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What can we expect? Driver support will likely be a weak point. We’ve heard at various times that Google has a legion of engineers working on the not so glamorous task of building hardware drivers. And we’ve also heard conflicting rumors that Google is mostly relying on hardware manufacturers to create those drivers. Whatever the truth, and it’s likely in between, having a robust set of functioning drivers is extremely important to Chrome OS’s success. People will want to download this to whatever computer they use and have it just work.

We expect Google will be careful with messaging around the launch, and endorse a small set of devices for installation. EEE PC netbooks, for example, may be one set of devices that Google will say are ready to use Chrome OS. There will likely be others as well, but don’t expect to be able to install it on whatever laptop or desktop machine you have from day one. Google has previously said they are working with Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba on the project.

We’ve seen convincing and not so convincing screenshots of Chrome OS over the last several months. The good news is the speculation is about to end, and you can try it out yourself. If you have one of the supported devices, that is.

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“For our content creators, we want it to look as good or better than the source’s quality,” said Hunter Walk, a director of product management for YouTube, at GigaOm’s NewTeeVee conference in San Francisco today. High-definition video now makes up about 10 percent of uploads on the site.

Walk revealed a few more interesting tidbits at the conference — mobile uploads are up 2,000 percent this year thanks to a raft of smartphones including the iPhone and an oncoming wave of competitive Android-enabled devices like the Droid.

“Everyone is going to have a camera in their pocket at all times,” Walk said. “Every time a new device rolls out like the iPhone 3GS, we see a new spike in mobile uploads.”

Walk said YouTube is also working on refining its personal recommendations.

“I don’t think the future is many channels. I think the future is just one channel — it’s a personalized experience,” he said. That perfect channel, as he envisions it, would blend the content a user knows they’re looking for with great search quality, and mix it with content they wouldn’t have known they’d be interested in. YouTube is also bringing more professional content providers in with revenue-sharing deals to show movies and short films.

“We’re not a media company — we’re a media catalyst,” Walk said. “What we really try to do is connect content creators with content viewers. We focus on doing a better and better job of serving those two constituencies.”

[Source : VentureBeat.Com]

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