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A glimpse of Google's Chrome operating system

How fast does your computer take to boot-up before you can login to Facebook or your web-based email account? Google's Chrome operating system (OS) aims to get you online in as fast as 7 seconds (or less). If Chrome OS sounds familiar, it's because Google has a web browser that bears the same namesake. Google's operating system extends the idea further by making the browser the focus of all your activity on a computer. As Google's product management director Caesar Sengupta puts it, "Chrome OS is for people who live primarily on the web". Just how quickly can Chrome OS get you on the Internet? During a demonstration that Caesar gave to us in Google Singapore's cool office, a prototype netbook that ran the OS off a conventional hard drive booted in about 14 seconds. However, do note that Chrome OS can already boot up in 7 seconds on netbooks with solid state drives (SSDs) that can perform much faster. The commercial netbooks that will run Chrome OS when it's out will only sport SSDs for optimum performance. The good news is that Google aims to shave off a few more seconds by the time it launches - in eight to nine months. To picture Google's operating system at work (screenshot, below), you have to imagine each software you use - say, Microsoft Word - as a tab in an Internet browser. For the user interface, the idea is to create one that's familiar to anyone who knows how to use a browser. Especially (surprise, surprise) an existing browser like Google Chrome.

A screenshot of Chrome OS: The applications menu on the left gives easy access to a list of web applications.

More screenshots here. You won't be installing software on computers that are preloaded with Chrome OS - all your tools will reside on the Internet as web applications (or web apps, for short) instead. It's not entirely a new idea. If you're used to creating text documents in Microsoft Word on your computer, you can also draft them up using web applications like Google Docs, Zoho or Microsoft's upcoming online productivity tools. There are a plenty of web apps out there, even those that can handle image or video editing. When you use a web app and store your files online, you can access them on any computer with a browser (and a connection to the Internet, of course) and won't need to worry about losing your data if your computer crashes or your hard drive fails. According to Google, Chrome OS will be able to update itself automatically too and you won't need to fork out moolah for new versions of it. Here’s a short video of Caesar giving us a demo of Chrome OS: When Caesar demoed it to us, operating Chrome OS seemed like a cinch. When the system boots, you enter your username and password for your Google account. Once you're logged in, there will already be an open browser window. One nifty feature of Chrome OS is that users can continue what they were doing on another Chrome OS computer - much like accessing an email inbox. Simply log onto the other machine with your account and everything would be right where you left it, browser tabs and all. However, there might be one drawback, I find. Web applications that run in Chrome OS seem very dependent on an Internet connection. So when there's no Internet access (when you're on holiday on some remote island, perhaps), you can do little with them, unless the applications come with offline capabilities baked in. The launch is still months away, though, and I'm sure the whizzes at Google are well aware of this, having developed offline capabilities for Gmail and Google Calendar. According to Google, consumers will not be able to download Chrome OS and install it on their own. Netbooks from the likes of HP, Lenovo, Dell, Acer and Asus will come preloaded with the OS instead. Still clueless about Chrome OS? Find out more from this rather quirky video:

Screenshot of the applications menu and a tab on the Google webpage More screenshots here.

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