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News Bits: Google's Chrome OS to Challenge Microsoft

Written by Erin Barker
Wednesday, July 8. 2009 at 11:20 AM EDT Post a comment
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Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) may have issued a challenge to Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) last month when it introduced Bing, its new search engine. But now the search giant is going after Microsoft on its turf, by building an operating system that will compete with Microsoft Windows.

Google announced last night that it's planning to introduce a Chrome operating system in the second half of 2010. The software will be based on the Chrome Web browser that Google unveiled nine months ago and, according to a Google blog post, will be faster and more secure than existing OSes.

"We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear -- computers need to get better," Google wrote in its blog post, dropping a wicked burn on Microsoft.

Google said it's in talks with partners, though it didn't name any. It plans to first debut the Chrome OS on low-end laptops called netbooks.

This may put somewhat of a damper on Microsoft's upcoming rollout of Windows 7.

In other news:

  • Numerous theories have flown around questioning the quality and/or truthiness of the upcoming Facebook movie, The Social Network. But the ScriptShadow blog's Carson Reeves, who recently obtained a copy of Aaron Sorkin's screenplay for the film, gave it a rave (if slightly long-winded) review. The essential details [ed. note: SPOILER ALERT]:

      — The movie opens with Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg getting dumped by his college girlfriend, Erica.

      — Napster co-founder Sean Parker is part of the cast of characters -- and he's the one that could become iconic, Reeves claims. "The brash techy rock star revels in his own ego, and is a key player in why Facebook is on our computers today," he writes.

      — The script is hilarious! At least that's what Reeves claims: "Those unoriginal moments you've seen in every comedy spec written in the past year (including my own), where couples are arguing over Facebook-related issues (Girlfriend: 'Why does your relationship status say you're single??') Well Sorkin uses them too. The only difference is that it's happening to the inventors of Facebook. And so the unoriginal becomes original, the stuid [sic] becomes hilarious." Hilarious!

      Forbes, which also obtained a copy of the script, has posted some dialogue between Zuckerberg and the beefcake Winklevoss twins and says other high-profile names, like Harvard president Larry Summers, appear.

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