Tech Talk: Is Google’s Fuchsia The Next Android?

Android, for phones and tablets, and Chrome OS, for laptops, are the active operating systems that Google currently offers. Both are based on Linux and have been used to power consumer devices for years, with Android first released on a phone in 2008 and Chrome OS released in 2011 after initially being announced in 2009. Now Google is working on another operating system called Fuchsia. It’s open source, with the code available in GitHub for any developers that want to try it out. It’s also based on an entirely different set of code from both Android and Chrome OS.

The interesting promise for Fuchsia is that it is being designed to run on any device. So the same or similar operating system could be running on a PC, laptop, tablet, phone, watch, or even something less powerful. The key benefit of having the same system on multiple devices is allowing them to communicate with each other more effectively to offer a consistent and unified experience for consumers.

The main driving force behind the development of Fuchsia may well be the Internet of Things. Connected home devices are hugely varied in terms of their processing power, from a simple light bulb to a full entertainment system or robotic device. Google, along with its major competitors, wants control over the protocols for how those devices will communicate with each other and Fuchsia could be a way to achieve that. The kernel of Fuchsia was originally designed for use in very low-powered devices and the Google developers assigned to the project are experts in that field. Google do already have an operating system in that arena, called Brillo, but Fuchsia far is more ambitious in it’s scope and potential.

So could Fuchsia become a replacement for Android? It’s certainly possible if the project gathers momentum and starts to become a viable consumer product, but there is really no way of knowing right now as these are the still the very early days of Fuchsia. Google are known for starting new projects as experiments and being relatively public about them. They then evaluate the projects over time for the potential benefits. Many Google projects have even become popular consumer products and services, only to be dropped later. It is a promising proposition to have one operating system across the widest possible range of devices, but it will be sometime before it becomes clear whether Fuchsia will be that system.

Source: AH - Android Headlines
Author: Alastair Arthur

Tech Talk: Google’s Fuchsia OS Isn’t Linux Based

Google recently unveiled a new operating system project called Fuchsia, described on GitHub as “Pink + Purple = Fuchsia (a new Operating System).” Firstly, it might be confusing and surprising to think about the fact that Google are developing a new operating system, and secondly, it might be even more confusing to learn that Fuchsia is not based on Linux. Linux has become one of the world’s most important platforms and all of Google’s other operating system platforms are based on Linux. Fuchsia is something of a departure. The new operating system may be trialed on a device based around either an ARM, Intel, or virtual computer and the team are working on porting it to the Raspberry Pi in order to see how well it performed in very limited hardware. The new operating system runs on a newly developed Magenta kernel, which itself is based on the Little Kernel project. In other words, the platform is looking like it will be developed entirely in-house at Google. It’s too soon to say if it will be a “better” platform than Linux, or more efficient.

Fuchsia uses Google’s own Dart language and is being designed for “modern phones and modern personal computers.” That sounds like the Android platform, which Google has already successfully reworked for other types of platform (such as Android Auto, Android TV and Android Wear) and is based on Linux. However, Fuchsia can also be run on embedded devices, such as the billions we are expecting to join the internet as part of the Internet of Things revolution that’s right around the corner. This sounds like Google’s Brillo platform, which is essentially “Android Lite” and could at a stretch be included in the list of sub-Android operating systems above. Are Google planning on reinventing the Android platform into Fuchsia? Or are they planning on combining Android and Chrome into Fuchsia?

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, and let’s first take a deeper look into Fuchsia. Fuchsia is more than a simple low powered operating system designed for simple devices. It has mature operating system functionality including advanced graphics, 64-bit processing support and, importantly, a capability-based security system. The fact that Fuchsia has these features and isn’t based on Linux, a constantly developed, open source platform that has been adopted the world over, is interesting. It also points out that Google has perhaps realized that Android cannot be the platform for absolutely everything, even though the plethora of Android-based platforms might suggest otherwise. There are good reasons why Android is central to Google’s computing strategy – over a billion reasons residing in the Google Play Store as it happens. It is no surprise that whilst Google is committed to keeping the Android and Chrome OS platforms separate, it is keen to integrate certain Android features on the Chrome platform and the Play Store was one of them. This is likely something that Google will look to replicate with Fuchsia in the future.

