According to Neowin, Google will be selling the devices as part of a subscription based model with Gmail to customers so as to attract more customers than they could have attracted by conventional sales of Chrome OS laptops.

Although this seems very unlikely as this will loosen the control of sales from hardware manufacturers which they obviously wouldn’t like at all and may also impact the profits that manufacturers make out of selling Chrome OS laptops at their usual price.

Remember, this model would be more like renting a device rather than buying it with subscription. That means, those who will rent such a device will not own it, even if they keep using it for 2-3 years and keep paying the rental money.

Factually, hardware renting model is complete rumor at this point and Google is not supporting this at all but who knows what ways Google might try to help increase the sales of its upcoming line of Chrome OS devices.

Stay tuned…!

Now, Google has already been hard at work to get Chromebooks out of the factory for quite sometime and with such rumors coming out, there are good chances that Google will not disappoint us this time.

Google has already released Chrome 8 and is working day-in, day-out to get Chrome Web Store functional and it all seems to indicate that ChromeBooks are now on their way.

But one must not expect too much out of this launch, if the rumors turn out to be true, simply because Google branded Chrome OS Netbooks will be extremely limited in production and may not be available to users for doing some ChromeOS shopping this holiday.

Chrome extension and Chrome web store developers might prove to be the lucky guys in grabbing the very fist chromebooks.

Let’s see if we hear some official announcement from Google regarding some event next tuesday or not !

Stay tuned…Keep following us on Facebook..

As no official comments have been made over the release date of ChromeOS powered netbooks, the only way to find any clue about Chrome OS is to dig out bug status reports and estimate the progress of Chrome OS by itself.

And after tracking bug reports of Chrome OS, we have a feeling that Chrome OS may probably get further delayed. Nov 11, the previously estimated date might just be the unveiling of the Operating System, not the actual release of Chrome OS powered Netbooks.

From there, Netbook manufacturers will also take couple of months to start selling Chrome OS powered Netbooks. So, taking a safe assumption, Chrome OS Netbooks should hit the market by March-April 2011.

But what has really kept the Chrome OS project from completing by now ? Keeping regular bugs aside, one big problem that’s bugging Chrome OS progress is Flash !

Call it the burden of staying compliant with Flash content, which is ubiquitous over Internet or dealing with power and performance issues that come with it, there is some good logic why Apple hates it so much and has picked HTML5 as an alternative instead.

These are the bugs in Chrome OS project revolving around Flash. In one of the threads, the bug is hovering around non-loading of Flash content on some hugely popular websites. Most of the Flash related bugs are still open, except this one that has been fixed just yesterday.

In some threads, Flash plugin has also been reportedly consuming unnecessary power and affecting the battery performance on Chrome OS loaded Netbooks. When Chrome OS got introduced, long battery performance was one of the main concerns of the Chrome OS team and we can only hope that Chrome OS team will(or probably has) find some solution to performance hindrance that comes along with Flash support.

As full Flash support is extremely critical at the launch of Chrome OS, the Google OS has to comply with Flash and fix all these bugs at the earliest. It remains to be seen, however, if Chrome OS team will be able to keep its due promise and announce the Chrome OS within next couple of weeks.

According to folks at Venturebeat, they have confirmation from multiple reliable sources that Acer, the Taiwanese computer manufacturer will launch Chrome OS powered netbook(s) at the Computex Taipei show, which is scheduled to be held from June 1 to June 5.

As per very early reports, Chrome OS netbooks were supposed to be delivered by late 2010 so this particular news sounds tough to be believed as the first half of this year is yet to get over but then, we can understand why Google and Acer would want Chrome OS powered netbooks to hit market earliest possible. It’s the iPad that might be causing the worry.

With the advent of Apple iPad and growing interest of other hardware manufacturers in newly explored tablet computing industry, Netbook sales have already started to decline. Every advantage offered by Netbooks over laptops is well compensated by a tablet device such as iPad and the possibilities are much brighter in touch enabled tablet devices.

So, that could be the reason why Acer is on its way to unveil Chrome OS powered Netbooks in the first week of June. Anyways, June isn’t too far so the truth will soon come out.

As Apple Tablet is very much a certainty now(which was a rumor in 2009) and Apple has officially announced an event this month for launching their tablet product as well, the niche tablet industry is ready to get shaken up big time in 2010.

As reported by Australian publication, Smarthouse recently, Google and HTC have been working on Chrome OS Tablet for the last 18 months and have so far produced several prototypes of their yet-to-exist touch tablet. As Chrome OS offers a great way to get onto the web as swift as it gets, Chrome OS over a tablet sounds like a perfect concept actually.

