Chrome OS will boot in 7 seconds: Google

Google's proposed web-oriented Chrome operating system will boot a PC in as little as seven seconds, officials of the web search titan said. Google showed off its Chrome operating system designed for PCs that do their work on the Web. Google gave the first public look at its Chrome OS four months after declaring its intention of developing the PC's main software. The Chrome OS resembles a Web browser more than it does a traditional computer operating system. Google said that the software will initially be available by the holiday season of 2010 on low-cost netbooks that meet Google's hardware specifications. Netbooks running Chrome OS will only be able to run Web applications and the user's data will automatically be stored on the internet, Google executives said at an event at the company's Mountain View, California headquarters.

Google said that it is giving away the software for free. Google officials said that the Chrome OS netbooks will be able to provide some functions when offline, but that the product is primarily designed to be connected to the Web. Google also made the computer code for the Chrome OS available to outside developers. Google said that all data in Chrome will automatically be housed on external servers, but also cached on the computer's internal hardware to boost performance. If a person loses their netbook, they can buy a new one, log in and within seconds have a machine with access to all the same data.