4 ms·

Google Chrome SVP says Portable NaCl will ship "in six weeks"

43 points by potkor 14y ago

It's in the context of the Chromebook but probably it will be a general Chrome feature if it's to be useful. This is great news for NaCl fans who have been mourning its limited potential due to its previously x86-bound nature. The PNaCl project has been around for a while, but AFAIK this is the first time Google have actually announced it's going to be productized.

kevingadd 14y ago
Nice to see Google delivering on their promises here. I look forward to trying out PNaCl apps on Android in Chrome!
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
willvarfar 14y ago
This is a very big deal for that new $249 ARM Chromebook they just announced, right? This means apps!?!
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  No, Chrome already has Apps. It means faster, native apps.
  - cliffbean 14y ago
    No, Chrome already has native apps -- NaCl. This headline is about PNaCl, the attempt to make native apps portable.
    - daeken 14y ago
      NaCl for ARM isn't shipping, is it? Last I heard, there were some serious issues with it, but that may have changed (I hope!).
OldSchool 14y ago
I wonder if Apple will selectively sue Samsung because it's a thin, rectangular, silver clamshell with black keys and a screen? (I like the Macbook Air btw)
- ams6110 14y ago
  Samsung can claim they didn't copy Apple because their design has a big ugly hinge visible on the top.
batgaijin 14y ago
Can someone enlighten me about the Pepper API? Could I run a server with it? What would sort of limits does the network connection have? How many requests per second could it handle? How many simultaneous connections? What about bandwidth? etc. etc.
- majke 14y ago
  Pepper is a new Plugin API for browsers proposed by Chrome: https://code.google.com/p/ppapi/ https://code.google.com/p/ppapi/ Plugin API is the magic responsible for Java or Flash in your browser. A plugin once installed on your PC may run in a number of browsers, as all use the same API - currently it is NPAPI. NPAPI (Netscape Plugin API) is very old and Chrome with Pepper wants replace it. Mozilla doesn't like Pepper, so at least for now Pepper is a Chrome-specific thing: https://wiki.mozilla.org/NPAPI:Pepper https://wiki.mozilla.org/NPAPI:Pepper
  - Tomdarkness 14y ago
    Do you know why Mozilla does not seem interested in Pepper?
    - ryaf 14y ago
      All I could find. https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/plugin-futures/2010-April/000088.html https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/plugin-futures/2010-April...
    - apetrovic 14y ago
      Both Google and Mozilla wants to obsolete your OS and move general computing in the browser; Google is more pragmatic and sees the need for native code apps on the client side (like games, image processing, etc) so they wants to transform the browser into distribution platform for such apps. Mozilla crew, on the other hand, holds high moral ground and lives in imaginary world where everything can be made with Web technologies, and if something isn't possible right now, we should just wait couple of processor iterations and couple of Web standard iterations. If companies are people, Google would be someone like Linus, and Mozilla would hang with RMS.
mccr8 14y ago
That's neat, but an odd thing to incidentally mention.
- justinschuh 14y ago
  The announcement is about the new ARM-based Chromebooks, and PNaCl is the way to write performant native apps that run on all architectures supported by Chrome.
  - mccr8 14y ago
    Of course, but surely this really cool project that Google has been working on for years and years deserves a bigger announcement than an aside in a netbook preview. Hopefully one will be coming along soon.
    - justinschuh 14y ago
      PNaCl was announced quite a while ago, and is a publicly developed open source project. The new detail here is just when it should start shipping to stable for use in Apps and Extensions.
- potkor 14y ago
  Agreed. Maybe they're testing the waters with the Chromebook and not updating the Android Chrome yet. BTW is there a dev channel for Android Chrome?
bcks 14y ago
Does anyone know how these work without an active internet connection? Is there an offline / synch option? I think the folks who most need cheap computers are also the ones with the spottiest access...
phaet0n 14y ago
I'm sure Google's PNaCl ARM solution took this long only because they were waiting to have an easier technical time of it with A15 cores and hardware virtualization. My bet is that they've saved themselves a lot of hassle and gone with implementing a lightweight hypervisor for untrusted native code.
- zurn 14y ago
  PNaCl is quite well documented. It involves LLVM bitcode and a verifier to prove it doesn't do anything naughty. Requiring HW virtualization would defeat the purpouse of portability. It wouldn't fly on desktop or Android because of the HW and OS requirements.

