There are upsides to having everything on the internet. There is of course
portability. You can access everything in one location from anywhere in the
world. This is handy even in your own home where you have to configure and
maintain a home network and then you may forget which version on which
computer is most recent. If you are on business and you cross borders then
you do not need to worry about border guards seizing your computer with all
of your data or losing it. If you lose your computer then you can use
anybody's to get your data. Finally it means that you can be up and running
in less time if your OS is smaller. This all adds up. I am not saying it is
the answer to everyone's problems, but it is always good to have options.

Google seem to have taken cloud computing to the extreme, to the point
where an internet connection is now *required* to get your work done.

You might also want to look at the fine print to see what data mining they
do with *your* files stored on their systems...

I saw some movies on Youtube about Google Chrome OS and I was very impressed.
I downloaded the current version of Google Chrome OS via Bittorrent
(Transmission) and I tested it. It can be booted up as a live CD. I was surprise
that it borrowed a lot from OpenSUSE, including Yast. ADSL PPPoE connection can
be configured via Yast only if the system is installed on the hard drive,
otherwise it cannot install the Smpppd package. So, when I tried to configure
ADSL PPPoE i got the same error message when running OpenSUSE from the live CD:
cannot install smpppd , or something like this.
So, an OS made solely for the Internet could not access the Internet.
Still, I wish good luck and success to the Google team. Sorry, their OS might
be good but it has no advantage at all over Ubuntu.

The Chrome Operating System won't be available for many months so it's a bit
premature to come to any firm conclusions about it. It is not linux, though
might adapt and use the linux Kernel, much as Google has done with the
Android O/S.

The Chrome browser is a different piece of software and Google has not said
it was to be discontinued.

I believe that it uses the Linux kernel and that makes it Linux since that
is all that Linux is, a kernel. Chrome OS is an operating system just in the
same way that Ubuntu is and both use the Linux kernel. I believe that Ubuntu
actually assisted Google in the endeavour. What makes ChromeOS different is
that it will be stripped down and have its own window manager that can only
access the web.

See:
googleblog.blogspot.com/.../...ogle-chrome-os.html

You can get a working version of Chrome OS Flow here:
maketecheasier.com/.../29

Just download and follow the instructions.

You are better off for a netbook with that version of Ubuntu for net books.

Yes, but you can always keep ChromeOS on a small USB key for those times
when you just want to do something on the net quickly. You don't even need
to be able to make it persistent since everything is on the net. I am not
suggesting that it is for everybody, but I will give it a try. Note:
ChromeOS is not intended to be for download and installation. It is meant to
come pre-installed on netbooks and eventually other devices as ChromeOS and
Android merge. You cna find copies of Chrome and Chromium OS in several
places, though.