On Tuesday night, Google announced plans on its blog to launch Google Chrome OS, an operating system designed to directly challenge Microsoft's Windows. The software is projected to be available to the public in about a year.

"This is a direct attack on Microsoft's revenue base," Rob Enderle, a technology analyst in San Jose who consults for the Seattle software company, told the L.A. Times. "Microsoft's Windows operating system platform and its Internet Explorer browser are the keystone products the empire is built on."

But how will it work? Our tech blog reports:

Google Chrome OS, the operating system, is designed to work with the company's Chrome Web browser, launched nine months ago and downloaded by 30 million users. Google said the software will be optimized for small, lightweight laptop computers called netbooks, a fast-selling category of inexpensive machines that sell for as little as $250 and are used primarily to surf the Web and check e-mail.

Time to boost my shares in IKEA chair suppliers, I reckon.

Not exactly sure what to expect out of this.  I'd love to see the evil empire brought to its knees, and certainly if anybody can do it, it's Google.  But I dunno.  In any case, this could be fun.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin