RUMOR: AMAZON TABLET COMING THIS SUMMER

Amazon is said to be prepping a new tablet device that may launch as early as this summer. According to a report from gadget site gdgt, Amazon has chosen Samsung to help design and build the tablet, which may run Honeycomb or even a custom operating system based on Google’s Android platform. Rumors of an Amazon tablet have been around for quite some time, and Android was always expected to be Amazon’s OS of choice.

News that the company may be building its own OS on top of Android suggests it may forgo some of Google’s core Android services, possibly including the Android Marketplace, and instead use the device to foster adoption of the Amazon Appstore, Cloud Drive and other Amazon services. Of course eBooks — specifically, Amazon’s Kindle platform — are expected to be a major focus of the tablet as well, and Amazon will also likely use the new device to push its music and movie services.

Given the added weight and drastically reduced battery life of tablets compared to dedicated eBook readers like the Kindle, it is likely that Amazon’s forthcoming tablet will compliment the Kindle eReader rather than replace it.

LEAK: GOOGLE CHROME NOTEBOOKS COMING IN JUNE/JULY

Neowin has confirmed from a reliable source that the Google Chrome OS based notebooks will be available for "purchase" in late June/early July. The search giant also is planning on using an unconventional form of distribution to customers. Google will be selling the devices as part of a subscription based model with Gmail to customers. It's not clear if this applies to mainstream Gmail.com users, or to Google Apps premier customers.

According to our source, Google plans to make the notebooks available for $10-$20 a month per user, and will provide hardware refreshes as they are released as part of the package, and will replace faulty hardware for the life of the subscription. On top of this, Google will make the devices available for a one time payment as a normal retailer would, but is likely to not distribute the devices directly. Instead, the company will distribute them in a fashion similar to the way Android is distributed.

GOOGLE OFFERING REWARD FOR CHROME HACK

Google is offering a $20,000 cash prize for any would-be hacker that can successfully exploit the Cr-48 Chrome laptop via a vulnerability and sandbox escape (using the Chrome web browser).

This is all part of CanSecWest’s Pwn2Own competition, which sees some of the world’s best security researchers and hackers go up against popular web browsers in attempt to thwart their security.

The successful hack must include a sandbox escape. Kernel bugs and other 3rd party plug-ins are also not allowed (other than the default built-in PDF support).

Last year Google boasted that its Chrome browser was the only one left standing after a barrage of hacking attempts failed, but with an added cash prize up for grabs this year there will certainly be a frenzy of activity around the browser.

GMAIL CREATOR SAYS CHROME OS UNNECESSARY

Former Google employee, Gmail creator, and FriendFeed founder Paul Buchheit has come out and said what a lot of people have been whispering....Chrome OS is not necessary and will be merged with Android. On his FriendFeed page Buchheit said:

Prediction: Chrome OS will be killed next year (or “merged” with Android).

I was thinking, “is this too obvious to even state?”, but then I see people taking Chrome OS seriously, and Google is even shipping devices for some reason.

Chrome OS has no purpose that isn’t better served by Android (perhaps with a few mods to support a non-touch display).

What will differentiate the two, especially when the tablet-optimized Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) launches in early 2011? Does Google have some grand scheme that is not obvious to the rest of the world or have they stuck their thumbs in too many pies in their quest for world domination? [TechCrunch]

TOSHIBA PLANNING 3 TABLETS; ONE EACH FOR ANDROID, WINDOWS PHONE 7 AND CHROME OS

DigiTimes is reporting today that three new Toshiba slates are set for their debut at CES in a month's time, two of them equipped with 10.1-inch screens and a third sized at 11.6 inches. Microsoft's Windows 7 and Google's Chrome OS and Android will each be responsible for providing the operating environment on one of these new tablets, indicating that Toshiba -- much like the rest of the world -- has yet to make up its mind about what the best tablet OS out there is. [Engadget]

GOOGLE CHROME OS EVENT CONFIRMED

Google just announced an event in San Francisco for December 7th, which promises "exciting news about Chrome." Naturally, we're expecting that to be the announcement of a Google-branded netbook that runs the Chrome OS, in addition to the launch of the Chrome Web / App Store. Interestingly, it's pretty short notice for this sort of announcement, and it's also conflicting with the D: Dive into Mobile conference which is happening a few miles north on the same day. We don't know if that's poor planning on Google's part, a sign of last minute adjustments in the product, both, or neither, but either way it's going to be a pretty exciting week!

