The Jolicloud team has announced that the final release of Jolicloud “Robby” is due out before the end of the month. The update will incorporate a number of features we’ve already told you about, including support for Intel Atom Pine Trail and VIA C7-M processors. But there are two major new features:

1. The web app platform will be based on the Google Chrome browser rather than Mozilla Prism
2. There’s a new desktop mode designed for nettops and other computers with screens larger than 11 inches

The desktop mode makes a lot of sense, since there are plenty of nettops out there with the same guts as netbooks (Intel Atom processors, Windows XP or 7, integrated graphics or NVIDIA ION). But the move from Prism to Chrome for the web apps is a pretty big deal.

According to the folks at Jolicloud, this will lead to a faster browsing experience, more efficient memory use, and support for Chrome extensions in all web apps. It will also help performance on ARM-based netbooks and tablets.

The default web browser for Jolicloud is still Firefox. But the Chrome rendering engine will handle all the web apps you’ve “installed” on your system.

The new release will also be the first that the Jolicloud team says is compatible with 100% of the netbooks on the market with Intel processors. That includes systems with older Intel Celeron CPUs or the latest Atom Pine Trail chips as well as computers with NVIDIA ION graphics or Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerators.

When Google announces it was working on an operating system for netbooks and other devices, the company said netbooks with Chrome OS would start shipping in late 2010. But it looks like Acer may be fast-tracking its first Chrome OS netbook for a mid-2010 launch.

We already knew that Acer was working on a machine with Google’s operating system. Now Digitimes reports that it could ship by the middle of the year. It’s not clear whether this means that Google plans to push up its launch date for Chrome OS or if Acer plans to release a machine running beta software.

This isn’t Acer’s first foray into a Googlecentric netbook. The company also offers a mini-laptop that dual boots Google’s Android operating system and Windows 7. But Android is an OS designed for smartphones (and increasingly for low power tablets), while Chrome is specifically designed for devices with larger screens and faster processors.

If you can’t wait for Acer and other netbook makers to start preloading machines with Chrome OS, you can download pre-release builds of Chromium OS today. Chromium is the open source, beta version of Chrome OS. It’s still a work in progress and under heavy development. But it already supports a pretty wide range of netbook hardware.

Google has said that its upcoming Chrome operating system is designed primarily for netbooks at launch. And that makes sense, since it’s basically an OS built around a web browser. Sure, you can play music, movies, and store some files. But ultimately, the goal is to provide you with the tools to quickly and easily access millions of web sites and web apps. In other words, Google doesn’t really expect you to use Chrome OS as a your primary operating system if you need to run resource-intensive desktop apps. But it’s a light weight operating system that’s ideal for low power computers that you use on the go.

But that doesn’t mean Chrome OS is only for netbooks. Yesterday we spotted evidence that Google was at least considering porting the OS to work with tablet-style computers. Now it looks like there’s evidence that Google is thinking about other platforms, including full size laptops, desktops, and even large screen displays or projectors.

The key differences seem to be that some devices will have a full screen user interface while others will have tiled or overlapping windows, allowing you to see more elements at once. For the most part, devices with smaller screens, such as tablets and netbooks get the full screen UI, while larger notebooks and desktops get tiled windows. Large screen devices like commercial displays get a full screen UI.

As far as I can tell, these are only concepts for now. When Google officially launches Chrome OS later this year, it’s expected to be targeted squarely at netbooks. But who knows what could be in the plans for next year? I also wouldn’t be surprised to see Google expand into the tablet space if the iPad and other tablets take off over the next few months.

via Netbook Tech

While Google’s Android operating system was designed for smartphones, it seems to be a fairly popular OS choice among tablet makers. A fair number of prototypes I saw at CES this year were running Android, and you can already pick up an Archos 5 Internet Tablet running the mobile operating system. But it looks like Android isn’t the only tablet-friendly OS Google is working on.

Google Chrome OS is designed primarily for netbooks and laptops with full keyboards. While Android is a light weight OS designed for a mobile computing experience, Chrome is basically an OS designed around a web browser. The idea is that most of the apps you run will be web apps, and that the hardware and software should really just be a conduit for getting online. And you know what? That doesn’t necessarily require a physical keyboard.

There’s a page on the Chrome OS developer site showing a series of concept drawings for how Chrome could work with a tablet. The mockups include several images of an on-screen keyboard which can be repositioned or reconfigured. For instance, you could type with all ten fingers on a full sized on-screen keyboard much like the Apple iPad on-screen keyboard. Or you can split the keyboard so that some letters show up on the left side of the screen and others are on the right. This would make it easier to hold the tablet in your hands and type with your thumbs.

