Anyone using Google’s CR-48 netbook can now update their systems with the company’s newest OTA version 0.12.433.48 which brings with it some much needed fixes.

Included in the update is Flash 10.2.158.22, a new file manager context menu and some new icons and avatars meant to spice up the browsers user interface.

[image: Engadget]

Google Updates Chrome OS, Offers It to CR-48 Owners Through OTA is a post from: The Inquisitr

Introducing The Google Cr-48, The First Chrome OS Based Netbook is a post from: The Inquisitr

On December 7th in San Francisco Google will hold a press conference to discuss some “exciting news about Chrome.”

While we can’t be sure the news will focus on Google’s soon to be released Chrome OS, it would definitely make the most sense given the all hype surrounding the Linux based OS.

We should also expect that Google will announced their new Chrome Web App Store. Some Google analysts are also pointing to the announcement of Google’s first Google branded Chrome OS netbook.

Interestingly the event clashes with the D: Dive into Mobile which is happening just a few miles down the road at the same time.

Google Announces December 7th Chrome Event is a post from: The Inquisitr

Yesterday, reports circulated that Google had banned internal use of Windows due to “security flaws.”

Today, Google confirmed a Q4 release for the much-anticipated Chrome OS at an Asian trade show:

“We are working on bringing the device later this fall,” said Google vice president of product management Sundar Pichai at CompuTex Taipei, Asia’s biggest IT trade show.

“It’s something which we are very excited by … We expect it to reach millions of users on day one,” he said.

The Chrome OS was originally expected in 2011, but it looks like it will now hit around the same time as the Chrome Web Store. Pichai also confirmed that the focus is laptops and netbooks:

“For Chrome OS, we are focused on laptops for this year,” he said at a news conference later in the day.

The Chrome OS will, of course, be free. No actual date has yet been confirmed for the release.

Google confirms Chrome OS release in ‘late Fall’ is a post from: The Inquisitr

A report from the Financial Times says that many Google employees are indicating that Windows has been restricted from use within the company over security concerns.

Two unnamed employees were briefly quoted in the piece about the decision, which reportedly has Google employees offered Mac OSX and Linux as alternatives:

“We’re not doing any more Windows. It is a security effort,” said one Google employee.

“Many people have been moved away from [Windows] PCs, mostly towards Mac OS, following the China hacking attacks,” said another.

According to FT, the policy isn’t exactly new, as they say employees reported new hires being directed towards the other operating systems as early as January. It’s said that use of Windows requires some serious string pulling:

Employees wanting to stay on Windows required clearance from “quite senior levels”, one employee said. “Getting a new Windows machine now requires CIO approval,” said another employee.

While some employees say the move has caused “mild discontent” within the company, others say that there would be more outcry if the Mac OS was banned. The consensus seems to be that the move is really a push to get workers to use Google products internally as well.

The hacking in China hastened the move. “Before the security, there was a directive by the company to try to run things on Google products,” said the employee. “It was a long time coming.”

Some feel that the reports out of Google are just rumors and that it is unlikely such a big player would ban something as ubiquitous as Windows in the workplace. As the reports all cite unnamed employees and Google has not commented publicly on the supposed policy, it is difficult to determine the credibility of the sources. ZDNet points out the limitations of a Windows ban at Google:

This story makes little sense to me.  For starters, Google’s software products are made for — and marketed to — mainly Windows users.   How exactly are software developers expected to build products for an operating system when they’re not allowed to use it?

As it stands, not one named person as confirmed the switch, so the extent of the ban (or whether it exists at all) is still not verified.

Report: Google ditches Windows over security concerns is a post from: The Inquisitr

Google, like myself, has accused Apple of making nothing more than a large iPhone via the iPad, while adding a few new OS features to let the device stand alone, now the companies CEO Eric Schmidt has confirmed (sort of) that Google is working on their own tablet to compete directly with the Apple iPad.

According to the New York Times Schmidt told a group of friends during a party in Los Angeles that Google was preparing their own tablet device. Given that Google has already been talking to various publishers about sending their products to the Android platform this new realization shouldn’t surprise anyone.

The Tablet is expected to run on an Android setup and not the Chrome OS, which is a bit odd considering that would make the tablet a really big Google Android device, much like the really big iPhone (iPad) device Google has been mocking.

Schmidt and Jobs recently met over coffee, I wonder if Schmidt slipped this tidbit of information into the conversation, considering Jobs didn’t punch him in the face I’ll have to say no. [Gizmodo]

Google Preparing An iPad Killer Says CEO Eric Schmidt [Rumor] is a post from: The Inquisitr

Google had an event yesterday to give us deets on the upcoming Google Chrome OS, and Steven told you a bit about it here.

If you are, as Steven said, swimming in the “ocean of Google kool-aid” and you’ve got to take the OS for a spin ahead of the 2010 release, with a little elbow grease and some downloading, you can get an idea of what’s under the hood. A torrent is available on The Pirate Bay, and GDGT has set up a bit of a one stop shop for all your Chrome OS under the tree box-shaking needs. (GDGT has options for running it with VMWare, Virtual Box or a USB stick.)