RUMOR: GOOGLE TO LAUNCH BRANDED NETBOOK WITH CHROME OS DECEMBER 7TH

Rumor has it Google will be holding an event on December 7th to announce a Google branded netbook running the hotly anticipated Google Chrome OS. The netbook is rumored to be an Atom-powered laptop that isn't going to be a mass market device -- there will only be around 65,000 units available to Google's closest "friends and family" -- and that the Cloud-based OS is still very much in a beta, non-consumer-friendly state.

This all lines up with TechCrunch's report that Google will be launching its Chrome Web / App Store very soon, as well as yesterday's launch of Chrome 8, which supports those aforementioned Chrome apps. (Companies like TweetDeck have already started demoing their browser apps.) Don't forget that those apps are going to be a large part of the OS, so it would make sense for Google to talk about 'em in tandem. The pieces sure do seem to be fitting together quite well, and while we still have lots of unanswered questions, we're feeling confident that we'll be getting some official answers on all this Chrome-ness very soon. [Engadget]

GOOGLE'S CHROME OS DELAYED UNTIL 2011

While there have been rumors of a Chrome OS netbook arriving this month, Google’s Eric Schmidt has confirmed we won’t be seeing any this month, or next month, we may not even see one for several months in 2011.

Schmidt has stated that Google’s cloud operating system has suffered a delay. He made the remarks during a Q&A session at the Web 2.0 summit. What he wouldn’t say is what has caused that delay, and no one at Google is talking about it either.

The official line seems to be that Chrome OS won’t arrive for a few months yet, meaning we probably shouldn’t expect to hear anything until at least March. However, Mary-Jo Foley over at ZDNet has been told by Google that a new preview build will be released before the end of 2010. It won’t be final, but it has to be near complete by now. [Geek]

RUMOR: GOOGLE BRANDED CHROME OS NOTEBOOK LAUNCHING SOON

DigiTimes, the Taiwanese rumor rag, has cited sources claiming Google will be releasing a self-branded notebook computer running their Chrome OS operating system at the end of the month.  Supposedly, Google will be going the same way as they did with the Nexus One smartphone and will not be selling them via "normal" retail channels.  The notebook will be manufactured by Inventec and is expected to ship a very low 60,000 - 70,000 units.

Acer and HP are rumored to be launching their Chrome OS tablets in early December, while ASUS is holding out to gauge market reaction. [Engadget]

RUMOR: ANDROID GINGERBREAD SDK DROPPING NEXT WEEK

AndroidPolice is reporting that the SDK for the next version of Google's Android mobile OS, codenamed Gingerbread, will be released next week.  This will give us a good idea of what is being included in the new Android OS.  Gingerbread is suppose to have an aggressive overhaul of the UI and the emulator included in the SDK will give a peak at it.

There has been some confusion over versioning of this OS with some people saying it will be Android 3.0 and others insisting it will be either 2.3 or 2.5 with Google reserving the 3.0 for the next iteration named Honeycomb, which will be more tablet-centric.  However, with Google progressing nicely with the Chrome OS, which is designed for tablet computers, it would make sense for Gingerbread to version 3.0 and Honeycomb an update of that. [Into Mobile]

GOOGLE TESTING CHROME OS, LAUNCH IN NOVEMBER?

It has only been 3 months since Google announced they were working on a new operating system dubbed Chrome OS.  The new OS would be based on their extremely popular browser Chrome.  Google has now released a Release Candidate (RC).  RCs are generally released as one of the last steps to the product being finalized.

In recent weeks Google has said that Android was not optimized for tablet or netbook use, now we know why. Google released a statement "We are very happy with the progress of Google Chrome OS and expect devices will be available later this year. We’ll have more details to share at launch.” [TechCrunch]