... because of its opaqueness in certain circumstances (and more to say when next I am at a computer), let me mention a different Google project notable for its transparency. That is the "Chromium OS" -- a new operating system optimized for "netbooks," which was announced yesterday as an open-source development project. Google has made the source code available free, along with some design documents and results of early user testing. First video below is the hour-plus announcement session. At the bottom is a three-minute product intro.
The idea behind netbooks, of course, is that they'll be stripped down to only and exactly those features needed for "cloud"-based work. The idea behind the Chromium OS is the same. According to this announcement, the cloud-centrism of the new OS will have two big advantages for users: speed, going from power-on to ready-for-use within a few seconds rather than a few minutes; and security, with both programs and data "living" in the cloud rather than on your own machine, and therefore subject to protection in more sophisticated ways. More on security features here. As the announcement says, "Chrome OS barely trusts itself. Every time you restart
your computer the operating system verifies the integrity of its code.
If your system has been compromised, it is designed to fix itself with
a reboot."