I’ve not had a chance to give it a go, but Engadget was on it, offering some first impressions of Chrome OS. Indeed, as Google trumpets in the video below, the speed the Chrome browser is known for seems to be the first point of woot- reported time from boot to login is about ten seconds. Apps like GCal and GMail were reported to be “choppy,” but that could be down to the relative youth of the project.

Check out the video below for a peek if you’re not enterprising enough to test run it, but if you do, let us know in the comments.

Chrome OS available as VMWare download is a post from: The Inquisitr

Rumors of an initial, possibly developer-centric release of Google’s Chrome OS this week have been swirling, but that looks like a less likely outcome, for now.

We do know Google is hosting an event tomorrow at Google Headquarters where more information regarding the details-light project will be unveiled, hopefully including images of the elusive beast in its natural habitat. Google’s Chrome OS has been the center of much speculation, with little hard information to go on- spawning tech-blogger fanfic since news of the Chrome OS’s existence in July. Tomorrow’s meeting will will hopefully give the project a birthday, and Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management for Google, and Matthew Papakipos, engineering director for Google Chrome, will be hosting a Q&A session after the demo. There’s always the chance a beta could be released, but it looks more like a demo than a launch.

Also, according to Download Squad, a “small event” also occurred last night with Chrome Extensions, and they speculate that the highly anticipated browser add-ons for Chrome may be a topic at tomorrow’s event as well:

What used to be a redirect go the good ol’ index at google.com (or your regional version) has now been replaced with a “coming soon…” tease and puzzle piece image which matches the one added to Chromium’s new tab page on Sunday.

Coming soon, eh? Why not announce it at the big event on Thursday?

Event Thursday at Google HQ demos Chrome OS, Chrome extensions is a post from: The Inquisitr

After several spurious sightings in the wild, rumors intensified this morning that the hotly anticipated Google Chrome OS might be released within the week.

Google said earlier in 2009 that the open source operating system would be available “later this year.” A mid-to-late November launch would make sense, but don’t get too excited yet. It’s expected that the code will be opened to developers, and that it’s not going to be something you can install on your netbook just yet. Essential functions and details like driver support will ostensibly be forthcoming, and the Chrome OS likely won’t be usable out of the box for average schmohawks right away.

As all the information surrounding the Chrome OS release this week is rumor/speculation at this point, the nature of the possible impending release is up in the air- plus scant details surrounding the Chrome OS and an abundance of fake information have made users even more curious, fueling chatter. According to PC World, there is a chance that the alleged version allegedly set for this week (supposedly) could be a stripped down version most users could test run and use for basic functions. Either way, we’ll update details of the possible launch as soon as they become available.

Chrome OS to launch within the week? is a post from: The Inquisitr

I was reading Sarah Perez’s post at ReadWriteWeb about some clever folks at the DownloadSquad who have found some goodies in the Chrome OS code that seems to indicate that the new web-based operating system will be able to monitor for new devices attached to your system.

What does this mean?

Well it means that your web-browser – in this case Chrome I would imagine – suddenly becomes a file manager. This is nothing new really as typing (on a Windows machine) C:/ in the addressbar of both the newest version of Firefox and Chrome will display the folders and files on C drive. You can navigate your hard drives without any real problem. In IE 8 however it will launch Explorer which is a change from previous versions of IE.

As Sarah quite rightly points out though in her post this opens up a whole slew of security issues – this was the reason for the change in IE.

As exciting as that sounds, a commenter on the blog post points out that a browser that acts like this could mean serious security issues for the new operating system. Would a malicious web page be able to tap into this feature to wreak havoc on your system? We know that Google said security was one of the key aspects of the OS, but we also know that hackers are extremely crafty as well. No matter how good the security measures Google puts into place to limit this sort of access, there’s nothing that would provide 100% protection. And isn’t this the same sort of functionality that Microsoft ditched in Internet Explorer years ago with the launch of IE7 due to these very same security concerns?

All this aside the idea of a web-based operating system that you access through a browser still strikes me as one of the dumbest ideas around. Sure have your data in the cloud but to put the control of using even the most basic functions of your computers in the hands of a company that you can only access if you have an Internet connection is foolish.

Even if we were to consider this as as a possibility is it really a realistic use of hardware that continues to grow in power every year?

Here we have machines, even including laptops, that have more computing and graphics power in them than all the computers used to power the Apollo space program and we want to reduce them to running a bunch of javascript in a browser window.

What a waste.

Chrome OS gets ‘mounting library’ but doesn’t change the fact a Web OS is dumb is a post from: The Inquisitr

There is no denying the fact that Google is a big believer in cloud computing and web based software. In fact much of their future growth is built on the principal of getting as many people as possible using their software whether it be Google search, Gmail or their Google Docs suite of office type programs. This of course is putting them in direct competition with Microsoft which means it has had to find different ways to get their software in the hands of consumers.

