Google is offering its latest operating system based on the company’s Chrome web browser. The Chrome OS is designed to operate on low-powered computers which are tagged as Chromebooks or Chromeboxes.

While Chromebooks haven’t been that successful, Chrome OS isn’t that popular nowadays. However, Google says the Chrome OS laptops are getting popular with schools. in fact, the company has recently announced that school districts in Iowa, Illinois, and South Carolina will be providing Chromebooks to almost 27,000 primary and high school students.

Chromebooks usually run on low-power processors, have decent battery life but only have small amount of local storage. The point is that you don’t need a lot of local storage since data is stored online. Instead of running local apps like Microsoft Office, you can run web apps such as Google Docs.

There’s really not much users can do with Chrome OS like with Windows, Mac, or Linux computer. However, Chromebooks tend to boot more quickly, offer better protection against malware, and allows them to save your settings to the cloud so that they can lose, break, or loan out Chromebook and pick up where it’s left off on another machine. These features are appealing to educational institutions that don’t want to deal with keeping software up to date and secure on thousands of individual computers.

via liliputing

Chromebooks Reached 27000 Students is a post from: Eee PC

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Samsung is updating its Series 5 Chromebook by ditching Intel Atom N570 dual core processor for a faster Intel Celeron processor.

The refreshed version trades its slick cover for something muted, with more discreet logo placement. It will also showcase a matte, 12.1-inch, 300-nit display.

The new Chromebook will still have a 16GB solid state disk and Chrome OS operating system. This basically means the laptop will run nothing but a web browser and web apps, but it should be faster than the older version.

The next-gen Series 5 Chromebook will be available in the second quarter of 2012. Pricing is set at $399 for the WiFi-only version, and $449 for the 3G model with pay-as-you-go data from Verizon.

There are still no information regarding the tech specs of the small desktop computer dubbed as Chromebox. The company told Engadget that it comes with a wireless keyboard-and-mouse combo. It also has a handful of ports, including five USB 2.0 sockets, DVI, DisplayPort and a headphone jack. Chromebox is said to run Chrome OS.

Retail price for Chromebox will probably be around $400 and will likely be aimed at the business and education markets. It is said to be released sometime in the second quarter as well, like the new Chromebook.

Sources:   Liliputing, Engadget

Samsung to Update Series 5 Chromebook with Celeron, Chromebox to be Released in Q2 is a post from: Eee PC

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Soon, Google’s Chrome OS won’t be the only web-based OS in town. If things go according to plan, Mozilla is set to launch its own web-based OS for handheld and other mobile devices with the help of HTML5. Mozilla plans on doing this through a project called “Boot to Gecko” (B2G) which they announced today through the Google groups forums. Mozilla aims to roll out a new standalone operating system for the open Web because it believes that “the web can displace proprietary, single-vendor stacks for application development.”
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Read the rest of Mozilla plans to roll out new web-based OS with Boot to Gecko (143 words)

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Rumors have been going around the web that Google are to hold an event next week, Tuesday 7th December, where they will unveil their own branded netbook, running the Chrome OS. The event was at first just speculation but, has now been confirmed and Engadget will be attending the event. This hopefully means the rumors surrounding the release of the Chrome OS netbook will also turn out to be true. Little is known about the Google netbook at the moment.

It’s thought that the Chrome OS however, is still in beta, which is why details are so scarce. It’s also been said that only around 65,000 Google netbooks will be produced, presumably mostly available to developers, instead of being a mass market device. So for those looking to get hold of one of this netbooks, you may be disappointed but, hopefully we will find out more information on the Google Chrome OS netbook on Tuesday.

Google could launch own Chrome OS netbook next week is a post from: Eee PC

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If you’re one of the many people who have been looking forward to the release of Google’s open-source Chrome operating system since the day it was first announced, then you’ll be glad to know that Google’s VP of product management Sundar Pichai spoke at Computex 2010 in Taipei and said Chrome OS is on track to be released by the fall of 2010. It will debut in a notebook, and while it wasn’t specified what brand and model it would be, there’s hope that it might be an upcoming netbook from Acer, as earlier rumors have suggested. He didn’t mention any other details about the open-source OS, other than trying to explain how Google sees it differently from Android, as it is intended for use in the desktop PC environment while Android is for handheld devices.

