Live blog today: Google Chrome OS press conference
November 19, 2009 9:57 AM PST
by Rafe Needleman

Google is hosting a press event at 10 a.m. PST at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters to update the world on its plans for world domination via the release of its second operating system (after Android), the Google Chrome OS (FAQ). Google VP Sundar Pichai and Engineering Director Matthew Papakipos will reveal technical details and launch plans, and will have demos. Google will be streaming the announcement.
I’ll be in the audience when the event kicks off and will be live-blogging my thoughts on the talk as it happens. Josh Lowensohn will be handling reader feedback during the live blog, so if you want to share your observations on what’s happening or have questions, please contribute in the live blog window below once the event goes live. Stephen Shankland will also be at the site to grab photos, and Tom Krazit will have the full news rundown and analysis after the event closes.

Rafe Needleman writes about start-ups, new technologies, and Web 2.0 products, as editor of CNET’s Webware. E-mail Rafe.
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9:56 : Rafe: Arrived Google press conference. Music sucks. Waiting for event to start.
10:01 : Rafe: Hi all. I’m going to be reporting my impressions of this event live, but not doing a blow-by-blow transcript.For the video, go here: http://investor.shareholder.com/googpr/eventdetail.cfm?eventid=75092
10:04 : Rafe: Google Chrome OS is an open-source project at Google to produce a whole new operating system. It will initially be targeted and the netbook class or products, we’ve been told.
10:05 : Rafe: Sundar Pichai: "Contrary to blogs, we are not launched the product today, there is no beta today."
10:06 : Rafe: But we will get demos. And Sundar saying, "as of today, the code is fully open. Google devs working on the same tree as open source developers."
10:07 : Stephen Shankland: 40 million Chrome users now–primary users, says Google’s Sundar Pichai
10:07 : Rafe: Chrome (browser) update: Growth strong, over 40M users. Should be more, if you ask me. It’s fast and easy to use. Want the Mac version to be opened up though. I use it on my Macbook and it’s pretty good so far
10:08 : Rafe: Sundar: "We focus on end-to-end speed of the browser." "We’ve updated Chrome over 20 times of the past years, and most users haven’t noticed." I noticed — some of the updates made it less stable, then it magically got better
10:09 : Rafe: Chrome for Mac – "very very close to launch". Chrome for Linux "coming along very well". "NEaring the launch for extensions." Extensions based on HTML and javascrirpt, much easier to write, Sundar says.
10:11 : Rafe: Sundar pitching HTML 5 very hard. Says it’s the way to get browsers and new OSes access to system resources. Will make games possible on Web. Also, HTML 5 can access multi cores in PCs. Also full voice and video built in — access to speaker, mic, camera. And, HTML 5 will have a database API so Web apps will have access to data on a machine
10:12 : Rafe: "In 2010 we exepect to have all these APIs and more built into Chrome"
10:13 : Rafe: Sundar says there are 3 trends that "we are very excited about." 1. Netbooks – "unheard of growth in this economy" (Not really – they’re CHEAP computers. They’re peffect for a down economy)
10:13 : Rafe: 2. Cloud computing all the cool stuff is in the cloud now. "Everything you want today, in the future it will be a Web app"
10:14 : Rafe: 3. Innovation in device level. Phonese getting smarter, "there are rumors of tablets," etc. And Laptops getting smaller -> netbooks. They’re becoming more like phones
10:14 :
Stephen Shankland: Sundar says "Hundreds of millions of users are living on the cloud." Fair point. But even for those who spend more time in a browser than asleep, there are lots of people who don’t live 100 percent in the cloud.
10:15 : Rafe: "We believe there is a better model of computing, and that’s what Google Chrome OS is." Focus is on three things: Speed/Simplicity/Security
10:16 : Rafe: Sundar: Chrome on Chrome OS should be "even faster than Chrome"
10:16 : Stephen Shankland: Sundar: "We want Chrome OS to be blazingly fast." Like a TV, he says. Also, Chrome on Chrome OS will be faster than regular Chrome.
10:16 : Stephen Shankland: A twitter comment from Microsoft’s John Montgomery, who’s working on speeding up JavaScript in IE 9: "Dunno about you, but my TV takes 30 seconds to boot."
10:16 : Rafe: Sundar: Every app on Chrome OS is a Web app. No installing. My big worry on this is the occasionally-disconnected user. Google is going to need to get reliable net connections to everyone.
10:18 : Rafe: You know what Chrome OS is? A return to the mainframe/timeshare concept. All your data is in the cloud. The security is in the cloud. Any computer is just a terminal to the cloud. But with much smarter terminals
10:18 : Stephen Shankland: 14 seconds to login screen by my count, but sundar says 7 seconds
10:18 : Rafe: Booting – in seconds – 7 seconds to boot, 3 sec to login
10:19 : Stephen Shankland: I didn’t press the boot button, though.
10:20 : Rafe: Slides we’ve been seeing so far is running in Chrome OS. "Chrome is Chrome OS". This is key – Google is trying to break down the barrier between browser and OS. From the user’s perspective, that does make sense. Will be interesting to hear Microsoft’s response to this
10:21 : Rafe: Apps are now in tabs. I kind of like that. Browser pages, apps, all the same deal.
10:21 : Stephen Shankland: Small tabs on the left: application tabs. Skinny tabs that always stay in place. I worry we’ll run out of tab real estate pretty fast, especially on teensy Netbook screen
10:22 : Rafe: You get an app menu, and some apps pop up. They call them "moles" internally since they pop up, but they’ll be called "panels" when the product ships
10:22 : Rafe: Brian: No lie, man.
10:22 : Stephen Shankland: "Moles"–those panels in the lower left–they pop up like in whack-a-mole. The term came from the Gmail team. Now Google is calling them panels officially. IM, notepad, various other uses.
10:23 : Rafe: Demo of Notepad panel: It’s a popup "mole" but the text you enter also goes into Google Docs instantly. Pretty cool, actually.
10:23 : Rafe: Demo of music player: It’s a panel. LArry Magid sitting next to me: "This is new?"
10:25 : Stephen Shankland: No surprise: Flash support.
10:25 : Rafe: Demo: Chess game. Easy to make an app full-screen, aother thing you can do: "Read books"
10:26 : Rafe: Ok, so what about multiple windows? Demo on that… Finally seeing the window manager, you can manage windows in zoom-out mode, but I don’t see a way to work in windows that are not full-screen (except for panels). hat if you want to work on two apps side-by-side? Not sure about that yet.
10:27 : Rafe: Demo of file manager now, after plugging in a camera. Nice multi-pane viewer, like OS X. Another demo: Windows Live Excel running in Chrome. Hah!
10:28 : Stephen Shankland: Reading from a USB file, clicking an Excel file. "Chrome OS is a completely open app framework. It’s the Web." I disagree: Google Spreadsheets is hardly an open app.
10:29 : Stephen Shankland: So far I see issues with screen real estate. Juggling between lots and lots of tabs. I like the task bar or dock to keep track of what’s going on, and it’s hard to see all the open tabs in Chrome OS.
10:29 : Rafe: Demo, clicking on a PDF file on IRS.gov. Instantly loads up the viewer in the browser. Nice. But… cached?
10:30 : Rafe: Next up: Matt Papakipos, Engineering Director. Interesting question. You don’t have to, but Chrome OS will have access to local storage, so an app *could*
— be continued.
Part_2 : http://agilecat.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/google-chrome-os-press-conference-part_2/