There have been some conflicting reports about the state of Google's Chrome OS and whether or not the company will be launching an own-branded netbook in the very near future. We shouldn't have to wait too much longer to get the full details though, as the search-giant is hosting a press event in San Francisco later today.
The invites (courtesy of Engadget) promise some "exciting news about Chrome", which surely hints at a big reveal for the company's new web-based OS. An own-branded netbook is also expected to be shown-off, although it's thought to be more of a test platform given to a 'limited' circle of 65,000 of Google's closest chums. This makes sense, since the buzz is that the OS is still quite far from being ready for public-consumption.
There's also been some talk about the Chrome Web Apps store. Support for the platform - which will be a major part of the OS - was included in the stable version of the Chrome 8 browser, released last week. It's more than possible that the presentation will be used to launch this new app store to the world, although it's not clear whether or not it will be initially limited to users of the new operating system.
To whet our appetites, a photo of the Google-branded device's keyboard has also made its way onto the web. Obviously there isn't much to see, but its interesting to note that the F-keys have been replaced with a number of dedicated function keys, including a few to handle window management, and that there is a dedicated search key replacing caps-lock.
Whatever Google has in store, we won't have to wait long to find out, since the event is scheduled to kick-off in only a few hours.
