Google has announced that it will be creating its own operating system based on its web browser, Chrome. Fast company summarizes:
The OS will be open source, lightweight and have “speed, simplicity and security” at its core. The lightweight and simple aspects are clear from the fact that the OS is going to be initially targeted at netbooks–it’s absolutely a separate project from Android.
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As if that’s not enough, the way Google appears to be re-thinking an OS is completely new. Chrome OS is designed to be instant-on, with a minimal interface and most of the user experience will happen via web interactions. Chrome will run within a “new windowing system” superimposed on a Linux kernel, and the whole thing will work like it’s in a browser. Consequently “all web-based applications will automatically work” so developers will supposedly be able to write software that runs on Chrome, and in browsers on Windows, OS X and Linux machines.