Now when all of us know that Google is just about to unveil its own Smartphone, Nexus One , built by cellphone manufacturer, HTC, this rumor that claims that Google is on its way to launch a self-branded Chrome OS Tablet built by HTC makes absolute sense.

But there’s a question popping up in couple of curious minds…

Is Chrome OS Tablet a worry for Chrome OS Netbook ?

Frankly, it doesn’t really matter as long as it’s Google’s Chrome OS powering the machines, be it a tablet or a netbook.

But yes, Google’s supposed plan to launch its own tablet against Apple’s tablet might be a well planned move from Google to simply prevent Apple from reiterating the ‘iPhone act‘ again.

Apple’s iPhone is an extravagant smartphone and so is Google Nexus One(actually much better) so what’s the difference..?

iPhone dominates the smartphone industry and Nexus One is yet to even start selling to its prospective buyers. Why ? Because iPhone launched in mid 2007 and Nexus One is to launch in 2010. It’s the early advantage that made Apple iPhone a clear dominator in smartphone industry. Google would never want to let Apple eat up the Tablet industry single handedly, just like what it did to smartphone industry with iPhone.

With Google competing head-on with Apple in Tablet market now, the consumers will find it more comfortable to be able to have a choice between the two offerings.

We will track further developments on this…Stay hooked!

[via Gizmodo]

When Google promised that Chrome OS Netbooks will be out in the market by fall 2010, it was presumed that multiple Netbook manufacturers will come up with Chrome OS Netbooks but now, it seems that Google doesn’t want to take any chance in launching its own OS and simply wants to ensure that Chrome OS Netbook becomes a Standard within Netbook industry.

It might be a case that Google branded Netbook may serve as the exclusive distributor of Chrome OS, much like Apple’s business model but this is just a presumption as yet. It has been Google’s nature(as what you can see with Android) to build the software side and let multiple hardware brands do the rest of the job and hence it would be a tough call for Google to go exclusive with Chrome OS.

There is another possibility that Google may become one of the many Netbook brands to offer Chrome OS. But frankly, no hardware OEM would like competing with Google on hardware front especially when the OS is built by Google itself. At worst, this might even happen but only if OEMs get terribly scared of getting out of business if they boycott Chrome OS in their Netbook offering.

Now that Google is making its entry at mobile hardware front with Nexus One (the Google Phone) along with Android, it is looking more probable for Google to come up with a Google branded Chrome OS Netbook as well.

As per the rumor mill, this Google branded Chrome OS Netbook might be sold with a 2 year data plan contract with a carrier.

So guys, whatever the case be, you better hold your plans to buying a Netbook until next Christmas. We bet, you won’t regret !

Source

This rumor has emerged from TechCrunch, a popular silicon valley tech blog. As there is no official statement from Google itself, we can’t really call it a news but the rumor seems to be true.

It’s hardly been half a month since Windows 7 launch and Google OS is making the news again. It might be a long term strategy from Google to start rooting its OS as early as possible, especially when Windows 7 is getting a great response from the customers.

Starting early might serve positively to Google but we’re hoping it’s not way too early. Our anticipation is that Google OS is nearing its launch but a very limited launch and that too in a month or two(not in 5-7 days). We might be wrong but this anticipation seems more sensible and Google does believe in doing things sensibly.

Google Chrome OS is back in buzz again. And we’ve something critical to talk about. Although, there hasn’t been any official word about Chrome OS for quite sometime now, the web diggers (aka geeks, bloggers) were right on their job, trying to dig out any possible traces of Chrome OS and they’ve somehow found one out.

The clue belongs to Chromium web repository, the Open source project that serves as a backbone for Google Chrome browser development. DownloadSquad spotted out a mention of Chrome OS login manager, somewhere buried in the open source code of Chromium web repository.

As Chrome OS is supposed to be a Browser based OS, a general interpretation of the term Chrome OS login manager would mean an OS that operates on Single Sign-On (SSO) cookie, working for all Google services.

In simpler words, you will be required to login with your Google Account when you will boot up your Chrome OS machine. Once you login with your Google account credentials into Chrome OS, you will get access to all the Google web services(Gmail, Google Docs, Picasa, Reader, Blogger, Friends Connect……)

It sounds pretty cool and absolutely perfect for a company like Google, probably the only internet company in tech industry that has in-house web based alternative to all major desktop applications and software needs. It also means that you just need to login with your Google account to any machine(home, office, friend’s) and you have your custom OS ready to be served. As all the services belong to Google, the overall compatibility will be immensely smooth.

