Chrome and Chrome OS walk out from Google IO with updates

Today is second day of the Google IO Developers Conference and things don’t show any signs of slowing down. The second keynote was about Chrome and Chrome OS, Google’s cloud operating system.

As usual, some impressive statistics were introduced. In just a year, the number of people using Google Chrome as their primary browser has grown from 70 million to 160 million. Remember the very first notebook running Chrome OS, the Cr-48? More than a million people have applied for one and Google has shipped thousands worldwide.

Chrome browser

The Chrome team has been hard at work to include featured APIs such as speech, WebGL and Canvas 2D support. What’s more, the pure performance of the Chrome browser has increased notably. Java performance has improved four times compared to the first version of the browser and GPU acceleration has brought in even more goodness.

Google’s Web Store is also doing quite well. 70 million apps have been installed from the Google Web Store, which is available in 41 languages across the globe. And to make it even more attractive to developers, Vikas Gupta from the Google Payments team announced that Google is lowering its cut for a sold app to just 5 percent.

Chrome OS

Chrome OS was introduced in the summer of 2009 and it’s been in hard development ever since. At today’s Conference Google announced that notebooks running Chrome OS will be dubbed Chromebooks.

The most important thing about Chrome OS is that the cloud-based OS is all about the Web and Web Apps. Developers have been really busy creating all kinds of games, utility programs and all kinds of apps users may enjoy.

And what if you go offline? Without access to the Internet the Chrome OS won’t be totally useless. Chrome OS applications like Google Docs, Gmail and Google Calendar will be available for offline use, too.

Angry Birds has also arrived at the Chrome Web Store. It runs in Chrome and uses WebGL to run in HD. The game isn’t just a regular version of Angry Birds. It packs special Chrome bombs and levels. You can purchase the Mighty Eagle if you get stuck on a level as well.

Also, check out this Chrome OS introductory video to get a better understanding of it.

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