Microsoft is a business that has changed its mobile platform ambitions in the last couple of years. In 2014, Microsoft pumped time, effort and money into a number of mobile operating systems from Windows CE to PocketPC to Windows Phone before finally deciding that it wasn’t able to compete from a platform perspective, and switched its focus to providing great quality applications and services that could run on whatever computer hardware and platform the customer was using. That’s why we can use Microsoft Office 365 on anything from an iPhone to an Android tablet to a Chromebook to a Windows 10 desktop. Google have a similar approach from some perspectives: yes they have saturated the smartphone market with Android, but their revenue generation is predominantly from advertising revenue, which relies on the Google services. Android is a means of delivering these services – especially search – to customers such that the company can sell this information. It doesn’t matter if a customer is using a Windows 10 laptop, Macbook, or Chromebook to search Google, the information derived is still worth something to Google. Fuchsia drops right into this line of thinking as another means of delivering the Google services to customers.

One of the golden rules of computing is that one doesn’t pick the best platform based on hardware specifications, memory, chassis color or charging port, but instead one should pick the best platform to run whatever applications that are needed. To look back at the console wars between Microsoft and Sony, it doesn’t matter if the Xbox is a technically superior product if one wants to play a Sony-exclusive title, such as Gran Turismo – you need to use the Sony hardware. Google’s Fuchsia project may well be about bringing a “better platform” to a certain type of device to allow customers to access Google’s services. In order to do this, Google will need to ensure that Fuchsia is compatible with everything people love and use about Android and Chrome OS. That may simply mean ensuring that third party applications can run on the new operating system. In the short term it could mean a form of emulation and in the longer term it might mean developers building a universal application, similar in some respects to Microsoft’s plans with Windows 10.

It is too soon to say how the Fuchsia platform will evolve and when we might see devices running the software, or how it will compete or complement the existing Android and Chrome OS platforms. Details about Fuchsia are still limited. The new operating system might be a core part of Google’s ultimate long-term plan to resolve the fragmentation and update issues inherent with Android by incorporating a similar update scheme as we see with Microsoft’s Windows operating system: Fuchsia could be backwards compatible with the applications and services customers the world over have come to love with their Android devices, but running over a different technology. In 2016, it seems difficult to believe that Fuchsia could simply take over from Android, but in 2006 it was difficult to believe that the Android platform would take over from Nokia’s Symbian smartphone platform.

Source: AH - Android Headlines
Author: David Steele

Google Fuchsia OS: What is it and what does it power?

Google is developing an entirely new operating system.

But here's the thing: it's unclear at the moment what this operating system is for, including what devices it might power. Here's everything we know so far about the project, which is currently going by the name Fuchsia. Keep checking back, however, as we plan to update this piece over time with the latest reports, rumours, leaked information, and of course, any and all confirmations.

Google Fuchsia: What is it?

Fuchsia is an evolving pile of code. You can find it on the search giant's code depository and on GitHub. The code is supposedly the early beginnings of an entirely new operating system, though Google has yet to confirm those details. Interestingly, it's not based on Linux Kernel - the core underpinnings of both Android (Google's mobile OS) and Chrome OS (Google's desktop and laptop OS).

Google Fuchsia: What devices might it power?

The current school of thought is that Fuchsia is a new OS that could unify Chrome OS and Android into a single operating system (something that's been heavily speculated since 2015. Reports have claimed that OS will release in 2017. That said, Google's own documentation describes the software as targeting "modern phones and modern personal computers" with "fast processors" and "non-trivial amounts of RAM."

If Fuchsia is not a unifying OS, it could be used to power Internet of Things (IoT) devices, such as Google's OnHub router (pictured above).

Google Fuchsia: Why could it be an IoT OS?

Fuchsia is built on Magenta. It's a "medium-sized microkernel" based on a project called LittleKernel, which is meant for embedded systems, such as a device that has a specific purpose but doesn't require a whole OS, like a router or watch. Also, the two developers listed on Fuchsia's GitHub page - a senior software engineer at Google and  a former engineer on Android TV and Nexus Q -  are well-known experts in embedded systems.

Furthermore, Google's documentation notes Magenta supports user modes, graphics rendering, and a "capability-based security model". Although all this points to Fuchsia being an OS for Wi-Fi connected gadgets, it's worth bringing up that Google already has an IoT platform called Brillo.

Google Fuchsia: Will it replace Android?

Possibly. Android is riddled with problems that Google has yet to fix. First, there's fragmentation caused by hundreds of different devices from dozens of manufacturers using different, tweaked versions of Android rather than the latest, pure version. Second, there's an update problem. Google has an annual release schedule for Android updates, but it takes about four years for an update to fully flood the ecosystem.

