Is Google Developing an iPad Killer?

While the iPad may be sweeping the news, it isn’t the only hot topic in the techie universe, as Google may now be developing a tablet solution of their own. Google tablet chatter started this week when the company’s development staff posted concept hardware and user interface renders of a tablet device running their Chrome operating system. The images were posted to Chromium.org, Google’s official development page for the Chrome platform, and quickly caught the eye of tablet-hungry technophiles.

The post is riddled with choice words and phrases like “concept UI,” “subject to change,” and how the device “might look,” which also came paired with the rumour igniting phrase “under development.” Those two magical words have our brains pondering the possibilities, but beyond our flights of fantasy, here is what Google’s official tablet experiments have entailed.

Have a look here:

According to the post, the Chromium team is testing a touchscreen user interface that includes these key points:

• Keyboard interaction with the screen: anchored, split, attached to focus.
• Launchers as an overlay, providing touch or search as means to access web sites.
• Contextual actions triggered via dwell.
• Zooming UI for multiple tabs
• Tabs presented along the side of the screen
• Creating multiple browsers on screen using a launcher

For those unfamiliar with Chrome OS, it is Google’s new web-centric mobile platform for laptops and netbooks. Chrome OS is unique in that unlike Windows or Mac operating systems, it is designed specifically for web applications, reducing the emphasis on localized software and replacing it with cloud-based programs. In other words, Chrome accesses programs and user data that reside on a web server, alleviating strains on internal processors and making accessing said information on a wider breadth of devices.

More important, there are more than 7 Mill netbooks out there, waiting to be upgraded. And the solution is around the corner. Netbook Pack – a slick version with the same functionality, available today. Maybe 2010 becomes a different OS race altogether. But – tablet PC or whatever you want to call it- Can you see any student reading a book without listening to music? So we are back to Chromes OS, the fast emerging market of the netbook and the software which makes best use of it. Like Netbook Pack, a Chrome OS version ready for your netbook today.

Comments welcome.