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Google is aiming to put the “net” in netbook with Chrome OS, a lightweight operating system that focuses on web apps and online storage.

Due for release in mid-2011, the first batch of Chrome OS netbooks come with Intel processors and Verizon data plans. They’ll download apps through a Google app store hosted on the web. Google detailed plans of Chrome OS in a press event Tuesday.

“We finally have a viable third choice for an operating system on the desktop, said Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO.

Chrome OS is Google’s vision of the future of computers: always-connected devices that ditch the traditional hard drive and instead rely on web-coded applications and “cloud” storage. It’s also yet another area where Google comes head-to-head with its biggest rival, Apple, who recently introduced a flash-based MacBook Air and a Mac App Store for downloading apps.

Here’s a quick summary of what you need to know about Chrome OS.

Hardware players

Google has partnered with Samsung and Acer, whose Chrome OS laptops will go on sale in mid-2011. More manufacturers will follow.

Notebook specifications

Though exact specifications for future devices are unknown, Google is handing out an unbranded pilot device running Chrome OS called the Cr-48.

The Cr-48 features a 12.1-inch screen, an Intel Atom processor, a flash memory drive, Wi-Fi, a “world-mode” 3G chip that works with international cellular networks and a built-in “jailbreaking” mode so you can hack it.

Pricing

Official price tags for Chrome OS netbooks have not been revealed, but Google’s Schmidt has claimed they will be priced between $300 to $400.

Data plans

The 3-G plan for Chrome OS netbooks is nothing like a cellphone’s. When you buy a Chrome OS netbook, Verizon will give you 100 MB of free 3-G data per month for two years. There are no overage fees.

If you regularly need more than 100MB, there are a few long-term plans starting at $10 per month for additional data.

And if you need more data only occasionally, you can buy a day pass to get unlimited 3-G access for one day. The price for the day pass has not yet been disclosed.

Keep in mind that if you’re mostly using a Chrome OS netbook at home, you can just connect to your Wi-Fi network for free.

Brian is a Wired.com technology reporter focusing on Apple and Microsoft. He’s also writing a book about the always-connected mobile future called Always On (publishing April 2011 by Da Capo).
Follow @bxchen and @gadgetlab on Twitter.

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I have been looking for something like the BulletTrain Express Keyboard Platform for years. It is little more than a mock lower laptop-case into which you slot your Apple bluetooth keyboard and Magic Trackpad. Thus appointed, you now have yourself a rather comfortable, notebook-like setup.

I find a notebook layout way more comfortable than the standard desktop layout. The trackpad is always ready to hand below the keyboard, so you aren’t forever reaching off to the right or left to mouse around. I actually tried to use my Magic Trackpad below my keyboard in this manner but it just gets in the way of the spacebar.

The Express has a hole for the trackpad and a cutout for the battery-holding cylinder at the back of Apple’s keyboard. In this picture you can see how much it resembles the top of a MacBook Pro, only with a way bigger trackpad:

It does add some thickness to the keyboard, but no more than a laptop does already. Hell, you could even lean back and use this in your lap.

The only thing putting me off is the price: It costs $100, enough to buy a second Magic Trackpad and let me double-fist my mousing setup to bet RSI. Well, there’s one more thing: Unlike the MacBooks, there is no option on the desktop to ignore the trackpad while you type. That could get old, fast.

BulletTrain Express Keyboard Platform [BulletTrain]

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Going to the airport will be slightly less miserable for MacBook Air owners: Apple’s new ultra-thin notebook need not be removed from a bag at security checkpoints.

The Transportation Security Administration told CNN that the 11-inch Air, like the iPad, can stay inside bags when passing through the checkpoint. However, the TSA hasn’t yet determined whether the 13-inch Air can stay inside a bag or must be removed.

The 11-incher gains special clearance because it’s “smaller than a standard-sized laptop,” says TSA. (Netbooks and e-book readers fall under this category as well, according to a TSA blog post on smaller gadgets.)

The 13-inch Air, however, is the same size as most notebooks, so it can’t fly through the checkpoint just yet.Still, it’s puzzling why the 13-incher would get treated differently, considering it’s got the same insides: built-in flash memory, a battery and a fan no optical drive to cram anything shady inside.

