Chrome 91 Beta Brings Experimental WebTransport, WebAssembly SIMD By Default

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Except it's not. Google doesn't want to run all your apps, as that's expensive. They just want your data. So, we're not living in a world of phones and chromebooks as dumb terminals. They're actually quite smart and do the vast majority of the work. What lives in the cloud is your data.

And it's not like the 1960's at all, because that was when you connected to a single computer. The various computers weren't even networked! What we have now is fault-tolerant and distributed, with local caching for fast response times. Nobody in the 1960s dared even dream of that! The Internet was more than enough for them to try and get their heads around.


And what does web assembly have to do with any of it? It's really not that different than Java Bytecode, in function. And that's been with us since the mid-90's.

You really need to check yourself, when you get wound up like this. Just ask yourself whether technology X is really instrumental to your point, or are you just slinging it around as a buzzword (like the corporates so often do).

Wow....you didn't really read nor comprehend what I wrote.

I made several analogies. I never said Google has a singular mainframe as the IBM System/360 was in 1964. I said and I am 100% correct in stating that Google has a "Mainframe in the Cloud". THE operative word being "Cloud" which already assumes and connotes "distributed" and interconnected. And yet to the useronioithic and personal to your experience and need just as you would experience it from your dumb terminal back in the day. Even the word "Mainframe" as applied since the 1960s regardless of brand still applies and is correct terminology for Google's Data Warehouses as the compute, storage and network nodes all reside in a frame that makes up the physical plant of the warehouse which is a collection of frames with these various nodes. Google Cloud, AWS, Azure, IBM Cloud are simply 21st Century Mainframes that now just happened to be both WAY more massive than their classic Mainframe forefathers as well as being massivley distributed and interconnected in ways their forefathers were not and could never be given the state of tech and networking at that time...._(Although ARPANET showed the way in 1969)_....

I never said Chromebooks and Android phones were "dumb terminals". I said they were and are "Semi-Dumb" terminals reflecting a "modified analogie". Obviously because of some local compute and storage function Chromebooks and Android phones could never be the simple, dumb terminal of 1964 era Mainframe timesharing computing. Hence my terminology of "SEMI" dumb. But make no mistake there is STILL a perception in the consumer mind space after a decade of Chromebook existence that it's not a REAL computer because it's just a "browser in a box". I know. I used to try to sell them at Best Buy back in the day. I own one today. My kids have two. I perfectly know that they are not "Dumb" Terminals of long ago. But 10 years ago and until they were able to run Android apps locally and locally stored , yes , Chromebooks were just the 21st Century HTTP browser based Dumb Terminal with all your compute services residing in Google's Mainframe in the Cloud. They're slightly more than that of course now. But not MUCH more, hence "Semi-Dumb Terminal.

You don't seem to take much stock in the emerging 5G and 6G connectivity regimen and yes you should be skeptical of utopian marketing boilerplate and bullshit. Here once again I know from experience . I have both a degree in Meterology AND Marketing and Advertising . I know how the sausage is made and where it comes from. That said, with my 4G Sprint Cellular phone transfering WiFi to my Chromebook and without the game being installed on my Chromebook, I am able to play Cyberpunk 2077 at 60FPS 1080p. The look on my son's face after he dropped a dime or two for that game on his PS and it didn't look any better than on my Chromebook was absolutely priceless ! He has never again said "Ok , Boomer" to me.

Stadia gaming IS "Dumb Terminal" to Mainframe computing. And if that can happen now with high latency, high ping 4G, how can you still doubt what I mentioned is coming and will manifest with 5G, 5.5 G and much less 6G? We are going to see single digit pings on Cellular this decade. We are going to see microsecond latencies in the 2030s. What makes you think all the hyperscalers are going to scale back putting more warehouses closer to and in more localities? Hell, at the rate that Malls are dying out in American every major city in every state in the nation could have a data warehouse from one or more of the Big Three. Copper backhaul is being replaced every day with Fiber. I know. My cell tower in my backyard just last year got brand new spanking fiber from AT&T to feed the Sprint (now T-Mobile) transmitters as well as the newly installed 5G Verizon transmitters. None of my families phones have 5G but all of our 4G has vastly improved.
We've gone from 20-ish Mbs Up and Down to 70-ish Up and Down. Pings have dropped from 60ms-ish to 20ms- ish. Jitter is down too. And this is Sprint mind you and Sprint over Boost Mobile. It's shit. And yet....Cyberpunk 2077 in 1080p at 60 fps on a Chromebook.

