Windows, macOS, and Linux are the three major desktop OSs in today’s world. However, there could soon be a new contender, with Google stepping up to the plate (via The Verge).
You’ve probably used Google’s operating systems before. Android holds a dominant market share in the smartphone space, and ChromeOS is readily available on a large range of notebooks intended for lightweight tasks. Going forward, it appears Google aims to leverage its experience with these products and merge them into something new under the working title of “Aluminium OS.”
The news comes to us via a job listing, which sought a Senior Product Manager to work on a “new Aluminium, Android-based, operating system.” The hint is in the name—with speculation that the -ium part of Aluminium indicates its relationship to Chromium, the open-source version of Chrome. The listing also indicated that the new OS would have “Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the core.” At this stage, it appears Google will target everything from cheaper entry level hardware to mid-market and premium machines.
It’s early days yet, and there’s no word as to when Google might speak more officiously on the topic of its new operating system. It’s a big move from one of the largest tech companies out there. Even still, it will be a tall order for Google to knock off the stalwart offerings from Microsoft and Apple in any meaningful way. Meanwhile, if you’ve got secret knowledge of the project and they forget to make you sign an NDA, don’t hesitate to reach out!
At least they do use the correct spelling! 😁
To be followed by a more upscale OS called “Platinium”?
Meh, just say Alum, it’s quicker. But pronounce it GIF
GIF or GIF?
It won’t be much different than Android or Chromium, it will be as much a marketing tool that datamines customers, remember google bought Doubleclick which made google the biggest advertiser on the www, I plan on removing google from my life by switching from a smartphone to a cyberdeck running Linux
It’s likely just a version of ChromeOS that’s less browser focused and more “it’s a whole desktop” except it’ll be stuffed to the hilt with every kind of AI assistant even microsoft doesn’t have the gall to inflict on users.
Since it’s Google it’s even more likely it’ll be canceled – before the first beta.
And they won’t immediately tell the department developing it.
In fact it might already be canceled but since they were not told they are still hiring.
I’m not terribly trusting of a corporation that thinks completely preventing sideloading of unsigned software is a good way forwards.
This, you can be sure this will be the iOS-style walled-garden OS that Google’s been working on turning Android into for so long. Google, as an OS developer, is dead to me.
That was never on the table. Don’t trust Google, but i urge you to stay grounded in reality also.
I’m not sure where you have been but it was announced and only when they got massive negative feedback did they say they would allow sideloading again but you will have to go through a ton of clicks.
that’s not an accurate summary of the hackaday articles on the subject, but i understand that the tone of these articles was a little hyperbolic and it’s easy to get the wrong impression like you have
So condescending (and wrong- I wonder whether intentionally)…
And that floated a mobile OS that’s so incompetent that users must wait months, years, or forever for vendors to dribble out a hacked, proprietary version of it for every model of phone, one at a time.
Do you get paid to use it?
Running malware is a privilege. You need to pay for the service.
no, google gets paid when you are used
This time I’ll be staying far away right from the start.
how far? about 37ly?
Nope
Nyet
Nein
No effing way
A new OS, or Linux with some AI webservice slapped on top? [insert a Donnie Darko meme here]
AI at the core of an operating system? I can see some utility, adjusting process priorities or something, but I don’t think that’s what they mean. ChatGPT at the core of an OS? Sounds more like buzzword bingo.
At some point people are going to realise that what they’re calling AI is not a cure-all.
Couple weeks ago under the smart lightbulb HaD article, I predicted that in the future we’ll have speech recognition feeding ChatGPT giving commands to a Python interpreter, running in real time, as the use and programming interface to all our devices.
Google sees a market opening there, because no device is yet capable of running an LLM locally, efficiently, so if they integrate it into the device as a core function and design the whole thing around the point, the users have to buy into the online subscription service to use their devices.
Think of an operating system that doesn’t have programs per se, but a bunch of libraries and an AI that can access those libraries to perform functions – limited of course so it doesn’t break the system.
