Live from Google's Chrome OS project announcement

We're sitting in a very small, very colorful meeting room where Google's just minutes of away from giving us a glimpse at Chrome OS and announcing some launch details. Stay tuned!

Update: It's over! Thanks for hanging out with us, and be sure to check out Google's videos in our summary post.

11:21AM "With that, thank you all for coming." And it's over!

11:20AM Sergey, "I think we definitely need support for real-time notifications in the browser, and in particular Chrome OS...I don't think that's a good reason not to have chat via web app, it's just a capabilities missing from browser. Hopefully we can integrate into the browser as well as Chrome OS."

11:18AM Anything that identifies as a storage device will work. "We're taking an innovative approach to printing, we'll discuss next year." Yes, Chrome OS will print.

11:17AM Complementary Linux-based instant-on OSes are getting popular. Any thoughts on dual-booting in the same system? Not right now, says Mark.

11:15AM Sergey Brin has stopped by. No rollerskates this time, but whatever he's got on it's feet, it's something else.

11:11AM Question: "What is it that Chrome OS does that a regular alternate browser that logs into these servers can't also do?" Sundar: "Most of what you saw today you can also do today." Panels, for example, are something that you can't do. "We're offering a fundamentally different computing. You're not managing software, data, it's very fast and secure."

11:08AM Support for non-Intel chips? "Chrome OS will work on both x86 and ARM." They're working on an ARM solution now. More on that "soon."

11:07AM "Our current plan is to only support web apps, so third-party apps will work if they're online."

11:05AM Another clarification: it can be compiled and run via virtualization as of today.

11:03AM "There are a few things we are thinking about [for offline use]...I showed experiences by which you can plug in and play media." Any applications which take advantage of HTML5 offline capability will work while you not created.

11:02AM The current focus for 2010 is netbooks, but desktops and larger laptops in the future are not ruled out.

11:01AM "We build and ship and autoupdate Chrome and millions of users use it. There's also Chromium open source, and Chrome OS is the same way." Customizations of OS expected, but we're guessing it probably won't autosync with the Great Google Cloud™ at startup.

10:59AM Silverlight? A few uncomfortable chuckles from the back. More announcements about plugins to come at a later date, but we're not reading too far into that.

10:58AM "Every Chrome users will be able to see the applications menu."

10:57AM Everything that works in Chrome works in Chrome OS, and that includes codecs. Very committed to flash. Working to hardware accelerate wherever possible.

10:56AM "There will be some things this won't be able to do. If you're a lawyer, editing contracts back and forth, this will not be the right machine for you."

10:56AM "There are apps today which are not available on the web. The short answer is, first of all, we really focused, as the use case for this device. Most people who buy this device next year, we expect them to have another device at home. We expect this to be a companion device. The goal of this device is for a delightful experience for you to be on the web."

10:54AM Application store? "The web has really great applications. In the web, there are hundreds of millions of apps. Our job is to make sure people can discover those."

10:53AM "We're reaching out pretty aggressively and trying to work with people. So for most partners, it's been going both ways between the companies." For developers, there'll be a page that'll say which devices support Chrome OS.

10:52AM The netbook that was on the bootup demo was an off-the-shelf Eee PC, in case you were interested (we were).

10:51AM Prices will come from partners. "We're expected to have prices with what consumers are used to." No price target they're asking users to hit.

10:50AM Sundar: "There are many different possibilities. But the good point, what you're doing with Android, there are large innovations going up, all open source, all involve community. When you have open platforms like that, there's a paradigm shift in computing." Time will tell, is the big point to make here.

10:50AM "So many questions I have." The crowd chuckles. Developers are making Android apps, can they be run on Chrome OS? Also, with Android devices having 1GHz processor devices... could there be a Chrome server solution?

10:49AM Q&A time.

10:48AM Chrome OS lets you stop worrying about the computer so you can get on with browsing.

10:47AM "What if your browser was your OS?" You don't have to deal with software configurations, "blue screens of dooms," nagging updates.

10:46AM "My biggest question is, how long until I can get on the internet?" 45 seconds for a current OS to make. "With that time, you can make a sandwich!" That's one quick sandwich.

10:45AM Video time. Some in-your-face narrator going over the timeline of OS', with a very heavy browser emphasis.

10:45AM Video time. What is Google Chrome OS?

10:44AM You can use a current netbook, "need a screwdriver," you can get Chrome OS up today.

10:43AM "The primary reason we are here today, I'm very excited to announce that as of today the code is open. We will completely be developing the code in the open."

10:42AM We are working with the top OEMs to come to market. "You will have to go and buy a Chrome OS machine in the market. Our target time frame is end of next year." Ahead of holiday season with devices in the market.

10:42AM "It is important to understand how we're gonna go to market." Going with partners to specify at hardware level. Only support solid state drives, only certain WiFi cards.

10:41AM Back to Sundar. "What we are doing is not just an operating system, it's a choice for the users."

10:40AM Local user data cache is only used as cache, as it's saved back into the cloud anyway. Remember, nothing stays just local here.