Although many of these problems are related to Android being open source - which means Google gives it to OEMs and carriers and lets them tinker with it and load it onto random hardware, resulting in fragmentation, as Google can't then decide to push Android direct to these devices if any modifications and tinkering has been done - another problem is that Android is based on Linux.

Linux is not only old but is dogged by many legal issues - and subsequent licensing fees from Android hardware OEMs eat away at profit margins. The Linux kernel was also not originally designed for smartphones and IoT devices, and yet the kernel's been completely tweaked and loaded onto those devices, creating a prime environment for bugs and vulnerabilities to grow.

A new operating system and platform would solve all these issues. It wouldn't be shackled by pricey patent licensing deals. It would be safer, built, and optimised for today. It could also be modular and truly unified, meaning it would work across many devices. Google could even begin licensing it to hardware developers, solving those fragmentation and update problems.

Google Fuchsia: What else could it be?

Hacker News users have suggested Fuchsia could be designed for augmented reality interfaces.

Google Fuchsia: Are there any other clues?

Nope. But the top of Fuchsia's GitHub page does say "Pink + Purple == Fuchsia (a new Operating System)".

Google Fuchsia: Why is the code public?

As for why the project/code is out in the public and thus was able to be discovered in such a low-key manner, Brian Swetland, one of Fuchsia's listed developers, reportedly explained: "The decision was made to build it open source, so might as well start there from the beginning."

Swetland also revealed Fuchsia is booting reasonably well on small-form factor Intel PCs and an Acer Switch Alpha 12 laptop.

Want to know more?

Check Pocket-lint's Google hub for related news.


Source: Pocket-lint
Author: Elyse Betters

Google Fuchsia eyes non-Linux things

Embedded is the web's next frontier

Google’s latest operating system project, Fuchsia, may be largely a mystery, but it reinforces a truth that the platforms vendors are having, grudgingly, to acknowledge: one operating system does not fit all. For a company which has put so much effort into making Android an OS for all purposes, Google has a remarkable number of potentially conflicting platforms, now including Chrome OS, Brillo and Fuchsia.

Even though it looks like an experimental OS for embedded devices, Fuchsia was described by its own Google team as being designed for “modern phones and modern personal computers”, which might be just how Android and Chrome OS would describe themselves too. So is Google hedging its bets, extending Android to cars, homes and wearables while developing alternatives just in case? Or is there a more coordinated master plan at work?

The failure of one-size-fits-all OSs

Many companies, of course, develop parallel systems, creating dilemmas for the marketing departments – especially companies with a culture of innovation and semi-open source activity like Google (though the same parallelism used to characterize the far more controlled Samsung too). But Google’s multi-headed OS hydra may well have a greater commercial logic behind it. If it can create a fully optimized platform for each key emerging area of connected experience, and then marry them all together at the applications layer with the ubiquitous Android, it might achieve what Unix, Linux and Java promised, but failed to deliver all these years.

All those, not to mention the proprietary unified OS attempts like successive generations of Windows, ran up against the huge challenges of extending a single OS across very different hardware systems, user and developer communities, and user experiences. The fragmentation becomes even worse with the rise of a new host of connected devices, and companies which missed out on the mobile market because of Android’s dominance have been eagerly grasping the opportunity to devise a fully optimized software environment for virtual reality headsets, for smart clothing, for industrial robots, for drones, for car dashboards, for connected light switches.

Can all these target devices, and many more, with their very varied screens, interfaces and applications, really be served by one OS? No, say the firms whom Android pushed aside, such as Samsung with Tizen and Huawei with LiteOS. Google increasingly seems to be saying no too, despite the proliferation of new Android strands for specific device types.

Chrome OS enables devices – initially lightweight laptops but now streaming gadgets like Chromecast and others – which are inherently cloud-connected, while Android, in its commercial implementations, is optimal with downloads and offline/online.

Then there is Brillo for embedded, ultra-low power devices – it is used in the Google Wi-Fi OnHub while its associated application layer framework, Weave, is used by the Nest home devices subsidiary, along with the Thread connectivity protocol – and access to Android apps and services.

This is the key – different OSs, but with various levels of integration with the huge Android base of developers and applications. Brillo is essentially a stripped-down version of Android, while Chrome OS is entirely separate, based on the Chromium code base which is increasingly strategic to Google (it also underpins the browser and the CoreOS containers). But Chrome OS has also become increasingly entwined with Android, enabling Chromebook users to harness those apps and offline services too.

