“Speed, simplicity and security were the key components of the design, said Pichai. “It takes seven seconds to boot to the login, and three seconds to hit an application. We’re working very hard to make that faster.” All applications are web applications, he said, with the browser running each in an tab isolated from other applications and the system, and there was nothing for users to install or maintain,” Goodwins reports. “‘All Chrome OS data is in the cloud,’ Pichai said.”
“In the demonstration of the operating system, applications ran in tabs along the top of the browser component, could also be opened in panes and minimised. “Any web app is a Chrome OS App”, said Pichai: an Excel spreadsheet was shown running in Windows Live,” Goodwins reports. “Media and games can be played offline, and Chrome OS would support HTML 5’s offline capabilities, he said, but it was primarily designed for online use.”
Goodwins reports, “Chrome OS will run on both x86 and ARM chips, but to be a Chrome OS netbook the device would need to use hardware approved by Google. It will issue reference designs based on components, such as wireless interfaces, that the company knows to have proper driver support… Pichai said that Google was working with ‘all the top partners’ on commercial devices, and that the initial focus was entirely on netbooks with keyboards although there may be other form factors later.”
Full article here.
Google’s Chrome OS UI concept video:
Direct link to video via YouTube here.
MacDailyNews Take: Google’s quest to become “Microsoft, But Better” continues unabated.
Being browser and cloud based, it’s a completely different beast than say Windows or OS/X. Therefore I don’t see it as a direct competitor.
I’m not going to like it (way too marginal/bottom-tier), and I don’t think most of you (us) Mac-types are going to like it, but I think this will be huge over the next couple of years.
We’ll see.
40 years later and we’re back at time-sharing…
There is no way I would ever fully trust my important stuff residing only in The Cloud.
..not *quite* timesharing of old, of course, since the executing code runs on the local machine, rather than on the host with the user using a dumb terminal, but the paradigm is not dissimilar.
Yeah… whatever… this is an OLD CONCEPT of everything is on the MAINFRAME and you just have a DUMB TERMINAL to access it..!!!!
I will never trust “the Internet” with all my personal stuff…. totally nuts….
The Internet is the least secure place ever, nor do I trust Google with snooping through all my stuff to show me the right ads.
AND what if the “Internet” is down???? U R TOAST
1984 at its best…. BIG BROTHER is not only watching but OWNS ALL YOUR STUFF!!!
Imagine a hoard of mindless drones depending on the BIG computer for everything.
Never for me!
I believe that the whole “cloud” thing is useful in limited situations. Like Google Maps, it is useless unless you have an reliable, fast internet connection. This kind of thing is a great fit for those people who, as the article eludes to, use netbooks, which already have limited hardware capability, and thus the only way to add function is through use of the “cloud”.
Appealing to the lowest common denominator does not necessarily translate to intelligent use of the OS. To attain intelligent use of an OS requires a mixture of Hard drive, CD and cloud storage systems. (e.g MobileMe) Only then can you hope that the community using your product will develop software to augment and compliment your OS thus increasing your OS’s appeal. (e.g Apps) in relation to iPhone SDK.
Nope. Don’t want. I want to keep my files private, my files accessible quickly, my music as mine, my browser history as mine, ad-nausium. It’s a long way off before you can get high end games and applications running off the internet. ChromeOS is going to be great for internet cafés and for people who want a cheap netbook. But it won’t serve as a full computer OS until we have atleast 5Gb direct internet connection with low contention ratio’s and low latency.
a single security problem, and all of everyone’s individual data is everyone’s data.
sorry – i trust no company, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Sun – no company to hold my data FOR me.
Other People’s Hard Drives = they have your data and it can get out.
For certain types of users (i.e. those with minimal needs and minimal content), this could work. But since it’s basically a web OS (see the mention about offline use not being the focus), how is this different from a mobile OS?
As mobile devices (i.e. phones) become more powerful (hardware-wise) over the new few years, they’ll be the netbooks of the future. Then Google will have a dilemma: they’ll have split the market into Chrome users and Android users.
Long-term, I don’t see this as a good strategy going forward. Google would have done much better to roll both OS strategies into one: a single web-based OS that would work for both mobile devices and as a desktop OS. That would be a huge market and could attract developers interested in hitting both.The way Google is doing this, it’s too split and confusing: develop for Chrome or Android?
Google is really starting to resemble Microsoft: just throw a lot of darts on the wall and see what sticks. That’s unlike Apple, which actually has long-term strategies.
Good for Session Computers. But else… it doesn’t have many applications, so F it
I don’t like this concept, even though I find it a little bit interesting. They should do the Operating Systems out there more compact, simple, secure and efficient. I think Snow Leopard is going in the right way. I hope Mac OS 10.7 to be the lightest and fastest OS ever!
