“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.