While Acer and a handful of other companies are moving forward with plans to launch netbooks running the Google Android operating system first designed for cellphones, Google is expected to introduce a new OS developed specifically for netbooks and cloud computing later this year. The company hasn’t released any official images of the Chrome Operating System yet, but a tipster sent a group of images to my colleagues at Download Squad.

Now, I’d take these images with a bucket full of salt. But they seem more plausible than the first round of photos that leaked a few weeks back, and which were confirmed to be a hoax.

The new image are at least a bit more artful than the first batch. They show an operating system that’s clearly designed as little more than a launching pad for a web browser. And since Google has already stated that most Chrome apps will essentially be web apps, and development for the platform will basically entail writing web pages, that seems plausible.

But there’s still at least a 75% chance these images are fake. Just because.

Sure, the Dell Inspiron Mini 10 is still warm, having just started shipping a few weeks ago. But it appears Dell is already looking ahead to its next low cost, 10 inch mini-laptop. And this time, it’s not part of the company’s Inspiron series.

Gizmodo is running a photo from a tipster that claims it’s a leaked image showing an upcoming Dell Latitude 2100 netbook. It’ll reportedly have a 10 inch screen and a price tag of $600 or less.

These machines are aimed squarely at the educational market, not consumers. Colors include School bus Orange, Red Apple, Blue Ribbon, and I can’t quite make out what the black color is called… other than black. The computers will have solid state disks, and perhaps hard drive options, up to 2GB of RAM, and 1.6GHz CPUs. I’ll assume we’re talking about Intel Atom N270 processors until proven otherwise.

The computers will have 3 USB ports, an SD card slot, 802.11a/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth, and 3 or 6 cell batteries, while weighing less than 3 pounds. A touchscreen version may be available as well. These laptops could see the light of day in May… if they’re real.