Google hopes to launch its Chrome OS to power new netbooks by next year, saving all content directly to the cloud
Google has just unvield its Chrome OS that it hopes will be powering netbooks by 2010.
The Chrome OS will actually operate entirely in the cloud. It will not store any data locally on the
machine. The machine bypasses the bootloader and immediately launches the browser. The idea is, you should be able to acess your data anywhere and anytime.
Google vice president of product management Sundar Pichai said yesterday during the unveiling that, “If I lose my Chrome machine, I should be able to go out, buy a new [machine] and re-create my previous computing experience easily.”
Nokia is working on a new netbook dubbed the “Booklet 3G” that will be powered by Microsoft Windows Vista (according to the video below but it is more likely the netbook will in fact run Windows 7).
The device weighs in at only 2.75 lbs, has AGPS, WiFi, will include the Nokia OVI store, and a long 12-hour battery life. The device will come in blue, black or silver colors.
The Taiwanese-based electronics maker Kinpo has just released their first video of their own Google Android powered UMPC device. The device currently sports a 7-inch 800x480px touch display and is dubbed the Kinpo Thin Client.
It is clear from the video there is a lot more work to do. The company will at some point release an Android powered device, but it is currently unclear when that will happen. We can likely estimate in about a year from now.
It is clear that computer-makers are taking notice of Google’s open source Android OS. We can confirm that both BenQ and HTC are working on release an Android powered device, but we have yet to see any actual pictures. BenQ says it will release an Android netbook by 2010. There is no time frame from HTC.
The very first laptop computer powered by Google Android has been unveiled. It was long rumored that Google was going to push Android beyond mobile phones to power laptop computers.
The first Android powered laptop the world has firstly seen comes from Acer. The OS still seems to need a lot of more work to fully run on a laptop, but judging from the first video below, it seems Google is off to a good start. The computer takes about 15-seconds to load up, and seems to not lag at all after it is done initially booting up. The browser also seems to load pages swiftly with correct formatting over HSDPA.
More recently, companies have been trying to develop a useful and highly mobile computing device, one that is more powerful than a mobile phone, but less powerful than a laptop. Various products such as Tablet PCs and Ultra Mobile PCs (UMPC) have been released but they haven’t been very successful because they are based on Windows XP, an OS that is not really designed to run on such a small device.
In October 2008, Steve Jobs entirely dismissed netbook computers, saying the company couldn’t develop a $500 computer that was “not a piece of junk”. Since then, Apple’s mindset seems to have actually shifted towards a super mobile computing device, with more and more indications the company is readying the release of such a device.
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