Tech Olive

Epic Vid of the Week is a weekly series that showcases an awesome video that we or our readers discover. Some you may have seen before and others you may have not. If you’ve discovered any videos that are worthy of an Epic Vid of the Week title, let us know!

We all should know by now that Google has their own operating system for netbooks called Chrome OS. In this video, we’ll see the Cr-48 netbook get destroyed several times in creative ways, but at the same time we’ll learn about some of the advantages of using a Chrome OS machine.

So the day has finally come for the guys at Google to remove the duct tape from their mouths. They announced a few days ago that they were to unveil more details on Chrome OS and today they did just that.

First, they launched their Chrome Web Store, which has been vastly updated from when it was initially unveiled back in May. This is the place where you can get all of your Chrome extensions and themes, as well as different apps and games such as the NY Times, Sports Illustrated and even Plants vs. Zombies. The apps are compatible for both the Chrome browser and Chrome OS.

Google then moved on to the main event and handed out more details of Chrome OS. Frankly, it’s super fast. The company said that the only bottleneck is how fast you can physically navigate with the mouse/trackpad. That’s quite an impressive claim if we do say so ourselves. Google says that all the user’s data is encrypted by default and the operating system itself is loaded onto read-only memory that can’t be tampered without breaking the machine open and tinkering inside. As far as keeping the OS up to date, Google says they’ll send out automatic updates every few weeks to not only keep it up to date, but to hopefully make it faster and faster. The OS can also run in offline mode and any changes that took place will be automatically synced when it’s reconnected to the internet. As far as printing, you won’t be able to physically connect a printer to a Chrome OS machine. Instead, Google wants you using their new Cloud Print service, where you can wirelessly print to your home printer from any location.

Another big surprise is that Google even teamed up with Verizon on the Chrome OS project to bring 100MB of data per month for two years at no cost to every purchaser of a Chrome OS netbook. After the two years are up, you can vouch for a $9.99 plan that will give you unlimited access for a single day contract-free.

Now the sad part. Chrome OS is no where near completion, but we should expect netbooks to ship out sometime in the middle of next year. Acer and Samsung have said that they’re already on board to produce some Intel-based Chrome OS netbook. However, there’s currently one Chrome OS netbook model floating around that will be given to developers and a select few beta testers. The netbook is known as Cr-48 and the maker of this device is currently unknown. However, we noticed that the Caps Lock key is left out, which could only mean that Google doesn’t want us to yell over the internet.

via [Engadget]

Well looky here! Google has confirmed that they’re holding an event next Tuesday that will be focused on Chrome, which most likely means we’ll get a lot more Chrome OS details (finally). As always, we’ll update you with those details when the time comes.

via [Engadget]

Samsung Australia’s own Phil Newton said that the company will be coming out with a Chrome OS-based netbook later this year. Supposed specs for the netbook will be very similar to Samsung’s N210 netbook, which means a 10.1-inch LED display, 3G, WiFi, 2GB of RAM, 64GB SSD and a 12-hour battery life. It wasn’t said what CPU the new device would be sporting, but the rumors nowadays are saying it’ll run Qualcomm’s newest 1.5GHz Snapdragon processor. It’s also not said where the netbook will be available, but common sense might say that it’ll release in Australia first and then come to the U.S. later on. Stay tuned for more details as they come.

via [Channel News]

Jim Wong, senior corporate vice president and president of IT product business group at Acer, has confirmed that the company will ship out netbooks with Chrome OS later this year in Q3. Wong also says that they plan to ship at least one million of these netbooks in 2010. That’s all the details that were given. No specs or anything.

On a side note though, Wong said that Acer will also be launching e-book readers in Asia and Europe and plan to have the Acer app store all ready to go by Q3.

via [DigiTimes]