Google Chrome OS gets detailed

Google just demoed Chrome OS running on a piece of reference hardware at its event in SF. It just takes four steps and less than a minute to set up a brand-new Chrome OS machine — it pulls all your Chrome themes and settings from the cloud, so it’s ready to go almost right away, and changes can propagate in less than a second in some cases. The reference machine demoed was able to come back up from sleep almost instantly — Google says the limiting factor is actually how fast the user can move their hand. (It wasn’t that fast in the demo, but it was still really fast.) The OS also supports multiple accounts with a guest account that runs in Incognito mode by default, and everything is wiped on logout. All user data is encrypted by default, and the OS itself is loaded on read-only memory that can’t be altered without physical access — a tech which enables verified booting, but also seems to mean you won’t be able to root a Chrome OS machine.

There’s also offline capability — Google Docs was demoed running offline, with changes synced when the machine reconnects. It seems like that’s an app-specific feature though — apps on the Chrome Web Store have to be built for HTML5 offline to work, obviously. Google also demoed Google Cloud Print, which allows you to print on your home printer from anywhere. Chrome OS devices will also be able to use new Verizon 3G plans for offline access — you’ll get 100MB of free data per month for two years, and then plans start at $9.99 for a day of “unlimited access” with no contracts required. (There will eventually be international options, but those weren’t detailed.)


Developing…

Google Chrome OS gets detailed originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 14:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google demos Chrome Web Store, rolling out later today to US (update: now live)

It hasn’t been that long since we first saw Google’s web store — mid-May, to be exact. An updated version is currently being showcased on stage at the Chrome event. The UI looks much more refined, and those who are itching to try some out yourself, it seems some of the web apps are already available, at least partially: NPR, The New York Times, Amazon Windowshop. If you ask us, they feel a lot like iPad apps for browsers and mice / keyboard. Audio can run in the background even if you move to another tab. There’s offline mode, too. App purchases are tied to your Google account, naturally. There’s some gaming, but from what we’ve seen so far (you pop it!), it’s nothing you’re gonna be focusing a lot of time on. Interesting note from the Q&A is that the apps, since they’re built with “standard web technologies,” will work with all compatible browsers. We’ve been trying to access the web store (via the Chrome browser, naturally), but it’s currently hiding behind a “coming soon” redirect — it’s rolling out later today, though, at least for the US, so keep an eye out.

Update: Try that link one more time, the Chrome Web Store should now be live.

Google demos Chrome Web Store, rolling out later today to US (update: now live) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 13:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google demos Chrome Web Store, rolling out later today to US

It hasn’t been that long since we first saw Google’s web store — mid-May, to be exact. An updated version is currently being showcased on stage at the Chrome event. The UI looks much more refined, and those who are itching to try some out yourself, it seems some of the web apps are already available, at least partially: NPR, The New York Times, Amazon Windowshop. If you ask us, they feel a lot like iPad apps for browsers and mice / keyboard. Audio can run in the background even if you move to another tab. There’s offline mode, too. App purchases are tied to your Google account, naturally. There’s some gaming, but from what we’ve seen so far (you pop it!), it’s nothing you’re gonna be focusing a lot of time on. We’ve been trying to access the web store (via the Chrome browser, naturally), but it’s currently hiding behind a “coming soon” redirect — it’s rolling out later today, though, at least for the US, so keep an eye out.

Google demos Chrome Web Store, rolling out later today to US originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 13:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Live from Google’s Chrome event!

They rocked our world yesterday with Gingerbread, the Nexus S and a Honeycomb-based tablet, but Google’s not done yet — today, it’ll unveil a horse of a different form factor in Chrome OS. That’s right, Mountain View’s finally ready to share hard details about its instant-on operating system (and perhaps a netbook or three) and we’re here in San Francisco liveblogging the whole thing.

Live from Google’s Chrome event! originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 13:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Toshiba planning trio of tablets for CES: one each for Android, Chrome OS and Windows 7

So what if the Libretto exited the common consciousness almost as quickly as it entered it while the Folio 100 was bad enough to get its major UK retailer to discontinue it? Toshiba promised it’d have a family of tablets for us by the end of 2011’s first quarter and the plan apparently hasn’t changed. DigiTimes is reporting today that three new Toshiba slates are set for their debut at CES in a month’s time, two of them equipped with 10.1-inch screens and a third sized at 11.6 inches. Microsoft’s Windows 7 and Google’s Chrome OS and Android will each be responsible for providing the operating environment on one of these new tablets, indicating that Toshiba — much like the rest of the world — has yet to make up its mind about what the best tablet OS out there is. We should know more in just a few short weeks.

Toshiba planning trio of tablets for CES: one each for Android, Chrome OS and Windows 7 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Dec 2010 08:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Chrome event confirmed by Google for December 7th

Well, it looks like our sources were right: Google just announced an event in San Francisco for December 7th, which promises “exciting news about Chrome.” Naturally, we’re expecting that to be the announcement of a Google-branded netbook that runs the Chrome OS, in addition to the launch of the Chrome Web / App Store. Interestingly, it’s pretty short notice for this sort of announcement, and it’s also conflicting with the D: Dive into Mobile conference which is happening a few miles north on the same day. We don’t know if that’s poor planning on Google’s part, a sign of last minute adjustments in the product, both, or neither, but either way it’s going to be a pretty exciting week!

