Wednesday at Google I/O, Google announced their new Chromebook line of computers, based on the prototype CR-48 development notebook and running Chrome OS. There will be models available from Samsung and Acer and they will be available on June 15th worldwide.
Chromebooks have all day battery life, are available for use in less than 8 seconds and on the web almost instantly as well. The over 1 million apps available are automatically updated, every piece of data is encrypted and all of it is protected by the Chrome Sandbox.
The Chromebook program began last year with the CR-48 development model, which has a dual-core processor, courtesy of Intel. Google’s product manager of Chrome OS, Kan Lui, demonstrated multiple applications running on the Chromebook. Among these were Google’s new movie rental services and Netflix, all of which work ‘out of the box’.
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Lui also demonstrated the way that Chromebooks handle photographs that were uploaded to the cloud. He plugged in an SD card, then uploaded the pictures on it immediately to the cloud using the Picasa web app from the Chrome web store. This was handled with contextual buttons right in the file browser of the Chrome OS interface.
The same kind of behavior is also true for other documents, such as those available for use with Google Docs. Any web application or service can leverage those same API’s for integration within Chrome OS. Box.net, for instance, only took one weekend to integrate the Google Chrome API’s with their system, allowing users to open items on their Chromebook and have it instantly available online.
Sundar Pichai, Google’s Senior VP of Chrome then talked about the way that the Chrome OS handles Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs applications offline. These will be available for offline use this summer. This is the technology that Angry Birds uses to work offline as well.
Samsung and Acer will be providing the hardware for Chromebooks alongside Intel. Here is the link to Google’s Chromebook homepage.
The first Chromebook is from Samsung at $429 with WiFi, and built-in 3G for $499 and the second is available from Acer for $349. They will be available in 7 countries worldwide from June 15th.
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12.1″ (1280×800) 300 nit Display
3.26 lbs / 1.48 kg
8.5 hours of continuous usage 1
Intel® AtomTM Dual-Core Processor
Built in dual-band Wi-Fi and World-mode 3G (optional)
HD Webcam with noise cancelling microphone
2 USB 2.0 ports
4-in-1 memory card slot
Mini-VGA port
Fullsize Chrome keyboard
Oversize fully-clickable trackpad
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11.6″ HD Widescreen CineCrystalTM LED-backlit LCD
2.95 lbs. | 1.34 kg.
6 hours of continuous usage 1
Intel® AtomTM Dual-Core Processor
Built in dual-band Wi-Fi and World-mode 3G (optional)
HD Webcam with noise cancelling microphone
High-Definition Audio Support
2 USB 2.0 ports
4-in-1 memory card slot
HDMI port
Fullsize Chrome keyboard
Oversize fully-clickable trackpad
The Chromebook models will also be available on a subscription basis, $20 a month for students and $28 a month for businesses.
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