Right now, the Chrome tablet UI is just a concept. There’s no confirmation that Google or anyone else is working on the hardware for this device, or that PC makers are planning to install Chrome on tablets. But it certainly looks like Google is at least thinking about the possibility.

You can check out a concept video after the break.

via TechCrunch and Download Squad

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There were an awful lot of devices running Google Android at CES this year. That includes tablets and ARM-based mini-laptops (call them smartbooks or netbooks if you like). But you know who didn’t have one to show? Asus. This despite the fact that the company kind of, sort of showed one off at Computex in June last year.

In an interview with ZDNet, Asus Chairman Jonney Shih explains that the company has prototype smartbooks in its labs running both Google Android and a pre-release version of Google Chrome OS. He’s just not sure if it makes sense to actually bring a product to market running either OS.

Probably the biggest obstacle to a successful ARM-based smartbook is the fact that it won’t be able to run Windows. That means that while you can surf the web, edit documents, watch movies, or do any number of other things on a netbook, there may still be many Windows apps that don’t run properly. And that could turn off some people that take one look at a mini-laptop and decide it should function like it’s bigger cousins.

Shih is also concerned that Google Android, which is showing up on a growing number of ARM-based devices that aren’t smartphones, was designed as a mobile operating system for phones with small screens. So he’s banking more on Chrome OS, which won’t be finished until later this year, but which Google is designing specifically for netbooks.

Still, it’s interesting to know that should Android-based smartbooks suddenly prove wildly successful, Asus may have a few tricks up its sleeve and the company may be able to pump out a model to meet market demand relatively quickly.

There’s a rumor going around that Google isn’t just developing an operating system for netbooks (which we already know is true), but that company is also in the process of developing an actual netbook. While Google isn’t exactly known as a hardware maker, this rumor falls into the plausible category, since Google is also widely reported to be developing a cellphone running Android OS. And as Apple has demonstrated time and again, if you want your operating system to run smoothly on hardware, your best option is to design the hardware.

This weekend the rumors got a little more interesting as British site IB Times listed the rumored specs of the upcoming Google netbook:

• Display: 10.1 inch HD ready multit-touch screen
• CPU: ARM-based processor
• Storage: 64GB SSD
• Memory: 2GB
• Connectivity: WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G, Ethernet
• I/O: USB, webcam, 3.5mm audio jack, flash card reader
• OS: Google Chrome OS

IB Times also says the netbook could be subsidized by wireless carriers and sell for under $300.

All told, it sounds like one heck of a machine. And to be honest, I’d say it’s far more powerful a device than you need for running web-apps alone. Then again, anyone who has spent some time watching movies, editing documents, and performing other tasks in a web browser can tell you that more RAM and memory is always better than less. But I wouldn’t be surprised if people picked up this netbook in hopes of hacking it to run a different flavor or Linux or of tweaking the open source Chrome operating system to run native apps instead of the web-only apps Google plans to offer.

When Google officials introduced the operating system recently, they stated that netbooks designed to run Chrome OS would be larger than today’s netbooks and have full sized keyboards. At the time, I figured this meant the netbooks would have screens larger than 10 inches, but it’s possible that Google reps, like a lot of other people, still think of netbooks as 7 to 9 inch devices with cramped keyboards even though the vast majority of mini-laptops released in the last two years are much larger and more comfortable to type on. Anyway, if the rumored specs are true, the Google netbook will have a 10 inch screen and likely won’t be much larger than the average netbook on the market today.

Of course, we’re still dealing with rumors and speculation here, so please pass the salt and I’ll take a grain. I suggest you do the same.

via Netbook News.de

Concept drawing (formerly a Dell Inspiron Mini 10v)

A few days ago a contact tipped me off to the possibility that Google might not just be developing an operating system for netbooks, but that the company could actually be involved in building a netbook that it would sell under the Google brand name. You know, sort of like it’s expected to do with the Google Nexus One cellphone soon.

The reasoning is pretty solid: If you want something done right, you need to do it yourself. So far Google has been taking the Microsoft approach in the cellphone market with its Google Android operating system. Google makes the software and works with hardware manufacturers to make sure it can run on as many devices as possible. But that means that those hardware partners get to tweak things to their hearts’ content, and in the end the user experience may not be exactly what Google had anticipated.

