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Adobe joins the Chromebook party, starting with Photoshop

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Re: Adobe joins the Chromebook party, starting with Photoshop

#71

Post by JBiserkov »

esturk wrote: post #43
whizzkid wrote: post #19

I am little bit concerned about the way technology trends these days. It feels like sooner or later, big companies will have all the hardware and software hosted on their side and people will only get access to play it according to companies rules. This is actually a concern to my freedom as well. I want to own my hardware and software power. I want to run everything offline if i want to. I don't want to click "I agr…

That's the whole point of the Cloud. To the business, it deleverages the customer's control and increase the latter's dependence on the former. Think about why Skype is no longer P2P. Think about how some Video/Audio formats are proprietary that you have use the same service or else you risk losing all your past recordings.

>Think about why Skype is no longer P2P...

Yes, please do think, then read what Skype's principal architect has to say about it http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/2013/06/sort/time_...

Re: Adobe joins the Chromebook party, starting with Photoshop

#72

Post by dchest »

wmf wrote: post #55
pdknsk wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The color correction can be done on the server. It just needs to get and upload your monitor profile, and Photoshop on the server returns color corrected pixels. Of course, Chrome cannot even read the monitor profile on Linux yet. I'm not sure if this also applies to Chromebooks though. Since it's a fixed device, it probably ships with the monitor profile file factory stored somewhere. Or Adobe gets the files for the…

And then H.264 artifacts probably undo that color correction.

I guess they are using VP9, which has 4:4:4 chroma subsampling: http://youtu.be/xo_R40C7RTo?t=3m35s

Re: Adobe joins the Chromebook party, starting with Photoshop

#73

Post by DannyBee »

personZ wrote: post #66
DannyBee wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's actually streaming. As the link says, they run managed vm's and stream it. As someone else says, VNC is really old technology. We can do better.

Nothing in this discussion indicates that anyone knows what streaming technology they're using. However of course there are better and worse technology. Streaming RDP from a Windows box a thousand miles away, for instance, is a world more enjoyable and usable than VNCing to the Mac box connected via a 1Gbps twisted pair. App level virtualization through the same, interacting and engaging with the rest of your desktop…

"Nothing in this discussion indicates that anyone knows what streaming technology they're using"

I actually do, but i don't know whether it's public, so i don't talk about it.

However, i'll point out that Google already has something called Chrome Remote Desktop that already does streaming desktops.

Re: Adobe joins the Chromebook party, starting with Photoshop

#74

Post by xg15 »

ewzimm wrote: post #58
whizzkid wrote: post #19

I am little bit concerned about the way technology trends these days. It feels like sooner or later, big companies will have all the hardware and software hosted on their side and people will only get access to play it according to companies rules. This is actually a concern to my freedom as well. I want to own my hardware and software power. I want to run everything offline if i want to. I don't want to click "I agr…

On the flip side, you can consider that traditional proprietary software installs usually have full access to read and modify your system, often in ways you don't expect or wouldn't consent to. Running in a virtualized environment in a browser significantly reduces access to your system. So if you run a free software local install with proprietary programs running in a jailed browser environment, you are probably mor…

This is true in theory, in practice not very much.

i believe if the current trend goes on, you'll soon likely have not much on your local machine anymore that would be worth protecting. The philosophy behind devices like the Cromebook or streaming apps like photoshop-in-the-cloud after all only work if all your files are also in the cloud. So if this catches on, expect your Dropbox/Google Drive/etc to turn from a convenient place to backup and move your files to the primary location where you store them.

Even if you have valuable files stored locally, you'd be correct if access to cloud services would really only run through the browser. but check how all recent Android or iOS releases (or really almost all modern consumer OSes) work: most regularly phone home to their respective vendor and are usually heavily locked down - the devices are little more than physical endpoints if the cloud. On such devices, the company that created the device has likely mider access to the system than you.

obviously there are the usual exceptions from the Free Software movement - however for average consumer devices, the trend seems to be clear.

Re: Adobe joins the Chromebook party, starting with Photoshop

#75

Post by xg15 »

api wrote: post #53
whizzkid wrote: post #19

I am little bit concerned about the way technology trends these days. It feels like sooner or later, big companies will have all the hardware and software hosted on their side and people will only get access to play it according to companies rules. This is actually a concern to my freedom as well. I want to own my hardware and software power. I want to run everything offline if i want to. I don't want to click "I agr…

"It feels like sooner or later, big companies will have all the hardware and software hosted on their side and people will only get access to play it according to companies rules." I agree. The "PC revolution" has gone into full reverse. It's the revenge of the mainframe and the whole mentality behind it. There's many reasons for this, but the biggest one I think is piracy and the general mentality that "everything s…

I agree with you that this mentality is likely how we gotten into the mess, but I think the way out is less clear. Thanks to the whole piracy dilemma, there was motivation your three strategies and develop the technology and services that they require. But now the technologies are there and aren't going away anymore, even if everyone would suddenly start paying again for everything.