Fuchsia’s early details

The details of Fuchsia are few and far between at this early stage, but it appears to be an ambitious project, with one core component drawing a lot of attention – it won’t be using the Linux kernel at all. It appeared on GitHub with just the description "Pink + Purple = Fuchsia (a new Operating System)". It can be trialled on an ARM or Intel computer or a virtual machine, and its next port is said to be to a Raspberry Pi to test its low power credentials further. It uses Google’s own Dart programming language.

While a non-Linux OS might be commonplace for very low end embedded devices, Fuchsia is more than a simple RTOS (real time OS), since it has "grown-up" capabilities such as advanced graphics and 64-bit support and a capability-based security model. This points to an attempt to create a Linux-free OS and potentially create a whole new approach to open OS development (and IPR) a quarter-century after Linus Torvalds made his breakthrough.

Fuchsia will run on the newly developed Magenta kernel (based on the Little Kernel project), instead of the Linux kernel that forms the heart of all Linux distros – including Android and Chromium. As such, Google’s new OS looks like it will be entirely homegrown.

The GitHub repository notes “LK is a kernel designed for small systems typically used in embedded applications. On the other hand, Magenta targets modern phones and modern personal computers with fast processors, non-trivial amounts of RAM, with arbitrary peripherals doing open-ended computation.”

Whether that makes it more efficient than the Linux kernel remains to be seen – after all, that codebase has existed for quite a long time now, but has been the source of near constant development from the open source community. Those open source advocates are likely going to be quite uncomfortable with a Googlespawned OS, but for Alphabet itself, there might be some strategic advantages to the homebrew platform.

This would most likely be targeted, in its commercial stages, to compete with the rising number of specialized lightweight systems which sit somewhere between a full platform and a real time OS (RTOS) like VxWorks. The latter’s developer, Intel unit Wind River, is playing in this space, as is ARM with mBED OS, and up the stack a little, there are numerous vendor efforts like Tizen, and open source alternatives.

The Magenta kernel has been designed to compete at the RTOS end, against the likes of FreeRTOS and ThreadX, which are operating systems designed for devices that are incredibly hardwareconstrained – and thus more likely to be found in remote IoT deployments. These embedded devices often use non-Linux kernels, and so that realm won’t be too unnerved by Google’s proposition.

How far will Fuchsia cannibalize Android, or ride on it?

But Magenta is also being built to scale up to far more powerful compute platforms such as phones and PCs, so if it succeeds there in future, Google will have to make difficult decisions about the risks of moving away from Linux; the level to which Magenta would be allowed to cannibalize Android; and how the two OSs could be converged. It seems impossible that the company would throw away the ingrained advantage that its Android base brings it, whether in embedded devices or new generation smartphones.

Fuchsia could conceivably be the basis of something like Android 7.0, or rather the open source AOSP component that underlines the OS itself, but it is more likely that Google will work on enabling Fuchsia developers and users to have Android compatibility where required.

But the sheer amount of work and risk to replace Android – even if Fuchsia proves more optimal for upcoming user experiences; even if the replacement takes place over many years – is daunting. Far better to keep Fuchsia focused on powering embedded or hardware- constrained devices at the network edge, and reworking Android as radically as necessary to enable it to leave iOS in the dust when mobile users start to embrace new experiences driven by hyper-contextual awareness, AI-driven search and query, voice and image recognition, and virtual/augmented reality.

The old OSs and tools will struggle to keep pace with all that, and Google may be recognizing this – in far better time than Microsoft did with Windows as the web and then the mobile eras dawned. But on phones and PCs, it is already introducing software which will revolutionize Android and Chrome without the need for a brand new platform.

Project Tango has had a rocky start, but promises augmented reality experiences which will become as natural to the user as the search box and the maps tools are today. And as part of the Chromium project, Google is working on bringing VR support to its Chrome browser, a move which could help transform the web and mobile experience.

According to Google’s Francois Beaufort, the Chrome Beta and Chrome Dev channels have a setting that “allows users to browse the web while using Cardboard or Daydream-ready viewers”. Daydream is the VR platform which Google unveiled at its I/O conference this year, while Cardboard is its low cost technology for turning a handset into a VR viewer.