10:40AM "User partition, this is where the user settings are placed. We've done a couple of interesting things. First off it's always encrypted." Should you ever lose the machine, anyone who finds it "will have a very hard time getting to it."

10:38AM Boot-partition is read-only.

10:37AM Security sandbox, all web apps are separated from each other and the OS.

10:37AM Chrome OS is nothing but web application. "It can't change files on your hard disk."

10:36AM Application security model. In current model, applications run with your permission. "This creates a bunch of security problems. A rogue application can cause lots of harm."

10:35AM "Appropriate version" is automatically downloaded. Offline customization doesn't sound so likely at this point.

10:34AM "So what happens when it goes wrong? If this happens, it could be multiple reasons -- malware, Chrome got hacked. It could be a random cosmic gray area, random error. When it happens, we detect it happens, Chrome detects it, and then we go through recovery procedure where it repairs itself."

10:34AM "We're using cryptographic signature keys to make sure when we load kernel off disk, it is the set of bytes it's supposed to be."

10:33AM "We're looking on a system called verified boot." Discussing malware. "The essence of the process is we double check to make sure you're running what you're running."

10:32AM "We've cut out all the boot steps we can" with Chrome OS. "As Sendar mentioned, we don't run conventional applicatins, so we don't need to start up background services for them. And we also autostart the browser." All tabs from last session come, too.

10:31AM All based on solid storage. "That's part of why we can boot so quickly."

10:31AM Looks like demo's over, back to the slide show we go!

10:30AM "As Sundar mentioned, all the code is now out in the open you can build it." All the design documents are now also open.

10:30AM Switches over to Matt Papakipos, leader of Engineering team.

10:29AM Camera plugged in, a panel appears revealing content. A video, too, slides right adjacent.

10:28AM "For the record I'm an avid Google Spreadsheets user." Of course.

10:27AM "Most people plug in cameras, most USB drives. What happens when you plug in a USB drive?" A new tab opens, showing the file contents. "It turns out Microsoft launched a killer app for Chrome OS." Anybody who puts up a URL, writes up an application that works on the web writes an app for Chrome OS.

10:26AM We're now looking at multiple tabs open. Nothing special from what you have in Chrome OS already. We're now in multi-view mode, where we can see them all working at once. YouTube still playing.

10:25AM Google Books will also be supported, unsurprisingly.

10:24AM We're now getting a good look at the apps menu. We spy YouTube, PicasaWeb...Hulu!

10:23AM Shows off Google music integration into panels. U2 - Beautiful Day.

10:23AM Notepad also opens up as a panel. "All data in Chrome OS goes into the crowd." Notes pop up Google docs.

10:22AM Opens up Google Talk, persistent windows, or "panels" stay. Minimize puts them in a bottom bar.

10:21AM App menu!

10:21AM Application tabs on the top five don't move at all. Even closed, they'll stay in place.

10:20AM The top tabs are application tabs. Gmail, Facebook, Yahoo, whatever. "We're working very hard to get it to your tabs very quickly."

10:20AM It won't necessarily look like what it does today, but "very many" aspects will probably move over.

10:19AM "Internally we joke around Chrome is Chrome OS." Externally, too.

10:19AM About a seven second login. We're now looking at Chrome OS UI. It looks... like Chrome.

10:18AM Demo time!

10:18AM "The final point is security. Given what I've talked about, everything is a web application, we can finally do something that's fundamentally different." Because users aren't installing their own binary, Google will be able to detect malware better.

10:17AM "If I lose my Chrome OS machine, I should be able to get a new one, log in, and get everything back...everything should look similar. We want users to be able to share machines."

10:16AM We want Chrome OS to be fast. He makes an allusion to TV as to how fast it should turn on. "Chrome on Chrome OS will be even faster." Every application will be a web application.

10:13AM Talking about netbook growth bucking the trends of the economy, and now cloud services. "By now, I'm 100 percent, everything I do is in a browser for me."

10:11AM Real-time communication "Web applications need a way to communication to your webcam, microphone."

10:10AM "Today conventional desktop applications have a lot of access to offline capabilities and system resources." Web apps aren't privy to such power. "We're all used to running rich games on our personal computers. We want to make it possible to have same games within the browser."

10:10AM Chrome extensions are also on the way. "More announcements" on that later this year.

10:09AM "Just this year alone in Chrome, there's tons of new stuff coming. Before this year gets over, we'll have 3 more announcements to make. Chrome for Mac will be ready, very close to launch." Chrome for Linux is coming, too.

10:07AM "It's been just over a year since launch of Chrome." Now up to 40 million users.

10:06AM Sundar Pichai, VP of Product Management. "As of today, the code will be fully open...whatever we do will now be open."

10:05AM "We're here today to talk about Google Chrome OS." No beta today, no devices today, a year away from announcement. Bummer!

10:05AM Music's out, we're on!

10:00AM - "Good morning, some of our attendees are unfortunately delayed in traffic." Works for us, more time to listen to Google's tunes. Modest Mouse, good choice!

Special thanks to Nathaniel Miller for photography!