Last Thursday Google released details of its upcoming Chrome OS- with the exciting news that it won’t be available for a year.

The tech community is seemingly split into two between those that think that Google vision is pure genius, distilled in a speedy netbook 2.0 form – and those that that it’s all a lot of hot air.

Just to recap briefly – Chrome OS will be coming out next year on specific Google approved hardware and will deliver a device that boots in seven seconds or less and essentially takes you straight to the Chrome OS browser – with a few knobs on to enable it to run an OS - such as battery management and the date and time.

The key issue for many is that it won’t run any standard apps – everything will run in the browser so when your offline the whole usability will be compromised.

It will of course support Google Gears, which already enables you to work offline on your Gmail and Google Docs, and then sync back up when you’re online. Admittedly it’s been months since I actually tried using Google Gears, but when I did I found it to be rather flaky and I didn’t feel comfortable with it – probably time for a revisit.

It seems to me that the divisions over Chrome OS are pretty fundamental – you are either a true web 2.0 always connected kind of guy/girl that already lives in the cloud - or you’re not. I’m pretty sure, based on sticking my finger in the air that if you’re under 25 you’ll have no problem with this but if your over – you will. And if you’re my age or older – ie. soon to be the wrong side of 35, then you’ll be deeply suspicious.

It’s not just the usability issues – or the security, there are privacy issues too. Are you happy to trust Google with everything in your life?

I also just have to ask why no one is talking about the irony of the seemingly entire world being against Microsoft for simply bundling its browser with its OS, only for it to be fine for Google to base an entire OS around its browser. Will you be able to replace Chrome with IE8 in Chrome OS? obviously that would a very stupid thing to do – but it would only be fair, wouldn’t it?

We also have the issue that Google is still offering both Android and Chrome OS, and the lines between them are blurred. We’ve already seen Android on a netbook – although we weren’t particularly impressed - and Google itself has admitted that the two are likely to merge.

It also means though that we’ve got a mobile phone OS that enables you to install apps, and a computer OS that only lets you use web applications – um – is that not the wrong way round? I guess it does mean that the word ‘netbook’ will be accurate in every way.

Some users are also up in arms that you won’t be able to download and install Chrome OS on your current netbook – instead you’ll have to buy a new machine that conforms to Google’s exact stringent hardware requirements – so no regular hard disks and only SSDs – as apparently speed is everything.

Google wants to control the whole experience then - is Google turning into the new Apple?

In the mean time, you can find a pre-compiled version of Chrome OS to download and install from GDGT.com, though you’ll need to muck around with Virtual Box, or VMWare.

I imagine that I’ll have stronger feelings about the issue once I tried it, but in the mean time I have a feeling that it’s worth stepping back and thinking. It’s just another OS, and by only being available on specific Google hardware, and with its specific cloud only use, it’s not going to appeal to all, most or even many people.

Are business users going to be happy with not being able to run their regular apps? I see it as being aimed primarily at those for whom checking Facebook is their main function in life. Will that make a Google Chrome OS devices nothing more than a glorified and slightly techier Sidekicks?

Well at least those users haven’t been bitten already by a major cloud and data loss outage…. oh hold on…

Yes, I know that this was from last week, but I just thought this was so clever that I wanted to cover it.

Google has picked up Recaptcha - the ‘anti-bot’ service that makes you enter blurry looking words into web pages when you fill in forms, in order to check that you’re real.

In fact, look at the bottom of this page, and you’ll find it, in case you won’t to comment on this blog.

It is a bit annoying, but now that Google’s got it, every time you have to do it you can comfort yourself that you’re helping contribute to a noble literary cause.

You see, somewhat controversially, Google has been scanning books for some years now, but sometimes its scanning software falls over on words that it can’t handle.

Now, one of the two Recaptcha words will be one of these tricky words, so when people enter the word, Google will be using real people to help finish its project.

Of course Google needs to know what of the words is first for it to be an effective security system, so that’s why it’s just the one word that will be from Google Books.

It’s also free labour to help get it done, which is smart. If you think about it, it’s also a form of grid computing, but using people instead of computers.

Really a very neat, and typically Google, solution.

When all’s said and done, Google is still the hottest ticket on the internet, and if you want some of the fun, then you need to jump aboard the roller coaster that is Google Chrome.

As revealed in this ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ style blog, there are three paths you can take - the ‘Stable’ path (worthy, but dull), the Beta Channel, (exciting), or if you’re just crazy man, the ‘Dev channel’.

The first is the latest official release, the second adds all the latest tested speed improvements and features enhancements can be sampled, while the third is where every little test feature than the boffins are Google are working on is chucked in. This be a scary place, so take care.

Having said that, Chrome’s latest Beta seems to be so fast, it’s tripping over itself like an IT girl at the end of a night out. In my tests I found it was coming a cropper with relatively innocuous pages - giving me the “aw, snap” message on an alarming basis. While we all want more speed, if it’s not stable it’s not going to be usable for most people.

Chrome also simply isn’t as compatible as IE or Firefox -take this very Wordpress page I’m typing into - in Chrome the visual elements tab doesn’t work, so there are no ‘Bold’, Italics’ icons’ etc - just cold plain code buttons.

To put those speed claims to the test, we perhaps rather unfairly ran the V8 javascript test. This is Google’s own Javascript engine, and not surprisingly, Chrome comes out on top by some margin.