One of the principal ways that they have done this is to use the same tactic that Apple and Microsoft have been using for years – hit the colleges and universities. The first prong of their attach started over two years ago with them making the education providers an offer they couldn’t really refuse in a climate of growing IT costs. Google would provide them unlimited hosted email and other applications all of which would be branded by the institution for the price of – free.

With things like their browser, a possible operating system, and the in development Google Wave being added to this package Google has a chance to become an ingrained part of the student’s lives as they move from school to the business world. Right now Google is already providing services to some 4 million students and is providing serious competition to Microsoft for access to 17 million students on the more than 4,000 campuses in the US.

The campus push is part of Google’s broader bid to breed a generation of workers comfortable with the concept of "cloud" computing, and particularly Google’s version of it, where Google provides free web-based services in exchange for advertising dollars. "We want to build relationships with these users for life," said Jeff Keltner, Google’s business development manager for the program.

Source: Business Insider – Google’s 17 Million Built-in Chrome OS Users (GOOG)

The ability to offer colleges and universities a way to save millions of dollars a year in IT costs is making Google an almost irresistible force for these institutions while at the same time creating a constantly refreshing generation of Google users.

Google’s secret to taking over the world is a post from: The Inquisitr

Hoggworks Studios have followed on from their Colbert puppet series with a puppet parody of Wall Street Journal tech writer Walt Mossberg.

In this episode the Mossberg puppet rips Google Chrome OS and TechCrunch. I was tempted not to post it as we don’t want to hate to much on TechCrunch, but if Arrington friends like Business Insider are posting it, it must be ok.

Warning on the video: language NSFW, but otherwise some pretty good laughs.

Mossberg Puppet rips Chrome OS, TechCrunch is a post from: The Inquisitr

Some 24 hours after Google surprised no one and announced Google Chrome OS, the tech blogosphere has experienced its own equivalent of a Royal Wedding. While there’s been a full spectrum of opinion, the coverage is tending towards OMG OMG OMG Google is going to kill Microsoft, or something like that. With the fullness of 18 hours, here’s my thoughts.

Not a Microsoft killer yet

The line from more than a few sites has been to call Chrome OS a Microsoft Windows killer. If you’ve heard that line before its because every operating system launched since Windows 3 has been called a potential Windows killer, and I don’t need to point out Microsoft’s market share today.

Chrome OS will offer no serious challenge to Windows this year, next year or for years to come. But this isn’t to say that it may be the foundation of something that by the middle of the next decade might be. Google is smartly targeting Chrome OS at the cheap end of the market, a market that has already seen penetration by Linux. Once more and more try and use Chrome OS, and it improves with time, we could be seeing the equivalent today of Windows 1.0 (remembering that Windows only really took off in version 3.)

Not fully featured

Some arguing against Chrome OS have stated that it is deeply flawed because it lacks computer specific software (I’ve seen Photoshop mentioned on a few sites.) I find this line of attack strange because it ignores the underlying premise of Chrome OS to begin with: this is primarily a Web OS. The use of the Linux kernel is there only to render the browser (and associated plugins), nothing more or less. The software layer comes via the web, not via the OS. Google even mentions this in their post

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

Now this isn’t to say that every single piece of desktop software can easily be replaced on the web, because it can’t. But the key here is market and time. Google is pitching Chrome OS at netbooks, and netbooks are primarily used for internet access. If you’re wanting to run Photoshop or a serious range of desktop programs, you’re more likely to buy a fully fledged laptop and not a netbook. Time is the other consideration here. Chrome OS isn’t going to market until the second half of 2010, and you’d be looking at 2011 or 2012 before it gets any significant penetration. With high speed broadband being rolled out across the world, and 3G and now 4G networks becoming available, the ease in which net based applications can be accessed continues to improve, and those applications themselves improve as well. Yes, Chrome OS isn’t for everyone, but nor is Google aiming it in that direction.

It’s all about Google

It is interesting to consider that the older Google gets, the more it acts like Microsoft every year. Google Chrome OS is all about Google, specifically tie-ins to Google products. By offering a Web OS, Google is pushing people away from desktop apps (primarily those provided by Microsoft) towards its own online products (such as Google Docs.) Chrome OS is the missing link in the Google empire, a core base product that links the others.

Early Battle

As I noted yesterday, Chrome OS is going to see Google go head to head with Microsoft, but it will be a battle not a war. Microsoft has already aggressively targeted OEM’s who have been offering Linux based netbooks, and there’s no reason to believe that the same won’t hold true for OEM’s who offer installs of Chrome OS. The battle will be a good for consumers because it will force Microsoft to heavily discount Windows on netbook, keeping prices low, but don’t confuse a small battle with a full blown operating system war, because it’s still not on the horizon.

Conclusion

The hype around Google Chrome OS isn’t surprising, but the news needs to be taken with a serious pinch of salt. The truth as always is somewhere in the middle. Chrome OS will hopefully drive some more competition in the OS market, and competition leads to lower prices and increased innovation, and that’s good for all of us.

Considering Google Chrome OS with a serious pinch of salt is a post from: The Inquisitr