But this presumption (which is most likely to turn true) that one must have a Google account to make an access to Chrome OS and use Google Chrome as the primary web browser for using any web service on Chrome OS has raised a lot of questions over the freedom of choice.

If somebody is not interested to work on Google Chrome(the supposed backbone of Chrome OS) but Firefox or IE or whatever else then ? Or if somebody doesn’t want to use Google Docs or Picasa but instead, want to use some other alternative software from a third party developer, then ??

Will Google allow other competitive software or services to get replaced as primary service in Chrome OS ? It’s a question that’s still to be answered by Google but we’re guessing that Google will choose to stay competitive than playing resistive.

Even when any user downloads and installs Google Chrome on Windows OS, Chrome first asks the user to choose a default search engine (in-built into URL address bar) and doesn’t just impose Google search on new Chrome user. It’s a competitive ideology that Google has always followed (so far) and we expect that for Chrome OS as well.

Ever since, this news broke out, tech bloggers and journalists started speculating over various aspects that are closely associated with Chrome OS and its possible success or failure in largely monopolised OS market.

Although there’s just one article written on Official Google Blog about Chrome OS,  tech journalist and blogging fraternity just can’t stop buzzing about Chrome OS, be it data security concerns or Google-Microsoft rivalry.

But something that’s been completely baseless about Chrome OS are those leaked screenshots rumors, that keep surfacing every now and then.(atleast for now)

First when the news broke out, a fake graphic designer showed off his photoshopping skills and cooked up a fake story, which eventually managed to make thousands of folks believe on the Fake Chrome OS Screenshots.

Quiet recently, another claimed screenshot (obviously fake!) of Chrome OS surfaced out, gathering thousands of eyeballs, once more.

Can you guess, how long will such leaked rumors keep rolling out ??

Until Google itself rolls the real ones out !

And the day is not far(probably by the end of this year) when we would get you the REAL Chrome OS screenshots and detailed specifications about the next generation OS.

Stay tuned !!

And right now, Google’s statement of building  fool-proof security standards in Google Chrome OS is getting over-exaggerated to a large extent by the online media.

The security pundits are whole-heartedly questioning Google’s claims of building a Malware-free Operating System. Few of the logical justifications of security experts are somewhat true but still, the actual statement has been largely mis-interpreted, making a mountain of a molehill.

This is the statement that’s causing the uproar…

And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

Media has gone absurdly far that it has started relating Twitter security breach with vulnerability of Google Chrome OS. It’s fine that many of the official Twitter documents which were recently hacked, were hosted on cloud based Google docs service, but we reckon the skeptics missed out a point made pretty clear by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone saying

This attack had nothing to do with any vulnerability in Google Apps which we continue to use.

We do agree that no operating system can be 100% malware-free. We also agree that there may be even more challenges for Google while carving out a Web based Operating system, which is bound to be more open and would heavily rely on cloud based applications. But this doesn’t mean that Google’s statement about Chrome OS Security standards is waguely wrong.

One can better interpret the questionable Google statement as “implementation of never-before and highly resistent security standards within Google Chrome OS”.

Now, imagine an operating system, which is not completely fool-proof but has very rare chances of malware attacks and least vulnerability to viruses. Won’t you love such an OS ? That’s exactly what Google is eyeing for.

But there’s another hidden reason behind all these objections, being raised majorly by Security experts and Anti-virus companies. Suppose, if Google actually succeeds in building a Fool-proof Operating System then it will be one of the major highlights of Chrome OS in competing against Microsoft Windows.

And if, Google starts hurting long lived Windows dynasty of Microsoft badly, then it won’t be just Microsoft but countless of Anti-virus firms and computer security companies, who will be at the risk of going out of business.

The possibility is quite easy to realize. If Malware-free Google Chrome OS succeeds in stealing some 30-40% of OS market share from Microsoft within a span of, say 4-5 years from its launch then it will mean that only 55-65% market will actually require security experts or anti-virus softwares for staying Malware-free. This may jeopardise Anti-virus industry to a large extent.

It is analogous to a situation when everybody becomes healthy on earth and there’s a rare possibility of any disease to spread across, meaning no need of medicines ever. Won’t that cause whole Medical industry to go out of business.

This same sort of feeling is one major reason behind the whole controversy around the Google statement on Chrome OS security plans.