Google Chrome OS

[RoyGBiv]

I assume most people who follow these sorts of things have heard about this already, but I thought I'd post a link anyway.

This could get interesting ...

It's been an exciting nine months since we launched the Google Chrome browser. Already, over 30 million people use it regularly. We designed Google Chrome for people who live on the web — searching for information, checking email, catching up on the news, shopping or just staying in touch with friends. However, the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web. So today, we're announcing a new project that's a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It's our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we're already talking to partners about the project, and we'll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

...

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html

Rumor of this has existed for years, and the emergence of Chrome lent evidence to those rumors.

I'm not at all a fan of web based applications. A better javascript engine has improved the performance of Google's web apps on Firefox, and of course they already functioned better than they had at introduction on Chrome, thus the continuance of the speculation. The new OS will make using such applications even smoother. However, to my mind, the fatal flaw in any web-based system is in the reliance on network connectivity in a world where that connection can be expensive, extremely limited, or non-existent. In theory, it's the current ultimate in portability. In reality, such a system makes one beholden to the "monthly service fees" that many of us who have lived with computers most of our lives have been dreading for years. This hearkens back to the days of having to acquire time at a terminal to be able to use the power of the central computer to which it was connected. No one but those who profited from such a system cried when the personal desktop replaced the behemoth in the basement.

For certain purposes, I see the utility of this, but I am fearing more and more what the future holds.