Via DigiTimes

Google Chrome OS to be released by fall of 2010, says Google VP of product management is a post from: Eee PC

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In a recent event, Google CEO Eric Schmidt revealed that he estimates that netbooks running the company’s Chrome OS should fall in the $300-$400 price range. We all know that the operating system itself isn’t for sale and is based on the open source Linux. Neither will access to apps be on a paid basis (except for premium versions like Google Apps) since they are all free, from Gmail to Google Maps.

With that, you will have to wonder, what will compel me to get a GoogleBook over, let’s say, a Windows 7 one since they are at the same price? Most people are already familiar with the latter and the former is going to be a challenge with everything running on the browser, which probably makes it less useful if you don’t have a connection of some sort.

In any case, time will tell if Google’s partners will be able to pull off selling those Chrome netbooks.

source Netbook Choice

Schmidt of Google says Chrome netbooks shouldn’t be more than $400 is a post from: Eee PC

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It’s long been the bane of those who have notebooks and netbooks carrying the open-source OS that it’s always one-upped by Windows users, especially in hardware support. One of those things Linux users do not enjoy is out of the box multitouch support even if their device has it when it runs Windows. They’re missing out on pinch to zoom, two finger scrolling and twisting to rotate.

All that is about to be solved as Synaptics gears up for the introduction of its Synaptics Gesture Suite Linux (SGS-L) which will be sold to manufacturers bundling their machine with any one of the supported distributions of our penguin-themed operating system including Ubuntu, Chrome OS and Xandros.

If you want one on your current machine, it will be available soon enough. I’m sure one wily programmer these can tease out the software code and bundle it in repo for everyone’s enjoyment.

source Electronista

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Despite the fact that Amazon was the first to launch a dedicated e-book reader and its device’s perfectly acceptable performance so far, one analyst has predicted that in the next five years, it will have to share the e-book market to competitors like Apple and Google.

Apple’s iPad may be all-purpose, but with its large screen and a dedicated e-book store behind it, it’s poised to become one of the Kindle’s biggest rivals. Meanwhile, Google already has its own e-book store, and although it doesn’t have any hardware to sell to potential buyers yet, it is reportedly working on a Chrome OS tablet with Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC.

With three of them (Amazon, Apple and Google) sharing the market, a prediction that each of them will have about 35% market share in the next five years isn’t that hard to believe. But in my opinion, five years is quite a long time (especially in the tech sector) and other companies like Asus, LG or Acer who are also reportedly working on their own e-book readers might advance and easily supplant any of the aforementioned three.

Via WSJ

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Looks like 2010 is shaping up to be not just the year of the tablet, but also of e-book readers. KW Kim, CEO of LG Middle East and Africa, has just revealed in an interview that they are currently working on their own brand of e-book readers and that these may be launched as early as April of this year. Meanwhile, the company is also in talks with telecom operator etisalat for the possibility of launching a new line of notebooks using “Google’s operating system.” It is not mentioned whether this operating system will be Android or Chrome OS.

These LG notebooks, if released in cooperation with etisalat, will be subsidized just like the Acer and HP notebooks currently on offer from the operator. With LG having its sights also set on further developing its smartphones, offering pre-built desktops, and beating everyone else to launching 3D TVs, I don’t expect them to do a lot of innovating with their upcoming netbooks and e-readers. If anything, other netbook and e-reader makers will simply have more competition. And that’s a good thing.

Via Emirates Business

LG set to launch own e-reader and Google OS netbooks as early as April is a post from: Eee PC

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Upon proclaiming that Acer is looking at getting 10% notebook market share in China by the second half of 2010, the company’s CEO Gianfranco Lanci mentioned that they are currently preparing their own e-book readers and Google Chrome netbooks. This isn’t exactly news because we’ve heard report about Acer’s upcoming Google Chrome netbooks at least once before, and e-book readers are only expected out of a company that’s been doing so well against others who have already introduced their own e-book readers or are known to have plans to do so. Still, it’s nice to hear Acer reminding us of what to expect out of them, and the possible innovations they might bring with their new product when it comes out.

Via DigiTimes

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