So on a basic use level, instead of typing in find -type f -name “*.txt” -exec grep “cookie recipe” which is frankly obtuse, you could type or even talk “search plain text files for cookie recipes”, and the exact syntax, or figuring out regular expressions to specify what “cookie recipe” might be, doesn’t matter because an LLM will generate the appropriate function calls.
If it could be made to work well, it would be a godsend – but that’s a big IF – and in the present it would demand that the system is connected to Google’s backend services to run the LLM. That’s the perfect hook for Google.
sounds like you have a strong elevator pitch for the job opening. once you sell your soul to work there though you won’t have much need for whatever salary they pay you, (un?)fortunately.
Oh yes, if I were a software engineer, I would be lining up at Google’s door for the job.
The only problem being, if it actually works, everyone else would start doing the same and suddenly you can’t escape the hell you’ve created. Meanwhile, the open source community would keep on bickering with each other about the API standards for a system tray icon and fail to produce a viable alternative.
linux community needs to be capitalizing on the situation, not whining about wayland or whatever. this is their opportunity to shine, and they are blowing it.
Also, mark my words: this will happen. Once it becomes technically possible and halfway usable, the principle will be adopted in all major operating systems before it can be implemented locally and you will be permanently tethered to the mothership. Android, Windows, iOS, whatever… cutting off your internet connection would leave you with a seriously gimped system that you don’t know how to operate.
This is following the common principle of progress and change: “Things will get worse before they get better.”
The problem is that non-hackers almost never do one off tasks like that. I don’t have any text files with recipes, I have Google Keep, which has search built in. Anything I would do with a bash pipeline, is probably already built into some app I already have.
It’s only about twice a year that I need to programmatically manipulate text like that, and I usually ask AI because I can’t be bothered to continually study awk syntax for the one or two times I’ll need it.
It might be very different for people in specific industry who do a lot more one off computing though!
“Find the STL file for the cookie mold I made last christmas, and email it to my friend. Tell them Aunt Lilly said hi, and to come visit me on Friday.”
Perhaps, but the same principle applies to any data. “Find a photo of Grandma and put it on my desktop”.
After all, isn’t this what we want? Just tell the computer to do something and the computer would figure out how without bothering you with the details. That’s the ultimate promise of AI.
So a Linux fork, with a custom desktop environment that will contain privacy invasive and advertisement features that you can’t turn off. Am I describing that correctly or did I miss a nuance somewhere?
Sounds about correct to me. Nuance? Google? Nah…
“…when Google might speak more officiously …”
Great. So they’ve stopped not being evil, and now they’re going to be officious too?
How many levels are there to this dystopic hell?
yeah, I think that is not a typo :D
Simply a wrong choice.
Linux is not a major operating system. lmfao
Right, it’s not. It’s the world’s most bloated terminal program. :)
Aha, and how do you define operating system?
Given the lower case acronym, there’s an extremely high chance that the device you used to type that comment on was running a Linux distribution :)
Linux is just a kernel, not full OS. But major OS that is using Linux is Android.
The Linux kernel is the most used kernel in the world. Something like 96% of internet architecture (servers, routers, etc) runs on the Linux kernel. Around 70% of smartphones run Android which is Linux based. It is only the desktop market where Linux is the minority (somewhere between 3% and 6%). So, depending on how you define OS, if you consider just which kernel it runs on or if you include the packaged window manager and applications, would determine if Linux is a major OS or not.
Another google “OS”? What happened to that last convergence one (I can’t even remember what it was called and can’t care enough to try to look it up).
Feels a lot like that old Bullwinkle bit:
Google: “Hey, Rocky! Watch me pull an OS out of my ass!”
Rocky: “Again?”
Google: “Nothing up my sleeve… and Presto!”
Google : “No doubt about it, I’ve got to get another ass…”
My first instinct was to think, ah, they are also going to then ship hardware units with TPUs, so you can run their LLMs locally, but of course that would mean cutting the umbilical cord – and they wouldn’t know what you are doing.
People are like “there is too much Linux distributions, it’s confusing” but “Android, KaiOS, ChromoeOS and now Aluminium – all fine, good to have diversity, nothing here to complain”.
