For those who’ve been hiding under a rock for the last month, Google showed off a preview of it’s Chrome OS to the ever expectant tech world. They also made available some developer releases of the OS and detailed what it can and more importantly can’t run on.

So, what’s Chrome OS (COS) all about? Well you’ve seen the big G’s Chrome web browser, it’s quick, it’s slick and it’s minimalist. Guess what? Chrome OS is basically more of the same. It’s Chrome the browser stretched into an OS front end that’s built on top of Linux, where everything including accessing files is done through the browser. OK, sounds interesting, but what about apps? Well, COS relies on web apps, which have been integrated into the browser using persistent app tabs. Applications like Hulu, Gmail, Gdocs, Twitter and Facebook are all up there ready for when you need them. Applications that typically run in the background, like Gtalk, have application windows that can be minimised to ‘panels’ down at the bottom of the screen keeping them out of the way till you need them. Google’s also built a pretty good notification system into the OS that pulls in notifications for new email, pushed updates from IM, calendar and Twitter, replicating some of the best features from many of today’s mobile phone OS. The ethos of the OS is just like that of the browser, get out of your way and do it fast. (more…)

It’s that time again, time to review some of my cherry picked smaller stories of the week for those that might have missed them. This time round we’ve got an Adobe Flash update that doesn’t suck. OK, sucks a little less. Flash 10.1 beta was unleashed to the willing public with GPU video acceleration for certain Nvidia cards on Windows, but perhaps more importantly reduced CPU usage across all platforms. What does this mean? YouTube that doesn’t make your Mac or PC red-line that’s what. A step in the right direction Adobe, maybe Flash isn’t a lost cause after all. I’ve certainly seen some improvements on my netbook and Mac. (more…)

It’s been a long time in the rumour mill but Google has finally come clean and annouced that gOS is a reality. Google Chrome OS is going to be available on netbooks come second half of 2010 but it won’t stop there. GCOS will be available for both x86 and ARM processor architecture meaning that you might see it on ARM based MIDs (you know the Internet Devices that no one really wants) and other low power, long battery life ARM equiped devices. Google also said that the OS would be suitable for the most basic computers such as netbooks all the way up to fully fledged desktop computers. The ethos behind Chrome OS is fast, efficient and safe access to the internet. To this end Google is boasting the OS will be virus free thanks in part to the linux kernel and an entirely new security architecture. Google will also be leveraging it’s online/offline webapps including Google Docs, Gmail and Gcal and is looking to get developers on board with apps built on web standards.

So what does Google’s open source, lightweight operating system mean for the competition? Well Windows might finally lose it’s strangle hold on the netbook market, even with Windows 7 coming soon. Ubuntu and other linux distros should also be quaking in their boots for their consumer sides, as linux with the power and household name of Google behind it might just take their market shares away from them. You might even find that Mac OSX might suffer a little, but it has the die hard fans in it’s court so I don’t personally think it’ll make much impact on Apple’s OS. Leverage familiar styles and names as well as tools that you might find on a windows machine, Chrome OS might just make in-roads against Windows in the near future, especially at the bottom end of the market where a pre-loaded consumer friendly and free OS, removes the windows tax taking a fair chunk out of the cost of a machine.

So should you be excited? Well if you’re in the space for a light-weight user friendly OS, then Google Chrome OS might just do it for you. So yes, I know I’m itching to have a play with it.

[Via Official Google Blog]

Google Chrome the currently Windows only lightning fast browser has hit version 2. I’ve been using the beta for a while now and I must say I’m impressed. Even though there’s no adblock currently for the browser (extensions are however in place in version 2) it’s beaten off the competition from the latest betas of Firefox and Safari 4 on my windows box.

Google have managed to speed up java-script performance by 30% over Chrome v1 which was already impressive. Other additions include full page zooming of all elements, full screen mode (F11) and form Autofill.

Chrome will update itself on your next run should you already be rocking it and if not head on over to Google to try it out. I’d be amazed if you weren’t impressed with it’s speed and relative ease of use.