V8 benchmark (higher is better)
1. Chrome Beta 3.0.195.6 - 3018
2. Firefox 3.5.2 - 328
3. Opera - 188
4 . Internet Explorer 8 - 86.4 (IE was so slow, a box popped up that a script was causing the page to load slowly).

Running the independent Sunspider Javascript benchmark gives us this:

Sunspider 0.9 (lower is better)
1. Chrome Beta 3.0.195.6 - 922.6ms
2. Firefox 3.5.2 - 1318.4
3. Opera - 4173
4. Internet Explorer 8 - 5781

So it matches.

In terms of new features, it’s actually nicked a Windows 7 feature - you can not only drag tabs into new windows, but they will now snap to the sides of your monitor for easy comparing.

You can also now drag the thumbnails around that are present on the new Tab page, remove them or pin them so they stay even if you don’t visit it that regularly.

There’s also now a range of themes, (look in, Options>Personal Stuff), and in typical fashion most of them are quite awful - but fun. I’ve gone for the  excessively shiny, Chrome coloured one.

They’ve also added in some HTML5 features, which helps it compete with what Mozilla is doing with Firefox and the Omnibox has been improved with some new icons to show more clearly what the origin of the item is.

All in all, good to see Google improving things - but while speed is nice’an’all, I’ll be sticking to Firefox until Chrome gets a little less wobbly on its legs.

It rather went under my radar that Latitude has finally arrived on iPhone last week. However, it’s not quite what it is on Blackberry and Android.

I expected it would be rolled into an update to the superb Google Maps app but it seems not - it runs only as a web app apparently at the behest of Apple itself.

While on Blackberry and Android can run any application in the background - on the iPhone, Apple only lets a few, such as its own iPod and Mail apps, due to battery drain issues.

This means that to broadcast your location you have to have the web page open - do anything else, and move somewhere else, and it won’t track you.  Which makes it rather pointless in my book. And the app permanently things my office is in Paddington. Which it isn’t.

And the actual page doesn’t contain any useful contextual information about what the person is doing - it’s all rather bland.

I’m holding out hope, probably in vain, that this will be sorted in the next significant iPhone update. At the moment though, it’s a bit pants, basically.

They don’t stop those Google people do they. If you’ve used Google Maps on an iPhone or Android phone you’ll probably be familiar with the ‘My Location’ feature – which can pinpoint your location within a radius of a few hundred yards, even without GPS. And jolly useful it is too.

Now Google has brought it to your browser too – with some caveats. First you need to be using a browser that supports the Geo-location feature. Firefox 3.5 is the only one that has it built-in, but you can also use any browser that supports Google Gears as a plug-in– this includes Google Chrome 2 or dare I say it, Internet Explorer 8.

To get it to work go to Google Maps and click on the circle that appear at the top left, between the navigation pad and the Street View man icon. The first time you click on it your browser will ask you if you want to share location – obviously you’ll say yes - and then it will go and find data using a location API, which pulls in data from the best possible source. Your desktop PC or laptop is unlikely to have GPS built-in so instead it will look to the Wi-Fi or your IP address to determine your location.

However, the implementation in Firefox, and naturally Google Gear browsers (Chrome, IE) uses Google Location Services API rather than the alternative, ‘Skyhook’, and the problem is that Google’s isn’t that accurate - and some have reported themselves being located miles from where they actually are.

So not much use for finding local pizza restaurants, which is naturally the very first use I found for it.

Interestingly, Opera has plumped for Skyhook, but Google Maps doesn’t work with that so there’s no easy way to compare.

So far, in our testing, we’ve been quite underwhelmed by the feature. Testing in Firefox 3.5, the closest I could get was for Google Maps to show me the whole of Greater London – which I didn’t really need Google Maps to tell me.

A work in progress we think.

So reports emerged today that a Kosher search engine has been launched – called Koogle - providing a rabbinically approved way for ultra-orthodox Jews to browse the internet. Genius.

The problem for the orthodox, and it’s a fair one, is that it’s far too easy to encounter material on the internet that is objectionable for anyone of a religious persuasion, whether you mean to or not. You know, the nudey bits.

The internet though is just too integral to modern life to completely ignore  and many religious families in Israel will have a computer, even though they have a TV. If that sounds odd – it isn’t. It’s possible for parents to control and filter what’s viewable on a family computer – but they can’t control what’s being broadcast.

And anyway – the internet is useful for all sorts of stuff.

It’s defaults to Hebrew, naturally, but there is an English (sort of) version – (top right), and in turns out it more of a limited directory than a real search engine. There are some useful links in there too, such as Kosher restaurants, hotels, travel, and er.. socks. And um, pergolas (what?) and of course, Lingerie. Um really? Is that kosher?

To be honest, the only reason that it’s attracted interest in places such as the Telegraph is because the name is pretty funny – if you get the joke. Koogle is pun based on a potato or noodle based Jewish staple food called ‘Kugel’ and of course, Google.  See funny huh?

Amusingly, Koogle was also the brand name for a 1970s peanut butter by Kraft Foods - later discontinued. No, it wasn’t Kosher.

So yesterday, Google released Google Earth for the iPhone and the Blogosphere has pretty much gone crazy for it and rightly so. It’s very cool.

When you fire it up you are presented with the Earth hanging in space and as you