And so that leads the company to try the Apple model: design the OS and the hardware to ensure seamless interaction between the two.

Google officials have already said that the company is working with hardware makers to design new devices that will run Chrome OS. They made a big deal of suggesting that the new devices would have larger keyboards and displays than current generation netbooks, to offer a better web experience. But you know what the best way to make sure that the hardware meets your vision? Build it yourself… or hire someone to build it for you.

TechCrunch apparently got the same tip that I did, and then a few more, because Michael Arrington reports that “multiple sources” confirm that Google has been “talking to at least one hardware manufacturer about building a netbook for Google directly.”

There aren’t a lot of details about the device yet. But it will reportedly offer mobile broadband capabilities and it may be bundled with a 3G data plan and sold by telecoms. It’s not due out until late 2010, and it’s possible that we could see other devices from third party companies running Chrome OS before the Google netbook actually hits the streets.

Of course, there’s still a chance that this is just a concept device, a rumor, or something else. In other words, it might never come to market. But if it does, it’ll be interesting to see whether the Microsoft model or the Apple model works better for Google. In other words, will the company have more success selling its own hardware or licensing its software to third party companies? Or will both crash and burn because people expect more from a PC operating system than a glorified web browser?

Acer is apparently aiming to be one of the first companies to launch a netbook with the Google Chrome operating system. DigiTimes reports that the company plans to release a netbook running Google’s netbook-focused OS in the second half of 2010. While early pre-release builds of the Chrome operating system are already available for download, Google expects the OS to be ready for general use next year, which would make Acer’s planned netbook one of the first to use Google Chrome.

Acer was also one of the first major companies to introduce a netbook running Google’s Android operating system, which was initially designed for smartphones. Unlike Android, Google Chrome is primarily a web-focused operating system. Instead of running local applications from a hard drive, Chrome OS will run web apps such as Gmail, Google Docs, or Zoho Office.

While Acer’s Google Android netbook is actually a dual boot computer that can also run Windows, Google is positioning Chrome as a full-fledged that can stand on its own. The company has suggested that PC makers will launch machines with Chrome as the only operating system, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Acer or other manufacturers try to hedge their bets by loading both Chrome OS and Windows onto upcoming netbooks. A fast-booting, web-only operating system certainly sounds like a good alternative to existing solutions such as Splashtop or HyperSpace.

There’s been a bit of confusion about Google’s new operating-system-that’s-really-just-a-browser. While Google did announce yesterday that the OS would be designed for upcoming “netbooks” with larger screens and keyboards and solid state disks, the most important thing Google announced was that the project was open source. And the code is available today. And that means anybody that knows there way around a Linux command line interface can go in and tweak to their heart’s content. And that’s why last night geeks around the world started building the pre-release version of Chrome and installing it on virtual machines and netbooks.

For instance, want to know how Chrome OS looks on an Asus Eee PC 701 with a 7 inch screen and a keyboard that’s decidedly not full size? Just check out the video after the break, courtesy of Brad Kellet.

It doesn’t quite live up tot he promised 7 second boot time on this relatively sluggish hardware. And the login screen doesn’t really scale well to the 800 x 480 pixel display. But the OS does boot relatively quickly, all things considered, and as you’d expect it looks almost exactly like the Google Chrome browser for Windows.

So if you want to try it out, you can go and grab a pre-compiled disc image. Gdgt has a VMWare disc image, and The Pirate Bay has at least one pre-compiled disc image. Or you could, you know, install the Chrome browser on an existing system.

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Google held a press event this afternoon to talk about the company’s upcoming Google Chrome operating system. Here’s the short version: It’s a light weight OS built to support the Google Chrome web browser. The only apps that you’ll be able to install will be web apps, although Google is working to ensure that Chrome OS can interact with desktop hardware such as video cards and webcams.

Since the OS basically only exists to boot a web browser, the whole thing loads in about 7 seconds on a system with an Intel Atom processor, and you can get online and launch web apps in another 3 seconds.

You can read more about the operating system and see additional screenshots at Download Squad.

But here’s the interesting part for netbook users: Chrome is set to launch initially for netbook-like devices. That means clamshell devices with a full sized keyboard. In fact, Google representatives said that they expect the devices that run Google Chrome OS to be larger than today’s netbooks and to have high resolution displays. They say they expect those netbooks to be in “price ranges people are used to” seeing from netbooks today, which to me means $200 to $400.

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