I think this could be huge.
You don’t want your important files in the cloud? Shouldn’t be problem – a drive for external local files will surely be possible.
You’re not connected to the web? Shouldn’t be a problem – only need a setting for making local backups of all important files, which sync to the cloud when you get connected again.
Could be that Google is about to frog-leap both Microsoft and Apple in the coming years, with this more “simple” OS.
I still don’t trust cloud computing and probably never will.
After the whole SideKick debacle and the continued development of consumer server hardware with cheaper HDD and SDD drives, it will be interesting to see what will be the overall cost to privacy and trust. Also there is the legal side as to what does the user really own if everything is in the cloud on an external media owned by someone else. How do you SEE that your data is only viewable by you? How will they appease our distrust of outside control? The concept of public and private ownership is blurred. If all aspects to one’s life is truly derived from one’s own capabilities and external duties passed off to those that one has absolute trust in, then all would be right in the world but that is not the reality. As we’ve moved away from self sufficiency we’ve been bombarded by various attacks on person property, identity etc. Sense of community is there but who can truly be trusted 100% when you’ve left your jewels to others to maintain? There are things that are fine left in the hands of others if those we trust are keeping an eye on things. Trust in religious authority, police authority etc. People that we don’t know but put our trust in. The clown that plays with our children but has bodies in the baseboard. The nanny that abuses our children. The restaurant that serves the toxic mussels that paralyzes your father. The bank that took your taxes to recover from their bankruptcy then gave out-of-this-world bonuses to their top executives as people have been moved out of their homes. I don’t think we are really in a position to give our trust to corporations to handle your private life unless we really know them and what their full intentions are.
This is like Apple saying they are going to delete Mail from all out Macs so we can use the web-based MobileMe interface.
Thanks but No thanks Google!
Google wants to be the next Microsoft. (Only with a kinder face. But it’s just a face.) They want to control EVERYTHING. That’s Microsoft. No wait, that’s Google, no that’s Microsoft, no that’s Google.
Google wants to know all about you, all your habits. All your web page visits. All your searches. All your phone calls on Android. All your contacts. All your activities. All your web software and phone software… and now your online OS!
While Microsoft wants to control all your software, all your file standards, all your interoperability… and of course your phone and desktop OS…!
Short story: I was working as part of an IT staff at a hospital. My friend got me the job and he was my supervisor. I trusted him, however, he was reading my email about a project that we were working on that I had sent to a 3rd party. The email was personal but yet, he read it and asked me about it. This was my friend whom I trusted but he decided to take it upon himself to read other people’s emails. What is personal is not personal if it is on the enterprise network. You wouldn’t set your jewels on the sidewalk in front of your house. Why? Because it is assumed by others that you don’t feel that it has a personal connection to you any more. These concepts that are being presented since the Network Computing concept back in the days of terminals keep being refreshed. It’s a major change to make people consider that their thoughts and data should be remote. It is like the movie Unleashed where a man has be bombarded over and over until he believes he is a dog. Banking gave use the feeling that our money can be trusted in the their hands. People lost some of that trust recently. The Sidekick debacle showed people that personal data is just as personal as one’s money and it’s value is greater when it is local as money in your wallet or backed up locally on your Time Capsule.
Man, pair this with a Sidekick and click screen and life would be sweet!
What I don’t get is it’s value. Booting fast? That is it? If it is web base and cloud dependent, why not run on any browser on any host O.S. What is the value of this when your internet is down? Yea, that is right, you can’t do shit then. I guess in Googles world, nothing ever goes wrong.
Sounds a bit like litl, except that litl includes the netbook hardware.
http://litl.com/
Are you sure this thing is built on Linux? If it is, and if the browser is considered “linked” to the underlying Linux OS, won’t the GPL crowd be coming at Google with pitchforks? Demanding that Chrome OS be locked down under the GPL, instead of the more generous license Google currently allows?
Looks like Windows 3.1’s Program Manager all over again. And what happens when you come home to your Google OS and plug in your iPod….like millions do? No local apps = no iTunes. Or how about installing your printer software/drivers? Or how about your camera? And oh, no traditional hard drive either. It’s only coincidental that Google is DICTATING no local IDE storage on the device and forcing you to upload EVERYTHING to them. Combine all that with Google’s past history in mining your personal data along with handing it out to authorities, and this is one thinly veiled scam that makes Microsoft look heavenly.
What about multi gigabit files. Will this OS simply not cater to this market? I think it’s forward thinking, but just like people like to own there music not rent it, I think a lot of the same has to be said about applications.