There was quite a lot of Hollywoodish (sans MPAA) drama around a 'secret' Google project called Chromebook Pixel. Some videos were leaked and the company in question said that their servers were hijaked. No one confirmed or rejected the story. Some called it a hoax. I think the device is in the making and I have some reasons to believe so.
The next Google I/O summit is scheduled to be held in Moscone Center West in San Francisco on May 15-17, 2013. Registrations will be open soon. This is the event when Google also introduces their next 'game changing' device. We already have Nexus 10, 7 and 4 where Android has seen massive improvement, mainly in the hardware. That leaves the Chromebook behind where we have not seen any Google devices after cr-48. I believe that Google would be announcing Chromebook Pixel during this I/O summit. Chromebooks have picked up really well; they were the #1 best sellers on Amazon so it's time for Google to up the ante with better hardware.
That's my crystal-ball assumption, but there is definitely some work going on on the 'touch' based 'pixel-perfect' Chromebook.
François Beaufort, who also shared the story about Chromebook Pixel on his Google+ has dropped another hint on 'touch friendly' new icons for Chromium. He writes:
Menu checks/radion buttons have been updated into the last Chromium build and definitely look more touchy friendly in my own opinion.
Here's one trick to make high quality screenshots of Google Chrome OS:
Go to chrome://flags and enable "Force high DPI mode" flag.
As you can see, usability is kinda awful for existing Chromebooks but it might be good for HD TV or upcoming chromebook devices ;)
Another clear hint that was dropped on Feb 9:
Google Chromebook Link (aka Chromebook Pixel) will have a sleek keyboard featuring backlit keys.
However, the coolest feature (at least for me) will be the Light Bar that we caught a glimpse of at the beginning of the week.
This Light Bar has the 4 Google colors: Blue, Red, Yellow and Green and here's how it gonna work:
At Startup or wake from sleep,
Google colors cycle in.
While running,
> 25% battery: All blue
<= 25% battery: All red
Shutting down, or going into sleep:
Cycle out the Google color
This leaves nothing to imagination. So all these hints point in only one direction - a touch-friendly, high-res Chromebook.
Swapnil Bhartiya
A free software fund-a-mental-ist and Charles Bukowski fan, Swapnil also writes fiction and tries to find cracks in a proprietary company's 'paper armours'. He is a big movie buff and prefers listening to music at such high volumes that he's gone partially deaf when it comes to identifying anything positive about proprietary companies. You can follow him on Twitter, Google+ & Facebook. You can write to him on editor at muktware dot com