43 points by potkor 14y ago

kevingadd 14y ago

Nice to see Google delivering on their promises here. I look forward to trying out PNaCl apps on Android in Chrome!

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

willvarfar 14y ago

This is a very big deal for that new $249 ARM Chromebook they just announced, right? This means apps!?!

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
No, Chrome already has Apps. It means faster, native apps.
- cliffbean 14y ago
  No, Chrome already has native apps -- NaCl. This headline is about PNaCl, the attempt to make native apps portable.
  - daeken 14y ago
    NaCl for ARM isn't shipping, is it? Last I heard, there were some serious issues with it, but that may have changed (I hope!).

OldSchool 14y ago

I wonder if Apple will selectively sue Samsung because it's a thin, rectangular, silver clamshell with black keys and a screen? (I like the Macbook Air btw)

ams6110 14y ago
Samsung can claim they didn't copy Apple because their design has a big ugly hinge visible on the top.

batgaijin 14y ago

Can someone enlighten me about the Pepper API? Could I run a server with it? What would sort of limits does the network connection have? How many requests per second could it handle? How many simultaneous connections? What about bandwidth? etc. etc.

majke 14y ago
Pepper is a new Plugin API for browsers proposed by Chrome: https://code.google.com/p/ppapi/ https://code.google.com/p/ppapi/ Plugin API is the magic responsible for Java or Flash in your browser. A plugin once installed on your PC may run in a number of browsers, as all use the same API - currently it is NPAPI. NPAPI (Netscape Plugin API) is very old and Chrome with Pepper wants replace it. Mozilla doesn't like Pepper, so at least for now Pepper is a Chrome-specific thing: https://wiki.mozilla.org/NPAPI:Pepper https://wiki.mozilla.org/NPAPI:Pepper
- Tomdarkness 14y ago
  Do you know why Mozilla does not seem interested in Pepper?
  - ryaf 14y ago
    All I could find. https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/plugin-futures/2010-April/000088.html https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/plugin-futures/2010-April...
  - apetrovic 14y ago
    Both Google and Mozilla wants to obsolete your OS and move general computing in the browser; Google is more pragmatic and sees the need for native code apps on the client side (like games, image processing, etc) so they wants to transform the browser into distribution platform for such apps. Mozilla crew, on the other hand, holds high moral ground and lives in imaginary world where everything can be made with Web technologies, and if something isn't possible right now, we should just wait couple of processor iterations and couple of Web standard iterations. If companies are people, Google would be someone like Linus, and Mozilla would hang with RMS.

mccr8 14y ago

That's neat, but an odd thing to incidentally mention.

justinschuh 14y ago
The announcement is about the new ARM-based Chromebooks, and PNaCl is the way to write performant native apps that run on all architectures supported by Chrome.
- mccr8 14y ago
  Of course, but surely this really cool project that Google has been working on for years and years deserves a bigger announcement than an aside in a netbook preview. Hopefully one will be coming along soon.
  - justinschuh 14y ago
    PNaCl was announced quite a while ago, and is a publicly developed open source project. The new detail here is just when it should start shipping to stable for use in Apps and Extensions.
potkor 14y ago
Agreed. Maybe they're testing the waters with the Chromebook and not updating the Android Chrome yet. BTW is there a dev channel for Android Chrome?

bcks 14y ago

Does anyone know how these work without an active internet connection? Is there an offline / synch option? I think the folks who most need cheap computers are also the ones with the spottiest access...

phaet0n 14y ago

I'm sure Google's PNaCl ARM solution took this long only because they were waiting to have an easier technical time of it with A15 cores and hardware virtualization. My bet is that they've saved themselves a lot of hassle and gone with implementing a lightweight hypervisor for untrusted native code.

zurn 14y ago
PNaCl is quite well documented. It involves LLVM bitcode and a verifier to prove it doesn't do anything naughty. Requiring HW virtualization would defeat the purpouse of portability. It wouldn't fly on desktop or Android because of the HW and OS requirements.