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back to article Google preps tablet-friendly Chrome that knows 'what's up'

As part of its effort to graduate its Chrome browser to the upcoming Chrome OS, Google is working to add device orientation to the browser's capabilities. Not that orientation — the ability for an app or OS to know that up is up and down is down — is all that revolutionary of a breakthrough. Developers have been tapping to …

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  1. Si 1

    Real Racing HD in the browser?

    Is this via Flash or running under Javascript? I'm not sure either option would result in a particularly playable game.

    Or will Google be adding an OpenGL library to Chrome to accelerate 3D graphics? That would be pretty cool.

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    1. Mr Brush
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      Unhappy

      Java -> JNI -> OGL -> Feck!

      if it's anything like the Android implementation all the bouncing back and forth through JNI whenever you call an OpenGL function will completely kill any chance of a decent frame rate.

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    2. Anonymous Coward
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      Thumb Up

      Hmmm

      native games will run through native client on the browser, not through flash or java script

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    3. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      3D in the browser

      Chrome already has support for webGL

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  2. Argh

    Why does the browser care about the orientation?

    I can see why the OS should support it, but why does the browser need to be modified for this?

    I would expect that the OS should be responsible for keeping everything "the right way up", and just passing the browser information about the change in window size, in case a different UI layout is required for portrait/landscape orientations.

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    1. Disco-Legend-Zeke
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      Pint

      Having Accelerometers...

      ...really helps, especially when a camera is built in. Any desirable device will also decode GPS, the technologies are very synergistic.

      As to having orientational information available to the coder, maybe i have a pic i like better in portrait than i do in landscape. I am not sure if browsers can pass that information along. The application i LOVE is the class that paints virtual overlays onto the live camera image, it needs to know what direction you are pointing the camera, and how zoomed in, you are.

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    2. TeeCee Gold badge
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      Yes, but.

      It's the bit about expecting the OS to do the tricky bit. When the browser effectively is the OS*, there's a slight problem with that approach.

      *Bar the kernel. I'm sure the kernel devs would have been only too delighted to implement all the (redundant on 99% of machines) accelerometer event / device orientation processing there so Googly tablets worked right.....

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  3. Gary F

    Chrome lags

    I have a tablet PC and Chrome is the least touch friendly browser. When I try to scroll it selects everything my finger touches instead of scrolling. Come on Google, read the Windows 7 developer's handbook!

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  4. e n

    Chrome is being installed on Google's Tablet

    The reason for Google wanting Chrome to know orientation, is because Chrome is going to be installed on tablets... including Google's tablet, which will actually be Android based. Chrome might be installed on other tablets, including Win7, WebOS, and hopefully...the iPad.

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  5. The BigYin

    Orientation aware?

    I wonder if Apple or someone will sue?

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  6. Jay 3
    FAIL

    Mega FAIL!

    Yawn ... snore!!! Please wake me when something other than vaporware arrives... as for the cloud, it is all fine and dandy as long as your fat pipe is up and working... a recent outage of a major Canadian Internet provider just proved that the cloud is as useful as a doorstop when your connection goes to shit. Mega FAIL MOFOs, Mega FAIL!

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  7. BristolBachelor Gold badge
    Badgers

    Having Accelerometers... 2

    To be honest, the iPod orientation awareness often gets on my nurves. When it works OK, it's OK, although not everything supports it (If the OS says that the screen is landscape, then deal with it OK!)

    When looking at photos, if I want to see a landscape picture, I can't unless I want to look at it on it's side.

    If the thing is on a desk, or worse in a car / bus / boat / plane it seems to think it needs to change from landscape to portrait sometimes.

    Following on from that, if _I_ am in landscape mode, I want the writing to be in landscape mode, so I can read it!

    Conclusion:

    It's a marketing thing, but hasn't been fully thought out enough

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