I will try to stay away from this but people will embrace it probably prizing how AI and cloud improved their experience of browsing social media and sending emails.
the people who would complain aren’t touching those systems with a 10 foot pole.
To be fair, Android is merely using Linux as a bootloader/device driver.
In a similar fashion to how Windows 95 had used DOS..
“Android” itself is a framework, comparable to .NET framework on Windows.
And likewise, like a .NET application on Windows isn’t really a “Windows” application, an Android application isn’t an typical Linux application, either.
To Android, Linux is exchangeable, sacrificable. It’s just a foundation that doesn’t cost any money.
If it’s successful, it’ll be a pretty minor change coming from either Android or ChromeOS. It has to be because Google’s monopoly position is more important to it than anything else, which relies on inertia more than innovation.
But Google has in the past quietly announced major reworkings on Android (such as switching away from the Linux kernel) that have not panned out (yet) so i wouldn’t be surprised if this is a dead end. Fundamentally, Android compatibility layer on top of ChromeOS already checks most of the boxes for them, i think.
so google saw microsoft do some stupid shit with windows 11 and said “hold my beer”.
they probably both decided to do the stupid shit while attending the same party
If their AI summary search engine results were even a little bit reliable this could be interesting. Maybe. Right now? Not a chance.
Meh… it’s just gonna be a Google branded “agentic AI” OS on top of locked down qcom Snapdragon laptops and mini PCs, to push the “premium” facade. I just fail to see how/why people would wanna blow an extra $1000 for that when they’d rather spend HALF that estd total for their droid upgrades and then just go desktop mode from those? As if MS is having a fine time with their current WoA Snapdragon X line’s situation lol? qcom need to stop clowning, just focus on proper Linux ARM support and go for quicker mass adoption instead.
serenity is better and faster
Three problems:
1. Security: Embedding LLM-based AI in the OS when prompt injection hacks are unsolvable now and perhaps forever, would be a substantial security problem.
2. Bugs: Controlling procedures with models that can ‘hallucinate’ will cause bugs. LLMs are probabilistic and not deterministic so replicating and eliminating those bugs will be a problem.
3. OS vender lock in: Tying your OS to a vendor’s server-side LLM will increase the difficulty of using non-vendor products and services. The tech bros are pouring massive amounts of money into LLM development. They need to find ways to recoup their investments. Locking people into computing subscription services is one way to do that. That’s where Microsoft is going and it looks like that is where Google is going as well. No thanks. I’m not going there.
I’m predicting that the first serious exploit for the new OS will be called Thermite and it will be implemented in Rust.
Nothing Android or iOS based is a viable operating system.
Am I missing something here?! There’s nothing in this article or the Verge article to make me think this is anything but marketing hype — some clown says “let’s call the new mobile OS something something AI” and everyone thinks hyperintelligent phones.
WIithout more information “AI at its core” is a completely meaningless phrase – depending on who you talk to, machine learning is a form of AI, bayesian analysis is a form of AI — running an LLM locally “at the OS level” is just not something that’s done, especially on lower cost mobile hardware.
I sense just more hot air being pumped into the ballon.
Google aren’t stealing enough of peoples private lives with Android, so they are going for the full OS take over. They can then obfuscate their data theft.
So what happened to Fuchsia (https://fuchsia.dev/)? That was supposed to be their Android Killer last time but like 3 Nest products of theirs use it. How is this any different?
I’d rather run windows vista than have google malware on my desktop.
Let me guess, AI-written OS that will run mandatory AI data mining AND force me to pay for it.
Makes me think it should focus on other AIs and not humans.
Not touching it with a mile long pole, not even on a free device. Google is among the less trustworthy companies out there, be it on technical reasons (closed ecosystems, reliance on cloud), or ethical (user data selling). The way they easily terminate users channels and accounts on YouTube following bogus copyright claims, indicates they don’t care at all about their users.
it’s like fuschia all over again…
AI is not ready.
People asking their computer what to do and following the advice they get from AI is lunacy.
Google: “all your base are belong to us”