These are the projects which will change the rules in the next phase of mobile and IoT usage, and will help to tie users and OEMs into Android, reluctantly or not. It seems impossible that Google would sabotage all that with yet another PC/phone OS, while in the embedded world, it may have a chance to burrow far more deeply into the IoT and all its many devices than it can with Android.

The Fuchsia team

A selection of the leaders of the Fuchsia development indicates the broad operating system heritage, spanning more than two decades and several iconic platforms, which is being tapped for Google’s latest adventure:

• Travis Geiselbrecht: worked on the failed but hugely influential BeOS from the 1990s as well as iOS and Danger’s Hiptop product, which was later acquired by Microsoft.
• Brian Swetland: also worked on BeOS and Hiptop, but has spent many years on the Android core too.
• Chris McKillop: yet another Hiptop alumnus and a member of the original iPhone team. He was also an original member of a team which created webOS – later owned by Palm and then Hewlett-Packard – and contributed to the QNX automotive OS which was acquired by BlackBerry.
• Adam Barth: a long-serving member of Google’s Chrome team who also built his own OS, called Tau. Most recently, he has helped develop Google’s Flutter tool which aims to make it easier to write software to run on both Android and iOS.

Copyright © 2016, Wireless Watch

Wireless Watch is published by Rethink Research, a London-based IT publishing and consulting firm. This weekly newsletter delivers in-depth analysis and market research of mobile and wireless for business. Subscription details are here.

Source: The Register UK
Author: Wireless Watch

Why On Earth Is Google Building A New Operating System From Scratch?

Its latest operating system experiment throws out decades of software history in pursuit of smaller-scale devices.

Last week, a group of Googlers did something strange: They quietly revealed a new operating system that theoretically competes with Google's own Android OS.

Dubbed Fuchsia, the open-source OS-in-progress could run on everything from lightweight, single-purpose devices (think ATMs and GPS units) all the way up to desktop computers. But unlike Android, Fuchsia isn't based on Linux, nor is it derived from any of the other software that underpins nearly all personal computing and communications today. Instead, it's an attempt to start from scratch.

Google has yet to make any big announcements about how it might use Fuchsia, which is still in early development and could be nothing more than an experiment. Still, Google has plenty of reasons to hit reset on decades of software history.

CRUSTY KERNELS

Here's something you might not realize about your phones, tablets, and laptops: For the most part, they're adaptations of software "kernels" that are quite old. Android uses the Linux kernel, which began development in 1991. Mac OS X, iOS, and other Apple platforms are based on Unix, which originated at AT&T's Bell Labs in 1969. Windows computers are based on the Windows NT kernel, which dates back to 1993.

The purpose of a kernel is to manage the deepest levels of an operating system. It handles requests from hardware devices such as keyboards, schedules tasks, and manages files and memory. In doing so, it abstracts the intricacies of the operating system, which is helpful, say, for allowing an app to print without its developers having to know anything about specific printer models.

The resilience of old kernels like Unix, Linux, and Windows NT may seem paradoxical for an industry obsessed with the state of the art, but industry analyst Horace Dediu argues that that at its lowest levels, computing is fundamentally the same as it was a few decades ago. For instance, today's Windows computers use chips that are direct descendants of the Intel processor in the first IBM PC. In that sense, the kernel is just a commodity.

"We are still using exactly the same architecture, we're using exactly the same notions of computing—registers, gates, transistors—so for that reason, there's no need to make a better kernel," Dediu says. "Kernels have been figured out."

Or so we thought. These days we're packing sensors and computing power into more things, turning ordinary homes, for instance, into smart ones, and generally making everything more connected (Internet of Things, in industry jargon). The thinking behind Fuchsia may be that aging kernels such as Linux are inadequate for this new wave of devices. As such, its creators are imagining a new one for modern times. (The kernel itself is called Magenta, which is based on another recent Google experiment called LittleKernel.)

Zach Supalla, whose company Particle offers hardware kits and developer tools for the Internet of Things, notes that Linux poses a couple of problems for these small-scale computing devices.

A general-purpose operating system like Linux can also be less secure for Internet of Things applications.

For one thing, Linux is large for this type of application. Even though the Linux kernel is modular, allowing developers to strip away unnecessary parts, it still ends up occupying megabytes' worth of space. That means it's harder to cram the Linux kernel onto cheap microcontrollers, which in turn necessitates processors that are much larger, pricier, and more power-hungry.

"You haven't jumped the gap into this whole other supply chain of stuff that's manufactured at much higher qualities, and for much, much cheaper," Supalla says.

