In the emerging netbook market, Google decided it would announce a new-style Linux-based OS that would be perfect for netbook owners, set for release in Q4 2010. Recently, Google has also showed off a new application market for Chrome and Chrome OS. We at The PC Report have used Chrome OS briefly when it was first released, but today we’ve taken an in-depth look at the OS and how it will affect the OS and netbook markets.
Remember when Chrome OS was released to the eyes of us all with a rather empty app page? Google has today announced an online web store that is set to fill up that app page in Chrome OS along with having support for the standard Chrome web browser. Free apps will be available along with paid apps (similar to most app markets these days) to enhance your netbook Chrome OS experience. As you can see from the above image from Engadget, the image editing app Dark Room is available along with other notable apps like Digg, Pandora, Scrabble, Lego Star Wars and more.
The Chrome web store will be hitting the dev channel “soon” according to Google reps.
Feel like cranking up the good ol’ 64-bit with Chrome OS? Well, you can now thanks to a completely unofficial and pre-alpha x64 port called ChromiumOS64. The hacked OS does include some nice features such as Xen virtualisation and a small download size of 1GB, which is larger than the ~700MB normal Chrome OS, but still not bad for a hacked port. To get started, check the source below.
We were almost right when we said that Chrome OS was launching next week. Today, Google held a conference to announce and detail their latest and greatest venture into operating systems. While Chrome OS hasn’t been launched yet, and according to Google it won’t be for a long time with a public beta still a fair while away, we do get to see some solid pictures and demonstrations of Chrome in action.
First off, its seems like Chrome OS is almost completely web-based, with web applications integrating into the operating system to make it feel like they are real applications. This is all made possible by the features present in HTML5, which allow web applications to access local storage and other resources that a normal application would have access too. Also, even though Chrome OS is based off the Linux kernel, you wont be able to install applications via the kernel like you would in other Linux distros, instead you will have to run them through the “browser.”
Remember Chrome OS? Well, rumour has it that it’s going to be launched sometime next week for your downloading pleasure. The lightweight OS is designed for web-centric netbooks but should also carry enough security and usability for everyday users. TechCrunch expects driver support to be minimal at launch, but as it’s based on the Linux kernel it might be quite the opposite. I guess only time will tell…
On July 7 a new cloud-based operating system from Google was announced on the Official Google Blog, as a separate project from Android:
Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we’re already talking to partners about the project, and we’ll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.
Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.
I for one look forward to it and dismiss critism such as Steve Ballmer’s comment “”There’s good data that says 50 percent of the time that someone’s on their PC, they’re not doing something with the Web browser,”" and so on. Big deal anyway Steve, the OS is targeted at people who constantly use the web – the people who make Google money from advertising.
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