Today Google announced their new Chrome OS, which is an operating system optimized for always-connected netbooks.  The OS focuses on users who already leverage web-based applications, and forgoes any native software for leveraging HTML5 and the Cloud.  While certainly an interesting concept, the OS seems more geared towards casual users who already use Google apps and don’t need to perform serious tasks offline (although Google Gears could help with this).  The OS boasts syncing with the cloud and robust security, and also boots incredibly quickly.

I spent the time to build the Chromium OS, which is the developer build.  While it was a time-consuming process, it was fairly straightforward, and instructions can be found here.  This initial build doesn’t give you much to play with, but considering that the OS isn’t planned for launch until a year from now, they have plenty of time to build this promising project into something more exciting.  Once you play around, you immediately see that Google really is cutting out the application layer to connect the browser to the kernel, and anyone who has played with Chrome will feel right at home.  Additionally, the fact that the entire OS leverages web standards, it will be interesting to see how this could help evolve various open standards initiatives.

For some  videos that explain the OS, check out the official YouTube page for the project here.