When we first heard about Google considering about brining Chrome OS to the tablets, we thought that it was all nonsense. Now, conceptual designs are being made about how a Chromium-driven tablet will look.

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Apple unveiled their glorious iPad yesterday and it enjoyed a lot of heat from the tech-bloggers as it is nothing more than a big iPod Touch. It even inherits the missing features of iPhone OS too. To name one – inability to run flash content inside the browser. With such a huge con on its side, how can Apple even think of describing it as a netbook-killer? HEre is the quote from adobe flash blog:

It looks like Apple is continuing to impose restrictions on their devices that limit both content publishers and consumers. Unlike many other ebook readers using the ePub file format, consumers will not be able to access ePub content with Apple’s DRM technology on devices made by other manufacturers. And without Flash support, iPad users will not be able to access the full range of web content, including over 70% of games and 75% of video on the web.

If I want to use the iPad to connect to Disney, Hulu, Miniclip, Farmville, ESPN, Kongregate, or JibJab — not to mention the millions of other sites on the web — I’ll be out of luck.

Flash version for the Chromium is in the works as Google does not impose restrictions like Apple does.

source: adobe flash blog (via gadget mix)

MSI Dual screen netbook has two screens, both touchsensitive and will launched sometime later this year. The soft keyboard that is bundled with the netbook has support for haptic feedback, which will give the user, more or less similar feel to that of a hardware keyboard.

In the given picture, it is seen running Windows 7, which means that this netbook is more likely to dual boot with Chrome OS. MSI says that it will sport a battery life of 4-5 hours on a single charge.

Most of the tech blogs are describing the Chromium as a mere Cloud OS and we admit that they were right. Until now. Google is aware of the fact that Apple iSlate will create a huge splash in the tablet world. So, Google has announced that it will be bundling media player with the Chrome OS.

“For example, you might just have a USB key that has a bunch of MP3s on it, so you want to be able to plug that in and listen to those MP3s. There might not be any controlling Web page for that activity, but it’s clearly something you need to be able to do in any reasonable operating system or browser. So we’re doing a lot of work to make Chrome and Chrome OS handle those use cases really well." mentioned Papakipos.

source: solsie

Acer will be launching its Chromium netbook later this year. However, since Chromium OS is still a new player in the game, Acer will be bundling it with their Windows 7 Starter netbooks. Also, Acer Chrome OS netbooks will account for just 10% of total netbook sales.

Acer is prepping a dedicated App Store for its Chromium netbooks that will feature Chrome OS extensions and other online apps.

source: bloomberg and gadget mix

Popular Chromium genius, Hexxeh has unveiled a new faster build of Chrome OS that he is calling as the Chromium OS Zero that brings plethora of enhancements and speed improvements over the previous official builds by Google. Other features include full extension support and better Wi-Fi (reduced Broadcom delay).

Upcoming build of Chromium OS by this famous hacker will include 3G modem support, multi-language support and a new login UI. Support for Flash is also in the tunnel.

The download size of the new build is under 250MB and can be stored on a small 1GB flash drive.

Latest build can be downloaded from here

Earlier, we reported that HTC was working on a tablet running Chromium OS. It was destined to be unveiled at CES 2010, which unfortunately did not happen.

For some reason, the plans regarding the HTC Chrome Tablet are now history as HTC has decided to concentrate on Android phones instead. It is definitely sad to see such a huge manufacture stepping away from a device that could have given the upcoming Apple iSlate some tough competition. 

source: gizmodo

HP Mini 2101 is the HP’s latest pine trail netbook powered by Intel Atom N450 processor that runs at 1.66GHz clock speed. Featuring a nice 10.1-inch display, it sports a distinctive chiclet keyboard that allows you to type with ease. The Mini 2101 comes equipped with a gig of RAM and can be configured with upto 320GB of hard disk drive.

Priced at $399, it runs the latest Windows 7 Starter operating system.

source: testfreaks

It is not a new news that Chromium OS will be available on both x86 as-well-as ARM platform. Although we have seen it working fine on the x86-platform here and here, but we were yet to see an ARM processor running it.

Charbax from ARMdevices.net has posted a video which shows an ARM netbook equipped with Armada 510 processor running an early built of Chrome OS compiled for ARM platform. In the video one can see that it is running fine on it, but Flash is not yet supported. Also, folks at ARM are working to provide support for bringing hardware acceleration to the Chrome OS platform

The Armada 510 is a fairly powerful processor that supports 1080p video playback. It currently fully supports Windows Mobile, Android and Ubuntu. Here is another video of a (concept) tablet that is running Android OS and supports 1080p HD video playback

source

Qualcomm will be launching two new processors meant to be used in smartbooks and high-end smartphones -  8X50A and 8X72.

Not many details are available regarding it. All that is know as of now is that the 8X50A is a single core Snapdragon processor and 8X72 is a dual-core Snapdragon processor

source: gadget mix