Built Around the Browser, Google's Chrome OS Launches, Reinvents the Operating System

From DailyTech: A radical new day has dawned for the operating system.

Today Google finally aired its long awaited Chrome Operating System. The operating system was detailed at a press conference starting at 1 p.m. EST, and the open source code was posted online just before the start of the presentation. The new operating system brings a dramatically different look and perspective to the market and just may give Microsoft and OS X some tough competition by reinventing a tired old wheel -- the operating system -- offering the first laptop/desktop OS built around the browser and web applications.

A Google engineer set the mood for the presentation announcing in the introduction, "Chrome is the foundation of everything we’re doing here."

According to Google, its Chrome browser has garnered 40 million users who use it as their primary browser. Google is already beating Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 browser by 30 percent in Javascript speed tests, according to the company (we confirm this claim in our browser benchmark series, parts 1, 2, 3, and 4). That success, in part, inspired Google to make the jump to the OS market. With the Chrome browser coming to Linux and OS X platforms, Google thought -- why not make a full Linux distribution built around the Chrome browser and web applications?

Google's Chrome OS is indeed built entirely around the company's browser. For that reason, it naturally uses HTML 5 to provide it with rich graphical content and other advanced programming content. HTML 5 is used for graphics, video/audio playback, threading, threads, notifications, real-time communication, and storage -- all critical factors to enabling games and productivity application.

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