HTC Developing Google Tablet for Verizon

By Allen Tsai | Thu Aug 19, 2010 10:39 am

HTC is reportedly developing a tablet computer running Google's Chrome operating system, to be released for Verizon around the holiday shopping season.

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According to sources familiar with the matter, the device features a 1280 by 720 pixel touch screen display, a built-in webcam, 2-gigabytes of RAM and 32-gigabytes of storage space. The tablet is powered Google's Chrome OS and designed for cloud-based services, where applications run in a Web browser, rather than being installed on the hard drive.

"Chrome OS is one of the few future operating systems for which there are already millions of applications that work," Sundar Pinchai, Google's vice president of product management, said last month. "You don't need to redesign Gmail for it to work on Chrome."

Taiwan-based HTC, famous for its Android-powered smartphones, is working with the Internet search giant to bring the tablet to Verizon, subsidized, and therefore cheaper than rival Apple's iPad, these people said.

"We're working on tablets together," Lowell McAdam, Verizon's chief executive, said in May. "We're looking at all the things Google has in its archives that we could put on a tablet to make it a great experience."

The device will likely hit store shelves in late November, possibly in time for Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.

In April, Google acquired Agnilux, a mysterious semiconductor start-up run by former Apple employees. At the time, a person familiar with the situation said the Internet giant wanted the company, not for its chip expertise, but to port Chrome onto tablets and televisions.

Posted In: Google (28) | HTC (8) | Verizon (24) | Reports (54) | Chrome (3)

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