Chrome event confirmed by Google for December 7th originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Dec 2010 17:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sources: Google-branded Chrome OS netbook to launch on December 7th

The headline pretty much reveals the brunt of it, but indeed, it looks like next week Google is going to start talking about how its Chrome operating system is coming along. Multiple sources have told us that Google will be holding some sort of event on Tuesday, December 7th — we’re not sure if it’ll be a live event, a webcast, or something else entirely — and that the shindig will see the launch of that Google-branded Chrome OS netbook we’ve been hearing about. Again, we’ve heard that the Atom-powered laptop isn’t going to be a mass market device — there will only be around 65,000 units available to Google’s closest “friends and family” — and that the Cloud-based OS is still very much in a beta, non-consumer-friendly state. It’s a bit odd that we still haven’t received an invite to this planned event since it’s purportedly days away, not to mention it conflicts with the All Things D: Dive Into Mobile Event, but at the time of publishing this post we had yet to hear back from Google’s PR team with an official comment.

Of course, this all lines up with TechCrunch‘s report that Google will be launching its Chrome Web / App Store very soon, as well as yesterday’s launch of Chrome 8, which supports those aforementioned Chrome apps. (Companies like TweetDeck have already started demoing their browser apps.) Don’t forget that those apps are going to be a large part of the OS, so it would make sense for Google to talk about ’em in tandem. The pieces sure do seem to be fitting together quite well, and while we still have lots of unanswered questions, we’re feeling confident that we’ll be getting some official answers on all this Chrome-ness very soon.

Update: AllThingsD has also heard a similar December 7th launch date of the Chrome Web Store. The evidence seems to be mounting here…

Update 2: Well, there you have it, Google just sent out invites for its December 7th Chrome event! We will be there!

Image note: As we said last time, that picture above is just our own mockup of what a Chromebook may look like. We even added a Chrome key!

Sources: Google-branded Chrome OS netbook to launch on December 7th originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Dec 2010 15:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Chrome OS consumer launch pushed to 2011, Google-branded Chromebook could still arrive this year

It’s almost time to eat turkey and then jet out to Best Buy to be trampled by mad shoppers. Oh yes, the holiday season is just about here, which according to a few posts we’ve written in the last year means that the Chrome OS netbooks should be as well. Well, it turns out that the Google OS-powered laptops aren’t going to arrive this year, or at least not in the way we thought they would. That doesn’t mean Chrome OS isn’t going to see a bit of an unveil this year, but major manufacturers, including Acer and HP, won’t have its own Chromebooks ready before 2011. How do we know? Acer’s Jim Wong told us during the company’s global press conference that Acer will be launching its netbook based on the browser operating system during the “consumer launch” of the OS next year, while Google has its own agenda and will be doing something “in December.” We didn’t get to ask if that Acer netbook is in fact the “ZGA” netbook we’ve seen popping up in bug reports, but our guess is that it will be something quite similar.

So, what does Google have brewing? You remember the Google-branded Chrome OS netbook that we heard about? Well, according to a few of our very own sources, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. We don’t have exact timing details, but we have been told by a few that Google will launch its own Chrome-book a la the Nexus One for “friends and family.” As the operating system is still in a beta or preview form, the netbook would be aimed at the development / early adopter community. Specs-wise we don’t know all that much, but we’ve heard that it will be powered by an Intel Atom Pine Trail processor and, just as Digitimes reported, that 75,000 units are being manufactured by Taiwan ODM Inventec. We should mention that the aforementioned Acer “ZGA” was said to be used internally as a “dogfood device” at Google, but we believe this Google-branded device to be entirely different. Inventec, Intel, and Google wouldn’t comment on the hardware rumor, but Google did tell us that it would “have more details to share later this year.” By our count, that leaves ’em with just about 37 days to spill the beans!

Note: The picture above is just our creative interpretation of what a Chromebook may look like — don’t come crying to us when the actual device looks a lot prettier.

Chrome OS consumer launch pushed to 2011, Google-branded Chromebook could still arrive this year originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Nov 2010 12:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Eric Schmidt: Chrome OS aimed at keyboard based solutions, Android optimized for touch

We’ll be the first to admit that we’ve been slightly confused about where Google’s Chrome OS will fit in with Android becoming the OS of choice for tablet manufacturers, so naturally we took the opportunity to ask Google CEO Eric Schmidt about the two operating systems while he was on stage at the Web 2.0 summit. Schmidt confirmed that Chrome OS will officially be out in the next few months in Intel and ARM-powered netbooks while also adding that the OS was primarily “designed around something with a keyboard.” Of course, that doesn’t mean Chrome OS couldn’t pop up on tablets — he added that because it’s open source anything can happen, but he definitely stressed that Chrome is meant for clamshell devices with keyboards and Android tailored for those with touchscreens. Sounds good to us Schmidt, now we’ll just be needing the details on those Chrome-books…

Eric Schmidt: Chrome OS aimed at keyboard based solutions, Android optimized for touch originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Nov 2010 18:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google-branded Chrome OS smartbook launching this month?

If the damp blanket of leaves warming the ground is any indicator, then we’d say that fall has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere. That means Google’s Chrome OS is due. What better time for DigiTimes to cite sources from “component players” claiming that the first smartbooks featuring Google’s other operating system will launch later this month. According to the Taiwanese rumor rag, Google will follow its Nexus One strategy and be first from the gate with the launch of a self-branded Chrome OS notebook manufactured by Inventec — the ARM-based machine will not be sold through normal retail channels and is expectated to ship a very modest 60,000 to 70,000 units. Acer and HP are then rumored to be launching Quanta-manufactured Chrome OS gear as early as December while ASUS waits to gauge market reaction. Of course, if all of this is true then we should be getting a Google event press invite right about, well, now.

Google-branded Chrome OS smartbook launching this month? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Nov 2010 02:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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