If I understood correctly, it's based on the Linux kernel with a new windowing system.
It'll be designed for speed, security and mostly for use with the internet.
I don't know why I had a feeling that Google was going to do that.

From Google's Blog:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/int...-chrome-os.html

Introducing Google Chrome OS:
7/07/2009 09:37:00 PM
It's been an exciting nine months since we launched the Google Chrome browser. Already, over 30 million people use it regularly. We designed Google Chrome for people who live on the web — searching for information, checking email, catching up on the news, shopping or just staying in touch with friends. However, the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web. So today, we're announcing a new project that's a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It's our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we're already talking to partners about the project, and we'll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems. While there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google.

We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better. People want to get to their email instantly, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot and browsers to start up. They want their computers to always run as fast as when they first bought them. They want their data to be accessible to them wherever they are and not have to worry about losing their computer or forgetting to back up files. Even more importantly, they don't want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates. And any time our users have a better computing experience, Google benefits as well by having happier users who are more likely to spend time on the Internet.

We have a lot of work to do, and we're definitely going to need a lot of help from the open source community to accomplish this vision. We're excited for what's to come and we hope you are too. Stay tuned for more updates in the fall and have a great summer.

Posted by Sundar Pichai, VP Product Management and Linus Upson, Engineering Director

I read about it in other sites and this is mainly for netbooks which target windows OS primarily and basically for people who want to use it to surf the web and light office work. Nothing really amazing about it.

Linux is already really secure, not perfect, but jeez they're taking too much credit for this "crazy" new idea...

Well, this will be interesting. It is kind of dumb not to make C++ an option but we will see. I will have to learn web languages if I want to make an app though... seems lame..

There haven't been any vastly exciting innovative leaps in OS architecture for a while, beyond stability and speed, and perhaps this isn't one of them but... it will surely shake things up a bit and that can only be welcome. Very happy about this news.

uhm...read yesterday about it, doesn't seem too interesting to me because on one hand 'real apps' won't run on the system and on the other hand I have some privacy concerns about cloud computing(don't call me paranoic ) but I'm sure that there are many people who don't trust google that much to keep their confidential files, photos, etc online.

Hang on - how in the hell can this even be described as an operating system? It's not!

The Linux kernel will be doing all the heavy lifting, and even that is only running the Chrome browser and managing a few device drivers.

It's certainly not a new 'Operating System'. In fact, I'd argue it's just a Linux distro - and a limited one at that.

I agree with that, they called Chrome OS and you will think that is something from scratch. It will probably be based in Ubuntu or another Linux distro. Nothing new about it.

I just think they have a hell of a cheek calling it an OS.

I'm guessing their 'Windowing System' will basically be Chrome running on the desktop as opposed to a browser window, meaning your entire session is entirely dependent on a rock solid connection from your ISP.

No network connection and your ChromeOS netbook is pretty much totally useless

Hmmm I'll wait and watch. I expect it to be a bit like the browser lot of attention from the techies and nothing. But who knows!

I thought I heard something about this a while ago, but that may have been Android...

That article didn't give too much technical info, it basically just said that computers should work better and Google is trying to make that happen... figures though, I try not to get my info on software from the guys who wrote the software. So I am still interested to know how in detail this ChromeOS is going to work, and what it offers over the other OSes out now.

Even if it turns out to be basically like other OSes (it sounds like it will be) what it might do is get more people interested in Linux (or just non-Windows)... everyone knows about Google and would probably be more ready to try out their OS than Ubuntu or some other Linux distro, which can provide an experience that so many PC users have never had... an alternative computing platform.

About calling it an actual operating system, there is definitely a point that it is using an already existent kernel, although even OS X's kernel is mostly mach and BSD code (if I understand all of that stuff correctly)... I am sure it's mostly marketing though, you could probably get away with slapping a new theme onto a windowing system and calling it a "New OS".