Posted 11/20/09 at 03:06:30 PM by Bart Salisbury

You curiosity can now be slaked: Google’s Chrome OS is now ready for download and review. The bad news is you’ll need VMWare to run it. The good news is you can run it on OS X, Linux, or Windows.

But will it be worth the effort? If it’s something you really, really got to do, then yes, it will be worth the effort. For the rest of us, with episodes of The Colbert Report to catch up on, maybe not. Our colleagues over at Engadget have tried it out and report Chrome OS is “really a browser with an OS attached rather than vice versa.”

Chrome OS is browser-like in its construction, and Internet oriented. There are minimal app launcher options. And the more interesting apps, says Engadget, required a Google.com account to access. Without one you will be stuck playing with Gmail and Calendar (which Engadget reports suffer from “significant lag and choppiness”).

Still, with a Thanksgiving weekend to kill, Chrome OS might give you an option other than family, food, or football. You’ll find a download link for Chrome OS at gdgt.com.

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Posted 10/27/09 at 02:30:07 PM by Paul Lilly

Hot on the heels of Windows 7's recent release, VMware today has made available its Workstation 7 desktop virtualization software with a handful of new features for software development and testing.

The new version supports both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and works with features in the Windows 7 interface, such as Flip 3D and Aero Peek. And according to VMware, installing Windows 7 on a virtual machine is easier than on a physical PC.

Several improvements were made in the latest release, which VMware claims will help developers, QA engineers, sales professionals, and IT admins cut back on hardware costs, as well as save time and resources by streamlining tasks. This includes new IDE integrations for SpringSource Tools Suite and Eclipse IDE for Java & C/C++, the ability to run up to four virtual CPUs and 32GB of RAM dedicated to each virtual machine, and improved 3D graphics capabilities with DirectX 9.0c Shader Model 3 and OpenGL 2.1 support.

Workstation is available now direct from from VMware for $189, or $99 if upgrading from a previous version.

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Posted 02/27/09 at 04:18:26 PM by Andy Salisbury

In a recently released video, a Nokia N800 that has been loaded up with VMware’s MVP hypervisor can be seen running Windows CE and Android simultaneously. Make no mistake about it, this is some cool stuff!

Now, admittedly the video is a virtualization, but the hypervisor is an extremely small virtual machine that will run beneath the phone’s operating system(s). It then creates virtual platforms on the device that it’s installed on, allowing OSes to be installed like apps. Since the virtual machine is what deals with the gadget’s firmware, you can theoretically run any OS that you’d like without the worries of driver compatibility.

VMware has stated that they’re in talks with manufacturers to have their hypervisor included with handsets so that dual booting could be possible. Though, there’s no clear reason as to why a manufacturer would license this software. Sadly, the idea of hardware virtualization, parallel mobile OSes and hypervisors are a bit much for mass marketing.

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