Chromebook Revolution

Chromebook Revolution

Chromebook

Google is targeting Chromebooks specifically at users who want to replace PCs with Windows XP, which is no longer supported by Microsoft. Google and partners are offering discounts to those who want to replace XP PCs with Chromebooks. Google has marked applications that can work offline in its Chrome Apps store and more applications are being added to that list, Sengupta said.

"The world has changed, you're looking at different kind of [computing] needs than XP," Sengupta said.

Beyond software, Chromebooks are also going to be faster to speed up gaming, videoconferencing and other tasks.

Chromebooks with Intel's Core i3 processors, which is at the mid range of chips that go into Windows laptops, will be out this year from Dell and Acer. Google and Intel this week announced laptops from Lenovo, Asus and Toshiba, and expect 20 models to be available by the end of the year.

But cloud-based services and features remain central to Chromebooks, so Google is populating Chromebooks with features that make more Web services accessible. One new addition is Google Now, which uses voice activation to let users get news, make a phone call, schedule an appointment, or map a location. The feature is in Android-based smartphones and tablets, and much like Apple's Siri, uses speech recognition to process requests

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Google is also looking to put the Chrome OS into the mini-desktop Chromebox and also digital-signage products that update automatically.