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

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Apple had a great year relative to the rest of the PC industry, with desktop and laptop sales growing by 24.1% when most of its competitors shrank or stayed flat. The growth in sales and share is even more impressive when you factor in the launch of the iPad. In fact, if you count PCs plus iPads, Apple could now be said to have the highest share of the computer market in the United States.

“The iPad,” writes Deutsche Bank’s Chris Whitmore, “is driving a rapid, unprecedented shift in the structure of the computing industry.” In a note for clients issued Monday, Whitmore took PC share data from the International Data Corporation’s Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker and added in figures for iPad sales. The result is the chart above.

Part of what’s happening here is a struggle to define “personal computer” in a world of convergent and crossover devices. IDC’s data for PCs includes desktops, laptops and mini notebooks and doesn’t include “handhelds” or servers. The iPad and other tablets count as handhelds, along with smartphones, e-readers and media players. Even though tablets and ultraportable laptops fall in the same price range, perform many (although not all) of the same tasks and compete with each other for buyers’ attention and dollars, they’re not grouped in the same category.

It’s not clear what the numbers would look like if you factored in all tablet computers, not just Apple’s. And there may be good reasons, from different form factors to different operating systems, to keep PC and tablet sales separate. In fact, by keeping the numbers separate, you can see just how well Apple’s PC business has done, even in the wake of the iPad.

But three things are clear: first, that the market for tablet computers is enormous; second, that Apple has essentially recreated and owns it; and third, that if the iPad is cannibalizing sales of PCs, it’s not doing it to Apple’s.

All of this makes this week’s Apple event — and the possible presentation of a new device somewhere between a laptop and an iPad — just that much more interesting.

What if the iPad were a PC? [Fortune Tech]

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MSI Wind U160; image via MSI.

Three years ago, Bill Gates looked like a dummy for carrying around a tablet. Steve Jobs was ragging on netbooks and tablets when he was rolling out the MacBook Air. Now, eight months post-iPad, everybody’s pushing out tablets, and netbooks are looking very 2007. But any death notices anyone puts out for the netbook are premature.

Let’s check the numbers. One of the big research reports thrown around is from Forrester Research, which predicts that tablets will outsell netbooks by 2012, pass netbooks in total usage by 2014, and have a 23% share of all PCs (a category that for Forrester includes everything from a tablet on up) by 2015. By 2015, Forrester predicts, netbooks will only have 17 percent of the PC market, just behind desktops with 18 percent.

Wait a minute — 17 percent of all computers in 2015 will be netbooks? About as many netbooks as desktops? And the whole personal computing pie is going to continue to grow? Maybe this is silly, but — isn’t that still really, really good?

The tablet has mindshare, but not yet market share. Netbooks are already starting to strap on the powerful new dual-core mobile processors that will give them full computing parity with notebooks. And the two innovations of netbooks, small screens and small hard drives, have already come uncoupled — you have lightweight, large-screen/low-storage devices like the MacBook Air or Samsung N150 and compact, high-powered netbooks like the 250GB MSI Wind U160. They’re all getting better at managing battery life, too, which remains the real bane of all portable computers, netbook and tablet alike.

Part of the problem has been the unrealistic expectations manufactuers and analysts had for netbooks three years ago. It was foolish to think that everybody and their cousin would buy a netbook and that other lightweight form factors like the tablet (which, people forget, had already been kicking around for a while) wasn’t going to jump up and take a chunk. If you look at projected numbers five years out and assume that all of the form factors are going to look and function the same way they do now, that’s foolish too.

At CNET, Erica Ogg asks “So, Who’s Still Buying Netbooks?” Tech/culture blogger JoAnne McNeil had already written a terrific post answering the question, “Why I Got a Netbook Instead of an iPad.” JoAnne bought a $300 off-the-shelf Asus, took it to Asia for the summer, and loved it.

First, there’s a cost difference: “the price difference wasnt simply $200. The iPad required accessories the case, the bluetooth keyboard, the SD adapter the total price would hoover just under what I spent the year before on my new laptop.” Finally, there’s that keyboard, which some people hate and others need:

As a non-dude with narrow fingers, the keyboard feels right to me [Maybe the Macbook's wide keyboard, like the name iPad and their translucent staircases (Skirts! Steve Jobs! Women wear skirts!) is another example of Apple's failed outreach to women in market research.]

