Chrome OS-Blog.com

After four months there’s finally a new release to download. The build routine has become a lot faster and easier to use. It can be executed on 64-bit systems only, however, so I had to install a fresh Ubuntu 9.10 first in order to create it. There are some obvious changes and a lot of changes under the hood, so it definitely makes sense to try out this one. You can configure your network connection before trying to login with a Google account now, which was a long-awaited feature in the community. You can also sign up for a new Google account from the login screen now.

I’m offering to versions for download now: one for use on USB drives and one for use with VMWare Player. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to make it run in VirtualBox, but I haven’t tried it on many systems, so it may be worth a try to use the VMWare version in VirtualBox. Please leave comments on your progress (no registration required).

Oh, yeah, and here is the link to the download page…

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.

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.

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.

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.

Acer plans to be the first hardware vendor to release a Chrome OS based netbook in 2010. Their goal is to sell at least one million devices this year. Till now, no technical specs have been released. Check back here for updates.

In an interview with Digitimes Acer chairman and CEO J.T. Wang announced that Acer will be the first hardware vendor to offer a netbook with Chrome OS preinstalled. According to several industry sources the release date will be in the second half of 2010. This is the second time acer uses a Google OS. They already have their Aspire D250 with Windows XP and Google Android dual-boot capabilities on the market.

Google has finally released an early version of its new open source operating system Chrome OS. This is a step-by-step guide to running it within Sun VirtualBox, a multi-platform, free virtualization software, making your pleasure all-free! There will be a video version of this how-to as well, so check back for updates. Click here to read through the step-by-step guide.

According to an article on TechCrunch, Google is going to release Chrome OS within a week from now, thereby keeping their promise to give “more updates” in fall 2009. If true, Chrome OS will be available before 20th November, 2009. TechCrunch claims to have this information from “a reliable source”.

I’m expecting an early version with limited compatibility, because when they announced Chrome OS in July they said they’d need a lot of help from the open source community. This help could very likely be needed in driver support. Depending on which kernel Chrome OS will be based on there already are more or less drivers available for the most popular hardware components. But Google resolved to build an OS that runs on any hardware (including ARM-based machines), so there’s probably a lot of work to do on this subject. I hope even the first version will be compatible to major netbooks from companies Google is working together with (Asus EeePC, Acer Aspire One, HP Mini, …) and major virtualization systems (VMware, Sun VirtualBox, …).

DownloadSquad recently discovered a “mount library” in the Chrome browser’s source code. It seems to be monitoring newly-inserted devices like external hard rives or USB sticks. This is something you’d normally expect from an OS, not a browser, and may be a hint to an Explorer-like behaviour of the browser.

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