OStatic

Keep May 19 - 20, 2010 open if you plan to attend the next Google I/O Developer Conference. It's slated to be held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA and registration opens in January. The event brings thousands of developers together for a two-day sprint through session about some of Google's most popular products and tools, including App Engine, Google Web Toolkit, Android, and Chrome.

Expect this to be pretty much the only technology news you hear all day: Google is building an open source operating system. Bearing the same name as Google's browser, Chrome is a lightweight OS aimed squarely at netbooks and expected to be available by mid-2010.

Google is quick to point out that Chrome OS is a completely seperate undertaking from its operating system for mobile devices, Android. Chrome OS is designed for people who live on the Web and rely mainly on Web-based applications, whether they use netbooks or full-size desktop PCs.

Though the Opera browser isn't open source, it's free and its new server-in-a-browser feature, Unite, is really making significant inroads toward online collaboration. If Chrome and Firefox are to keep their edge over Opera, their development teams had better sit up and take notice.

Opera's Unite technology lets users run chat rooms, host Web sites, and share files that even people not using Opera can access. The interaction is all done via a central Opera Unite server ? Opera Unite uses a proxy between the server and its clients (found at operaunite.com) to avoid the need for any special firewall configuration, writes the development team. Unite launched today with six features but is calling on the Opera community to design and create any new services they'd like to see available.

Read on to have a look at what Opera unite can already do and why Google and Mozilla haven't cornered the market on browsers just yet.

After months of waiting, Linux (and Mac) users woke to the happy news this morning that Google is inching ever closer to a usable version of its Chrome Web browser for Linux. Usable is the keyword here because the new developer version Google released last night is anything but. At least it gives us a peek, though, at what to expect when the much-anticipated browser is finally ready for prime time.?