Chrome OS-Blog.com

At the RSA conference, Will Drewry (software security engineer at Google) announced a business version of Chrome OS. The release date is supposed to be some time in 2011. Besides the mere (prospective) existence, there aren’t any details known about it. So check back later, I’ll keep you informed.

After a couple of weeks full of rumors, first pictures and a video of a possible Chrome OS tablet appeared on the Chromium project website. Although the Chromium project is NOT Google, the fact that it was made by Glen Murphy, a lead UI designer for Chrome OS at Google, can be seen as an announcement for a device like that. The video shows a demonstration of the user interface. Click here to see pictures, video and a list of already known features.

The MSI dual-screen netbook announced at the CES will most likely be shipped with Windows 7 or Chrome OS depending on customer preference. This was confirmed by the company in an interview with LaptopMag. The device features a standard 10-inch TFT screen and a touchscreen that gives haptic feedback instead of a keyboard. There is, however, no information about other technical specifications as well as a price range.

Last year in November, Jon Stokes and Ryan Paul had engineering director Matthew Papakipos and Google PR Eitan Bencuya in an interview about Chrome OS. The interview was released in January 2010 and reveals detail information about Google’s new operating system. Click here fr a summary and a link to the full interview.

According to Jim Wong, president of Acer’s IT products division, the company plans to sell at least one million netbooks in 2010 that have Chrome OS preinstalled. He assumes Chrome OS netbooks will make up 10 percent of the company’s overall netbook sales this year.

Only one and a half year after the first release of Chrome, the fourth version of Google’s browser has been released. The latest version now features bookmark synchronisation between installations on different computers via the user’s Google account. There is also the possibility of installing extensions. Today, there are already 1,800 available for download.

Additionally, Google introduced several new APIs to make the browser talk to other applications. The Web-Storage-API makes it possible to save your work offline without the need to use Google Gears. The Web-SQL-Database-API lets provides access to local SQL databases and the Notofication API gives developers the opportunity to use the operating system’s notification area.

As in every update, also JavaScript speed was increased. Today, users have to request the update manually. However, all users will be automatically notified of the update in the next days.

Happy New Year to all of you! In order to celebrate the year 2010 contemporary I compiled a new Chrome OS release from the repository today. It works fine for USB drives. Unfortunately, on some machines, I’m experiencing problems running it in VirtualBox after conversion. Please try it yourself. The download size could be decreased to 175 MB. You can find the download link here: Chrome OS image file download.

Please note that the information below has not been approved by Google. The specifications have been spread by market insiders through various channels. But honestly, I can’t really believe it. Especially the SSD is really huge for a cloud netbook. So please be careful spreading these rumors. This page is constantly being updated until Google officially announces the specs.

Since yesterday the package pybootchartgui is included in Chrome OS. Unfortunately, the download URL of that package which is accessed during the building process of the local repository (make_local_repo.sh) is wrong. Instead of http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/packages/pool/universe/p/pybootchartgui/pybootchartgui_0+r124_all.deb it has to be http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/packages/pool/main/p/pybootchartgui/pybootchartgui_0+r124_all.deb. To successfully create the local repository you have to change src/package_repo/repo_list_image.txt on line 371 accordingly.

After details about Google offering a Google branded phone called Nexus One word is that they also come up with  their own Chrome OS netbook in 2010. According to TechCrunch, multiple sources report that the company already has issued an RFP (Request for Proposal) to a hardware manufacturer specifying details about the system. The document, however, hasn’t got public till now. It seems probable (also regarding costs) that the upcoming Google netbook will be 3G enabled and running on an NVIDIA Tegra platform using an ARM processor and a GeForce GPU which would make it very powerful and energy efficient at the same time.