small set of changes to the port of chrome in order to achieve this goal. We are fully committed to support this new flavor of chromium WebKit port and build Bot up and running as soon as possible will do this simple task. At the same time, we will delete the existing incomplete Android port. This includes Android code into WebCore/platform/android, as any code protected macro PLATFORM (ANDROID).

That makes it particularly difficult to understand that it sure sounds like Google is planning to call this version of the Android open source browser chrome and this will just new taste. Perhaps it's not so bad, because there is already a Windows, OS X and Linux flavors (and Android, one will be very close to Linux, the OS core technology, they share), but the finished product to all of these operating systems is called chrome, Android, he still would not be (presumably, anyway).

Follow all this?

Yes, it's still confusing, but in any case, it is a welcome step in the right direction.

Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and money in the world of information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers many ...

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Android is a software platform for mobile devices running the Linux operating system and developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance. This allows developers to write managed ...

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Bart interference in underground protests, a step in the wrong direction for digital freedom

RIP Empson-writer at TechCrunch. He did not find friends here, he is here to win and you don't forget it. You can contact him at rip [at] techcrunch [dot] com ? more

As many may be known currently, Bay metropolitan area, also known as Bart and San Francisco version of the municipal subway, gently on the receiving end of quite a bit of criticism in the past 24 hours. The criticism stems from a temporary intervention service Bart, cells in four of its stations to control potentially violent protests around the earlier shooting police officer Bart.

The incident occurred on July 3, 45-year-old Charles Blair, who was shot by Bart after (apparently homeless) man pulled out a knife and rushed the officer and his partner, according to SFGate.com. Organizers and activists staged a protest in select Bart station to oppose what they considered another body rash and unwarranted reaction to violence in their transport systems.

Unfortunately this is what Bart has been through before, with much publicized murder of Oscar grant in 2009. After a brawl in the station of Bart officers tried to detain a grant, then an officer drew his gun and shot grant in the back. The entire incident was captured on a cell phone camera, then later posted on YouTube, reaired on the news and was viewed by hundreds of thousands of times.

As CNET at the time, many people have adopted Twitter and other forms of social media to get updated information on the incident and subsequent trial, in which the staff member was convicted of manslaughter. Many disagreed with the verdict, however, and a lot of protests and violence that followed the incident clearly due to the mass availability of information (including sensitive shots of the actual murder) on the Web and social media. It is good or bad.

This is not to say that Bart had reason to censor cell phone activity in this latter situation, but there is no doubt they were fully aware of the precedent, and it would be ridiculous to assume that this (and others like it) could affect their reaction.

Now on the legality of Barth cellular communications interference, as already reported, SFAppeal among others, Bart does not necessarily use the lock methods that explicitly prohibited by the FCC and, instead, according to the statement made by the authority of transit, simply asked for wireless providers to temporarily interrupt the service Bart to select one of many tactics to ensure the safety of everyone on the platform. "which is not necessarily go beyond.

However, as pointed out by CNET and tweeters, it's still hard to avoid comparisons to the dictator of Hosni Mubarak, who ordered the Egyptian carriers essentially transform the Internet to prevent citizens from the organization. Of course, Twitter has already established its own hashtag for Bart bustle mountains: # MuBARTek. Although the comparison can be a little sharp, this is quite understandable.

Even if one takes the position that Bart had acted in accordance with the law and recognizes that Bart will probably regret his actions (if not already), United States of America was opened in condemning Mubarak for Egypt's Government interference in digital communication, and although it is certainly not a incident almost the same scale, he pretends to United States United States Government as hypocritical pushes macro web liberty and freedom in all forms of digital communication. If we want to adhere to high standards themselves allegedly (or above), the actions of this kind is not really acceptable.

Marvin Ammori, often cited jurist and expert in the field of Internet law, media law, freedom of expression and cyber-security, indicated in an insightful and well written post, although many were up in arms over the BARTgate, is a vivid example of the flagrant violation of the first amendment in the big picture, it's hard to argue the case. There is a lot of maneuver in the courts for scenarios in which government agency suppresses freedom of expression are not of its content but in terms of content to protect civilians from violence or danger. The higher courts will often rule against him in a massive violation of first amendment rights.

As pointed out by Ammori, Bart officials believe protested at their stations "can lead to overcrowding of the platforms and unsafe conditions for Bart customers, employees and the demonstrators, who do indeed" sounds like a reason.

Of course as Ammori suggests Bart really off the telephone network at a specific time that she looked forward to protest and protest against the transit police. The transit authority and the reasons for doing so, of course, because they expect that the protests could turn violent. Thus, "when Bart tried to suppress the speech of its content or to put an end to the violence," he says, "it most likely cannot satisfy the constitutional test and violated the first amendment."

Whether Bart guilty of violating the first amendment rights and eventually brought to trial, many experts call on FCC further study of this decision and is likely to exist.

And, control, investigation and analysis of incidents slowly, especially when they include a government agency, many hackers certainly have started tweeting on protesters and Anonymous has already released a digital brochure with the hashtag # MuBARTek, as first reported by CNET.

In any case, many of us can agree that this is a step in the wrong direction for freedom of speech in the United States, particularly as it relates to freedom of communication in digital media and could not afford silencers or intervention of government agencies in protests and demonstrations. As if not for potentially violent demonstrations, will this country have any civil, philosophical or governmental progress forward?

Undermines the credibility of the Internet or cellular discourse, no matter how small the incident, the wrong precedent and sends mixed signals to other countries and burgeoning digital communities around the world. It's just not a good policy, and it makes us look stupid.

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