Google Chrome OS – Coming to Your Netbook
by Tyler Miller on July 8th, 2009
Just when you thought it was safe to assume that Google’s netbook OS would go to Android,
Google drops a wtf-scatter-bomb and announces a Chrome OS. Seriously? Talk about left field.
Initial skepticism will, most likely, be pretty heavy on this one. Google already has a perfectly
good phone operating system that not only is growing daily in user base, but has been talked
about being a netbook OS since its inception.
Chrome will be open source like its bigger brother Android, continuing my bewilderment
about why they just didn’t stick with Android. And if all goes to plan we will see our first
Chrome-based netbook released in the second half of 2010.
Although, I’m digging what they’re going for and how they’re going to accomplish it; so much
so that I want to plagerize this paragraph for your reading pleasure:
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.
To have an entire OS boot up in seconds is quite the benchmark to set, but unsurprising in
that it’s going to be a very barebones OS with most of the work being done, stored and modified
in the Google Cloud. A very good move for the minimalist hardware nature of netbooks. It
should just work? Where have I seen that before…
There is a lot to this new OS; so much so that I’m becoming a believer after rereading the
article a few times while writing this article. I would check out the blog post in the following
link to see what I mean.
Introducing the Google Chrome OS
7/07/2009 09:37:00 PM
It's been an exciting nine months since we launched the Google Chrome browser. Already,
over 30 million people use it regularly. We designed Google Chrome for people who live on the
web — searching for information, checking email, catching up on the news, shopping or just
staying in touch with friends. However, the operating systems that browsers run on were
designed in an era where there was no web. So today, we're announcing a new project that's a
natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It's our attempt
to re-think what operating systems should be.
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.
Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with
multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is
simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.
For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will
automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies.
And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based
browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any
platform.
Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. Android was designed from the
beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google
Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being
designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems. While
there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive
innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google.
We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better. People
want to get to their email instantly, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot
and browsers to start up. They want their computers to always run as fast as when they first
bought them. They want their data to be accessible to them wherever they are and not have to
worry about losing their computer or forgetting to back up files. Even more importantly, they
don't want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of
hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates. And any time our users have a
better computing experience, Google benefits as well by having happier users who are more
likely to spend time on the Internet.
We have a lot of work to do, and we're definitely going to need a lot of help from the open
source community to accomplish this vision. We're excited for what's to come and we hope you
are too. Stay tuned for more updates in the fall and have a great summer.
Update on 7/8/2009: We have posted an FAQ on the Google Chrome Blog.
by Tyler Miller on July 8th, 2009
Just when you thought it was safe to assume that Google’s netbook OS would go to Android,
Google drops a wtf-scatter-bomb and announces a Chrome OS. Seriously? Talk about left field.
Initial skepticism will, most likely, be pretty heavy on this one. Google already has a perfectly
good phone operating system that not only is growing daily in user base, but has been talked
about being a netbook OS since its inception.
Chrome will be open source like its bigger brother Android, continuing my bewilderment
about why they just didn’t stick with Android. And if all goes to plan we will see our first
Chrome-based netbook released in the second half of 2010.
Although, I’m digging what they’re going for and how they’re going to accomplish it; so much
so that I want to plagerize this paragraph for your reading pleasure:
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.
To have an entire OS boot up in seconds is quite the benchmark to set, but unsurprising in
that it’s going to be a very barebones OS with most of the work being done, stored and modified
in the Google Cloud. A very good move for the minimalist hardware nature of netbooks. It
should just work? Where have I seen that before…
There is a lot to this new OS; so much so that I’m becoming a believer after rereading the
article a few times while writing this article. I would check out the blog post in the following
link to see what I mean.
Introducing the Google Chrome OS
7/07/2009 09:37:00 PM
It's been an exciting nine months since we launched the Google Chrome browser. Already,
over 30 million people use it regularly. We designed Google Chrome for people who live on the
web — searching for information, checking email, catching up on the news, shopping or just
staying in touch with friends. However, the operating systems that browsers run on were
designed in an era where there was no web. So today, we're announcing a new project that's a
natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It's our attempt
to re-think what operating systems should be.
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.
Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with
multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is
simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.
For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will
automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies.
And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based
browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any
platform.
Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. Android was designed from the
beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google
Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being
designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems. While
there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive
innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google.
We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better. People
want to get to their email instantly, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot
and browsers to start up. They want their computers to always run as fast as when they first
bought them. They want their data to be accessible to them wherever they are and not have to
worry about losing their computer or forgetting to back up files. Even more importantly, they
don't want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of
hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates. And any time our users have a
better computing experience, Google benefits as well by having happier users who are more
likely to spend time on the Internet.
We have a lot of work to do, and we're definitely going to need a lot of help from the open
source community to accomplish this vision. We're excited for what's to come and we hope you
are too. Stay tuned for more updates in the fall and have a great summer.
Update on 7/8/2009: We have posted an FAQ on the Google Chrome Blog.
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