The other problem is that Linux isn't "real-time." Unlike the embedded operating systems found in ATMs, medical products, and other single-purpose devices, Linux uses a schedule to handle a multitude of tasks. While this can maximize performance in general-purpose computers, it causes problems for devices that require precise timing, like 3D printers or the many motorized controls inside automobiles.

"If you want to make sure that this thing fires at exactly the right microsecond, you don't really want to have a process in there deciding what runs when," Supalla says.

A general-purpose operating system like Linux can also be less secure for Internet of Things applications, Supalla says. There's more code, which means more potential security loopholes that need to be addressed or locked down through firewalls and virtual private networks.

"One of the values of running a [real-time operating system] or embedded system is, there's nothing to lock down," Supalla says. "It's not running a bunch of stuff you have to be concerned about. It isn't running anything at all except the software that you write."

Supalla speculates that Fuchsia is an attempt to get the best of both worlds between Linux—which is still better at allowing apps and hardware to communicate through the operating system—and today's embedded systems, such as FreeRTOS and ThreadX.

"They'd probably like to have something that has the level of abstraction of a Linux, but the performance, the small size, and the real-time nature of an RTOS," Supalla says. "That would be a very valuable thing for one to have, and I think in theory it can be done. It's just never been done before."

SCALING UPWARD

If Fuschia only targeted small-scale devices, it might not be that noteworthy. But Fuchsia's developers have broader ambitions in mind, claiming that the operating system can scale to smartphones and desktop computers. In theory, that would make Fuchsia a direct alternative to Google's Android and Chrome OS.

What's the motivation? According to Supalla, it's possible that starting from scratch would allow for a more efficient operating system, which in turn could power more efficient servers—something Google is always interested in. He also notes that desktop compatibility could help with simulating a large number of smaller devices running at once, to ensure they work at scale.

"It's much easier to have a thousand servers that you spin up, that are each running a thousand copies of the software application at the same time, than it is to go get a million chips and boot them all up, so it's better for testing," Supalla says.

Fuchsia's developers say they'll document and announce the operating system eventually.

Dediu has a different theory: A fresh operating system could be free of the intellectual property licensing issues that have hounded Google with Android. "Because it's a clean-sheet design, it doesn't have any IP that anybody else is going to line up for," he says. "That might be a reasonable assumption, because Linux does have some hairy IP issues."

Keep in mind this could all be academic. Fuchsia's developers say they'll fully document and announce the operating system eventually, but that could be a long way off, and it's unclear whether Google will throw any weight behind the effort. The Android ecosystem is already huge (and is starting to merge with Chromebooks). Meanwhile, Google is also scaling a version of Android down to Internet of Things devices with an embedded variant called Brillo—downsides of Linux be damned—and it's shaping up to be a full-blown platform, not just a bare-bones operating system.

Then again, Unix got its start as a volunteer project with no organizational recognition from Bell Labs, and Linux Torvalds started working on Linux as a hobby. Maybe in a few decades we'll be talking about Fuchsia's unlikely origins within the Googleplex.

Source: Fast Company

Author: Jared Newman

Google's Fuchsia operating system runs on virtually anything

The open source software appears to be just an experiment, but could lead to bigger things.

Google is no stranger to creating whole platforms when it needs them, but its latest project might be something special. It's working on Fuchsia, an open source operating system that's designed to scale all the way from Internet of Things devices through to phones and even PCs. Its kernel includes 'grown up' OS features like user modes and a capability-based security model, Android Police notes, and it supports both advanced graphics as well ARM and 64-bit Intel-based PCs. To no one' surprise, it's using Google's own Dart programming language at its heart.

You can run Fuchsia either on a computer or a virtual machine if you'd like to give the early code a try, and Google's Travis Geiselbrecht adds that you'll soon see it running on the Raspberry Pi 3.

We've asked Google if it can shed some light on Fuchsia, and we'll let you know if it has something to say. Whatever its answer, there's no guarantee that this will be the next Android, Brillo or Chrome OS. Right now, it comes across as an experiment that could lay the groundwork for bigger efforts. Given that the company is branching out into making smart household gadgets like Google Home, though, Fuchsia might make sense. It could be the platform that Google uses when it wants more flexibility and power than a platform like Brillo can offer, but doesn't need the deep feature set (and resulting overhead) of something like Android.


Source: Engadget
Via: Android Police
Author: Jon Fingas, @jonfingas