November 19, 2009, 5:40 PM — Thursday Google opened its doors to the press to show off its hotly anticipated Chrome operating system. In a small auditorium in Mountain View, California, Google VP of Product Development Sundar Pichai took to the stage to give us a demonstration of what Chrome OS actually is. Some rumors were confirmed, others dispelled, as the operating system emerged into the light of day. Here's what we now know about Google's Chrome OS.
"As of today, the code will be fully open," Pichai said. In fact, shortly before the press event began, the unofficial Google OS blog announced public availability of the Chrome OS source code. With this code now in the hands of the open source community, it shouldn't be long before various builds of the code end up trickling onto the Web.
