Google Chrome OS to Launch Next Week

Google Chrome OS is announced in July and now TechCrunch is breaking the news that Google’s Chrome OS will launch next week. It’s likely that it’s at a pretty unpolished state and Google previously said that Chrome OS wouldn’t be ready for the market at least until the second half of 2010.

Hardware support is one of the biggest issues at this point. Chrome OS is based on the Linux kernel so, in theory, at the low level, it should have some very good driver support. It’s unclear though what kind of changes Google has made and how far along the other components of the OS are to take advantage of the hardware capabilities. Google is building Chrome OS with netbooks in mind, so chances are that some of the more popular machines like Asus’ Eee PC will probably work right off the bat.