"We are working with Google on a solution for ARM Chromebooks," said the spokesman Joris Evers Netflix last night.
He did not share details on the schedule of the company or its technical approach to providing services to Chrome OS, the operating system based on Google's browser.
Most Web applications work fine on the Samsung Chromebook $ 249, even if it has a Samsung ARM processor rather than the x86 chip found in all other computers running Google Chrome OS. This is because the Web itself is a cross-platform way - websites, at least in principle, work on any PC, smartphone or tablet with a browser. To bring its video streaming service Google Chrome browser and Chrome OS operating system, however, Netflix has taken a different approach using the platform-specific software. To do this, it uses a technology called Google Native Client.
Native Client, or NaCl, provides a way for developers to bring their C or C + + software in a special form if it will run as native code on an operating system like Windows, but it can also safely be downloaded on the web.
NaCl initially worked on x86 chips such as Intel and AMD PC that power. Google, however, has just finished updating Native Client so that developers can write applications that run on ARM systems NaCl, not just x86 systems. This is a further step for programmers, who have to build a separate file NaCl.
Later this year, Google plans to adopt a new approach called Portable Native Client, or PNaCl that will allow programmers to build a single file that will run on ARM or x86 systems, including smartphones and tablets.
It is not clear if Netflix plans to expand support for Chrome OS devices with ARM or PNaCl NaCl, the first approach may be useful earlier, but it would offer more flexibility in the long term, especially if it happens a day when someone wants to get Native Client runs on PowerPC, MIPS and other architectures.
Google plans to recraft plug-ins integrated into Chrome itself with NaCl. Chrome OS uses NaCl-based plug-ins and related pepper Chrome plug-in interface for reading Microsoft Office files and Google is working to rebuild its PDF reader in the same way. This project will, however, awaits further engineering work.
"Our long-term goal is that all plugins Pepper be in sandbox NaCl, so they can get the extra security that comes with it," Google spokesman said Veronica Navarrete in a statement. "For PDF reader precisely, it is waiting for technical reasons. "
