The Pwnium 3 competition was hosted as part of the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver. Google offered up $3.14159 million (“Pi money”), but no one was able to emerge as the winning entry. The competition was with the newest version of Chrome OS running on a base Samsung Series 5 500 Chromebook. If they were able to achieve a browser or system level compromise delivered via a web page, they’d get $110,000. If they were able to get a compromise with device persistence, guest to guest with interim reboot, also delivered through a web page, the prize would be $150,000.

With that much money on the line, no one could do that. That’s got to be a pat on the back for Google. To be fair, they are currently “evaluating some work that may qualify as partial credit.” This is one of the smarter ways to go about things, because it helps to reveal potential vulnerabilities that Google can then address as quickly as possible.

[Source]

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The supposedly leaked video, embedded below, showcases the new Chrome OS-powered notebook from Google and it’s looking to be much more of a powerhouse than its predecessors. For starters, that display is an impressive 2560 x 1700 pixels and it also happens to be a touchscreen.

If it were not for Chrome OS, I’d almost say that this was going to fall into the lap of the current crop of Windows 8 touchscreen notebooks. The Chromebook Pixel, which is also apparently being called the Chromebook Link, is reportedly being tested right now at Google’s offices.

Just as the Nexus devices are meant to offer pure Google experiences, the tagline for the Chromebook Pixel is that it has been “Designed by Google. Down to the last pixel.” Yes, it looks a little too much like a MacBook for some people, but it could mean that Google is really started to head down the hardware path. Of course, being tied to the cloud for everything with Chrome OS might not appeal to everyone and, no matter how pretty or how powerful this may be, that could prove to be the deal breaker.

That said rumors continue to speculate that starting with Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie, Chrome and Android could start blending some of their features together. could the Chromebook Pixel end up being the fruits of that rumored effort?

[Source]

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Throughout most of my elementary, middle and high school existence I learned that computers from home were generally very different from what most of us had in home.

At home, the vast majority of us had DOS or Windows. At school, it was Mac everything, though I will admit that Windows PCs finally started to show up during my high school days.

The reason for this was simple, Apple had very good discounts and special deals for school systems. Now it seems that Google is planning to take a chapter out of Apple’s book and is going after school systems with its Chromebook this holiday season.

Google is teaming up with DonorsChoose.org to offer the Samsung Series 5 Chromebook for just $99 to schools. For those that don’t know, that is a $330 discount from the original retail price of $429.

How does it work? Teachers need to visit DonorsChoose’s site and request a Series 5 Chromebook for their classroom by December 21st.

Once the request is posted, people can make donations to support their classroom and once the total funding is met, the Chromebooks are sent out to the classrooms. A classroom can request anywhere from one to thirty Chrome-based laptops.

While this seems to be a holiday promotion, it could certainly be a sign of things to come for Google. With more school systems relying heavily on the cloud for research, writing and more, Google’s Chromebooks might make quite a bit of sense in today’s connected school systems.

What do you think, could Google find a potential niche in the educational system, just like Mac has over the years?

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Chromebooks have yet to exactly take off, mainly because not everyone has a constant Internet connection or the desire to use nothing but web apps. Still, Google has kept pushing their platform, despite less than great reception. Are things looking up for the cloud-based platform? They are certainly starting to look that way.

First, we had the Samsung Chromebook. The ARM-based Chrome laptop is doing quite a bit better than past offerings, in large part due to its reasonable $249 starting price. Now, things are getting even cheaper, thanks to the newly announced Acer C7 Chromebook.

The Acer C7 Chromebook has a 1.1GHz Celeron Processor, 2GB of RAM, an 11.6-inch 1366×768 display, 3 USB ports, a 320GB HDD and an HDMI-out port. The only major downside is the battery in this thing is awfully weak, with about 3.5 hours of life.

The new C7 Chromebook is arriving on November 13th in the United Kingdom and United States, as mentioned before, it will cost just $199. What do you think, tempted or not?

[ source ]

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The Google Chromebox itself is built by Samsung and it has much of the same specs that you’ve already seen with the current generation of Chromebooks. It’s not the most powerful machine in the world with its 1.9GHz Intel Celeron processor and 4GB of RAM, but considering that all you’re really running is a glorified Chrome browser, that should suffice. Other specs include the 16GB SSD, Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet, six USB ports, Bluetooth 3.0, DVI-out, and 2 DisplayPorts. The Chromebox should be able to support up to two high-resolution 30-inch monitors at the same time.

And yes, the design looks pretty much like the Mac Mini. And like the Mac Mini, the onus is on you to provide your own keyboard and mouse, though there is an optional package that includes those too. Bootup time is less than 10 seconds, but this box is virtually useless without an Internet connection. That said, since it’s a desktop, you’re likely going to place it in your home or office where you’ll always have Wi-Fi, unlike the mobile nature of the Chromebook offerings.

The base price, without the keyboard and mouse, is $329. You can only find it online for now, but it should start selling through regular stores soon.