And yet I somehow too pie in the sky and an wrong about the Mainframe paradigm we see today. Just as Mini-Computers made computing for Mainframe guys more "personal" and "local" and "Micro-Computers" made computing for the rest of us more "personal" and "local", High Speed Internet both wired and wireless via Cellular along with Hyperscaled Mainframes in the Clouds are redifining what "PERSONAL" computing means. And "Personal" computing going forward is WAY more like 1960s Era Timesharing Mainframe Computing through Terminals than it was with my totally un_networked, totally isolated, totally local, totally personal computing experience with my Commodore 64 in 1982.

[coder]

Wow....you didn't really read nor comprehend what I wrote.

Of course I read it. Can anyone truly comprehend your writing? I'm still not sure.

THE operative word being "Cloud" which already assumes and connotes "distributed" and interconnected. ... is correct terminology for Google's Data Warehouses as the compute, storage and network nodes all reside in a frame that makes up the physical plant of the warehouse which is a collection of frames with these various nodes.

No. Because it's a distributed collection of datacenters and ISP co-location facilities, it's way too far even to stretch the analogy of a mainframe.

I am able to play Cyberpunk 2077 at 60FPS 1080p.

Did you only fire it up once, or can you consistently play it without lag or degradation at peak hours?

Stadia gaming IS "Dumb Terminal" to Mainframe computing.

Yes, because it costs money. They can't just give away that amount of compute for free.

how can you still doubt what I mentioned is coming and will manifest with 5G, 5.5 G and much less 6G?

Because 5G (and I assume 6G) requires high-density deployment. That's expensive, and bandwidth ain't exactly free. So, it's not going to be as ubiquitous as 4G and it's going to be a lot more expensive. That's going to limit its impact on everyday life.

And yet I somehow too pie in the sky and an wrong about the Mainframe paradigm we see today.

Yes, because the bulk of computing power in the world is still in client devices. Apps aren't going to run in the cloud without good reason, when they could just as easily run on your phone for free. Again, Google doesn't want to run more code than it has to, in order to provide the services that will keep letting it spy on people's activity and their data.

[cl333r]

These two Google tech rollouts will become part of the infrastructure, at least browser wise, for 6G when Terabits will be the norm and microsecond lantencies will allow things like on device holography, 8k/16k video streaming, and real time robotic control with tactile feedback, just to name a few.

Ok....I just creeped myself out just a bit.

Imagine what 7G will bring. Then imagine 2millionG.

[microcode]

WebTransport is pretty lit. Gonna write a compatible lib that tries to do something over a pool of WebSockets, because it really captures a use case I have at work.

[Charlie68]

I want to be spied by Google, is this a problem for you? Don't use it!
Most people I know don't give a damn about being spied on by Google and aren't willing to give up on their services.

[Ladis]

I think you misunderstand PWA. It's just a way to start using the app before it completely downloads.

PWA is a web app which can run both in the web (like a normal web app) and locally (you can tell the web browser to download its files). Then you can run the app locally, many work even offline (no other code or data needed from the server) and can work with local files (no slow data-eating upload to the server). A great example is this Photoshop-clone: https://www.photopea.com/ (you can install it to your device and edit your local pictures, even offline).

EDIT: The more features PWA offers, the less need for Electron on the desktop and native apps on the phones. Of course Apple blocks the progress, e.g. as I know PWA apps can't send notification on iOS.