Zit Seng's Blog

A Singaporean's technology and lifestyle blog

Google Operating System

200807203584It’s something many people have speculated for some time. Google’s secret agenda is to take over the world. First, the Google Chrome browser. Now the cat is out of the bag: Google is embarking on the Google Chrome Operating System. They describe this as a natural extension of their browser project. Perhaps so.

This is not Google’s first foray into the operating systems space. They already have their Android operating system, which is targeted at phones and other small device platforms. The new Chrome OS, however, is designed for regular PCs, notebooks and netbooks too. It will only be available to consumers in the 2nd half of 2010, so it will still be some time to wait.

Many things live on the web nowadays, and it is not surprising that the web browser is fast becoming the computing platform. Although there are some limitations of what web browsers can do, many there are many new on-going developments to push the limits of what the web can do. HTML 5, for example, promises many new capabilities. Although it remains to be seen just exactly what applications can accomplish, one thing that is clear is that they are just going to get better.

The Chrome OS doesn’t have a lot to do, actually. They just sit run in a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. It’s something that is just about ready to go, rightaway, right now. The big thing to be done is still in the web browser: architectural and technological developments that will enable the next generation of applications.

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