[Source]

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Most of us have probably already heard that Microsoft is planning to change the status quo by introducing major changes to its familiar Windows UI in Windows 8, this includes removing the traditional start button and bar. In the light of this move, Google also seems to be changing the way it thinks with its newest version of Google Chrome OS. The upcoming version does away with the one-window browser system, in favor of a brand new interface that it is called Aura. As you can see from the screenshot, it looks quite a bit like Windows 7.

There is now an actual desktop, a launching app, and a taskbar that Google calls a ‘shelf’. It is important to note though, Google Chrome OS still only uses web-based applications and doesn’t support local programs like Windows, OSX, and Linux do. Some might say that Google is admitting defeat with its design of Chrome OS, though honestly I think they are just being smart. There will be some users that might be turned off by the big changes heading to Windows 8, and Google might hope some of these users become frustrated enough to make the switch to Chrome OS instead.

Will the new Chrome OS be embraced with open arms and result in tons of conversion from Windows? Probably not, but it certainly could add at least a little more appeal to its current web-restricted OS. One thing is clear, Google is not giving up on Chrome OS yet, even if it hasn’t exactly been well-embraced by the public.

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Chrome OS. It’s the platform that is behind the ChromeBook, but don’t you think it would be an even better solution for tablets? Sure, there are already tons of Android tablets out there, but Chromium might be a more suitable fit. And the video below demonstrates exactly what a Chrome tablet would look like.

Web developer Francois Beaufort found a “hidden” touchscreen interface within Chrome OS, so he thought he’d give it a try. Tinkering around in the open source operating system, he activated touchscreen mode by adjusting export GYP_DEFINES=”touchui=1″, then running the standard “gclient sync” to revise the tarball.

And the net result looks pretty good. The touchscreen keyboard is similar to Android, you get larger menus that are more finger-friendly, and the regular option and navigation buttons are easy to tap too. This is an early build, but I’d imagine that with some tweaks and fixes, Chromium could have some serious tablet potential. To the cloud…

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Google has announced the first commercial Chromebook laptops at the Google I/O conference today. The Chromebook laptops come after Google’s 6-month long pilot program testing Chrome OS on the CR-48 netbook with businesses and developers throughout the USA.

Samsung and Acer are set to release the first Chromebook laptops on June 15. The Samsung Chromebook is priced at $429 for the Wi-Fi only version, and $499 for 3G. The Acer Chromebook Wi-Fi is priced at $349 and closely resembles the CR-48 prototype. Both will sell initially to the US, UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and Spain.

At the core of each Chromebook is the Chrome web browser. The web has millions of applications and billions of users. Trying a new application or sharing it with friends is as easy as clicking a link. A world of information can be searched instantly and developers can embed and mash-up applications to create new products and services. The web is on just about every computing device made, from phones to TVs, and has the broadest reach of any platform. With HTML5 and other open standards, web applications will soon be able to do anything traditional applications can do, and more.

Google has also announced Chromebooks for Business and Education. The monthly service from Google gives IT administrators a cloud management console “to remotely administer and manage users, devices, applications and policies.” They will also receive enterprise-level support, warranties and hardware refreshes. Monthly subscriptions will start at $28 and $20 per user for business and schools respectively. This price includes the Chromebook itself.

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Wait. I thought Android 3.0 Honeycomb was the de facto tablet operating system to come out of Google. Even though we’ve already seen the CR-48 netbook, it looks like Google is still interested in pursuing a tablet-friendly version of its cloud-based Chrome OS.

The latest tweaks to the system are very much pointing toward a slate-based future for the secretive operating system. We’re seeing an on-screen keyboard, for example, which certainly would not be at all necessary for a netbook or a notebook running Chrome OS. So, just as there are Android phones and then there is the official Google Phone, could we be seeing the same with tablets?

Maybe. It’s quite possible than an official Google Tablet with Chrome OS is still coming down the pipes, but I see no real reason why they would add even more fuel to the fragmentated fire by splitting their tablet-based dreams across two operating systems. More likely than not, Android Honeycomb (and its successors) will likely merge with Chrome OS in some form.

[Read]

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It might seem like tablets are the hottest thing since sliced bread, but Asus is trying to remind us that dinner rolls aren’t too bad either. So to speak. Asus has a few tablets up its sleeve, but it’s also not giving up on the netbook.

They’re taking the battle to the price tag with plans of producing a new Asus netbook in the $200-$250 range. I know that you can already get an entry-level Acer Aspire One netbook in that range, so what is Asus really trying to achieve here? Cheap netbooks are (not quite literally but almost) a dime a dozen.

The more interesting news comes with what this cheaper Asus netbook will use as its operating system. We’ve seen Windows. We’ve seen Linux. Now, it’s quite possible that the new netbook will either run Google Android 3.0 Honeycomb or Google Chrome OS. This will bring the price down and the novelty factor up.

Moving forward, it’s likely that Chrome OS and Android will start to become one and the same thing. Until then, though, I’m not sure how they’d implement the tablet-friendly Android on a netbook without inserting a touchscreen. Look for the $200-$250 netbook this June.

[DigiTimes]

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