Google Chrome OS press event, 11/19

    Now Matt Papakipos, who heads the Chrome OS engineering team, comes up. (The Google folks in the corner clap wildly, which is a little weird. All of the journalists are typing.)

    Speed is a big focus, he says. He repeats that they want it to feel more like a TV than a computer. All of the hardware for Chrome OS will be based on flash, not hard drives. "That makes a huge difference" for speed, he says. He's contrasting today's operating systems with Chrome OS. When they boos, today's OSes start with firmware, then a standard kernel, services, start-up apps, then a browser. Chrome will only have three steps.

    He's talking about security, and Security-Verified boot. They want to make sure every time you boot that you're running what you should be. (This sounds like an automatic virus scan.) It checks the cryptographic signature keys to make sure they're legit. If something goes wrong – if something's corrupted – it pulls the right stuff off the web and repairs itself, then reboots. "We repair the system automatically. Basically what this is doing is re-imaging your computer. … You don't lose anything in the process."

    How do they make sure apps don't harm your machine? Current OSes use a model where apps have the same privileges you do. Installing an app is a great risk because of that. In Chrome, all apps are web apps and the security model is different – the OS doesn't trust any app.

    Now he's talking more specifically about security, how everything is encrypted. If someone snatches your flash drive, it will be tough for them to crack it and steal your data. (But since everything on the laptop is synced back to the cloud, that's the weakest link here; all a thief has to do is steal your online login and they'll probably have access to not only your Google accounts, but everything on every Chrome OS PC you own.)

    Sundar is back talking about how they will go to market with this. There aren't a lot of details yet, but there are a few. They're going to be very specific about what kinds of hardware Chrome OS will run on. "As a consumer, you can't download Chrome OS and install it on any machine. You have to buy a Chrome OS machine." Interesting. Makes one wonder whether hobbyists will be able to build their own.

    It strikes me that what Google is talking about here isn't really a PC. It's a Google-controlled appliance that runs on a web browser. It's more like a Kindle than anything else.

    Google's now showing a 3-minute video that the marketing team came up with to explain what Chrome OS is. It's classic Google video. Cartoony, very easy to follow. It argues that the web browser is the center of the computing experience, where we spend 90% of our time. So Google made Chrome, and Chrome is fast. Since we all just want to get online, and today's computers take too long to get online, Google made Chrome OS that boots straight into the browser.