The computer industry — and maybe even more so, the marketers who work for it and the media who cover it — is always looking for products that scale: something that can be put as-is into everyone’s hands. Netbooks don’t have to be that thing any more. They can be quirky, eccentric — just right for one user and for her alone.

Source:wired.com

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Laboratory 424’s Mini Riser laptop stand is so simple you could make one yourself in minutes. At $8 for two, it is also so cheap that you don’t have to.

Laptops run hot, and you are almost obliged to get a little space between base and desk if you want to stop those fans kicking in as soon as you go near YouTube. Laboratory 424’s boffins realized that most stands aren’t as portable as the notebooks they are supposed to accompany, so they made one so minimal that it can slip unnoticed into a laptop bag yet be strong enough to support up to 16-kilos (35-pounds) of hot metal and glass.

The Mini Riser is little more than a sturdy, bendable wire with a rubberized vinyl coating. The amorphous “m” shape is reminiscent of a million badly-designed corporate logos, and comes in almost as many colors (ten). Once out on the desk, it just slides under the back of you notebook, propping it up and giving both a better viewing angle and keeping the air flowing.

But what I love the most about the Mini Riser is the gallery on the website. Why use boring old modern laptops in your photo-shoot when you can use old toilet-seat iBooks and even more ancient hardware instead? There’s even an OS X joke in the captions.

Mini Riser [Laboratory 424. Thanks, Jeff!]

Source:wired.com

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The Tato is a $1,500 commuter with one added gimmick. Instead of schlepping a load on your back, on a rack or in a basket, you slide it into a slot in the frame itself. As you can see in the photo, the briefcase (or laptop-bag) sized cage is integrated, putting your luggage safely between your legs.

It’s a nice idea, although whether it is worth adding the weight of the extra tubing is debatable. I have seen a similar thing done with mixte bikes, those step-through frames which have two top-tubes running from the head-tube down to the wheels. The gap between these two tubes is perfect for holding a D-lock.

The Tato comes with a rigid or suspension fork, hydraulic disk-brakes front and back and a trouser-dirtying exposed chain running through derailer* gears. All the components are Shimano Deore. The bike, should you decide you want one, will come from Lichtenstein, so you may be looking at a rather hefty shipping charge depending on where you live.

I have mixed feelings about this novelty frame. It is certainly very good at its single task: carrying a briefcase to work whilst keeping the bike unencumbered by carrying devices. But if you’re not carrying a package that is 400 x 320 x 95 mm (16 x 13 x 4-inches) or smaller, it is pretty impractical. Available now.

Tato CSSB [Tato via Oh Gizmo!]

*Thanks, Sheldon!

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If you are willing to take a screwdriver to your computer, Pixel Qi’s low-power displays that can switch between color LCD and black-and-white screens could be in your netbook.

The 10.1-inch displays available through makershed.com look like standard LCD screens inside the room. But take them outside and they turn into low-power e-paper like display.

Pixel Qi first showed the screens in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The display called 3Qi operates in three modes: a full-color LCD transmissive mode; a low-power, sunlight-readable, reflective e-paper mode; and a transflective mode that makes the LCD display visible in sunlight.

Pixel Qi has started selling the displays directly to consumers though the company is also working with with PC manufacturers.

For now, Pixel Qi says it can guarantee the compatibility of the displays, which cost $275 each, with only two models of netbooks–the Samsung N130 and Lenovo S10. But the screen works in most other models, says the company.

Swapping out existing netbooks screens for those from Pixel Qi is a simple DIY tweak, says Pixel Qi founder Mary Lou Jepsen.

“Changing the screen of your netbook is easy, the process takes about 5-10 minutes using a small screwdriver. Its simple,” she wrote on her blog.

Users have to remove the front plastic bezel of the existing display in their netbook, unlatch the screen, plug Pixel Qi’s display in its place and snap on the screws.

But if you like to see what the process really is like, check out this video from Make magazine. The 10-minute long video shows how to remove the display off an Acer Aspire One netbook.

Seems like this will be a breeze to do at home and the results should be worth it. Pixel Qi screens consume 80 percent less power in the reflective e-paper-like mode, says Jepsen.

Photo: Pixel Qi screen/Priya Ganapati

[via Ubergizmo via Liliputing]

Source:wired.com

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