Take Adobe for example: They moved from selling Photoshop as a software to a subscription-based model where they are effectively selling the same thing as a service. They didn't just use the cloud technology to secure their old business model, they actually made it even more restrictive.

Similarly, when you buy a phone, you don't get to choose between a cheap, locked down phone and an expensive free phone - you're paying the full price and still get the locked down phone.

So I believe, it is necessary that we get an alternative to the "free" culture, but it isn't enough. As things are today, it makes the most economic sense to abandon the "free" culture and still keeping your users in serfdom. Something else has to happen to shift balance, but I have no idea what that could be.

Re: Adobe joins the Chromebook party, starting with Photoshop

#76

Post by MiddleEndian »

wffurr wrote: post #45
whizzkid wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I want to own my hardware and software power" I think this states what I am trying to say.

The parent is specifically addressing that point. You don't own most of the software you are purchasing. The vendor retains either the technical or legal ability to reach into your machine and disable the software via the licensing agreement.

License or not, source or not, if I have something installed on my computer, I can modify it or at least attempt to do so. I can also run it without a reliable network connection. Not so much for streaming services.

Re: Adobe joins the Chromebook party, starting with Photoshop

#77

Post by vlunkr »

math0ne wrote: post #60
flixic wrote: post #14

Well this is interesting. Their FAQ[0] contains some more information, but still does not explain everything. They say "however, instead of being installed on your local machine, it is running in a virtualized environment so can be accessed from any Chrome browser or Chromebook. Because this version of Photoshop is running in a virtualized environment, you open, save, export and recover files from/to your Google Driv…

IS it possible that there is a localized virtual machine setup and the image itself is what is streamed over the network? IE you would have a locally installed version of linux on a virtual machine and an additional drive is essentially steamed over the network via SMB os something that contains the PS application?

I can't see any practical reason why this would be the case. Photoshop is a pretty hefty application in terms of RAM/CPU, so it makes a lot more sense to run it remotely, since Chrome Books are built to be cheap, not powerful.

Re: Adobe joins the Chromebook party, starting with Photoshop

#78

Post by justinsb »

vlunkr wrote: post #77
math0ne wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IS it possible that there is a localized virtual machine setup and the image itself is what is streamed over the network? IE you would have a locally installed version of linux on a virtual machine and an additional drive is essentially steamed over the network via SMB os something that contains the PS application?

I can't see any practical reason why this would be the case. Photoshop is a pretty hefty application in terms of RAM/CPU, so it makes a lot more sense to run it remotely, since Chrome Books are built to be cheap, not powerful.

I agree, although perhaps ChromeBooks are "cheap and weak" because there are no applications that use the power (hence the failure of the Chrome Pixel). If ChromeBooks are to become ubiquitous, I think local VMs is a great solution for legacy applications.

Re: Adobe joins the Chromebook party, starting with Photoshop

#79

Post by pjmlp »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #56
pjmlp wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On most countries EULAS are void.

Yeah how's that work? In the US any terms made after money is tendered are void. This was done to avoid someone adding terms to a contract on delivery. SO is it true for software too? What about electronic download?

In most European countries yes, as you can only read such licenses after buying the product.

For the EULA to be enforcable, it needs to be made available at the store in such a way that the customer can read it before buying.

Same thing for digital goods.

If you can only read the license after buying the product, it is not valid.

Re: Adobe joins the Chromebook party, starting with Photoshop

#80

Post by api »

xg15 wrote: post #75
api wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It feels like sooner or later, big companies will have all the hardware and software hosted on their side and people will only get access to play it according to companies rules." I agree. The "PC revolution" has gone into full reverse. It's the revenge of the mainframe and the whole mentality behind it. There's many reasons for this, but the biggest one I think is piracy and the general mentality that "everything s…

I agree with you that this mentality is likely how we gotten into the mess, but I think the way out is less clear. Thanks to the whole piracy dilemma, there was motivation your three strategies and develop the technology and services that they require. But now the technologies are there and aren't going away anymore, even if everyone would suddenly start paying again for everything. Take Adobe for example: They moved…

Agreed.

Making things even harder is how deeply entrenched the piracy-is-good mentality still is. Try arguing against it over at Reddit or on any thread about Popcorn Time or Kim.Com (what a douche) and see how far you get. You'll get attacked pretty viciously and downvoted into lower Hades, even at Hacker News.

If you don't pay, you don't matter. Free means serfdom. This is one of those things that absolutely nobody gets, IMHO, and I see no sign of more people getting it for a while. It's gonna have to get a lot worse before it gets better.

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