Google has announced the release of it’s long-rumored OS. Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks that should be be available for consumers in the second half of 2010.

Expected to run on both x86 as well as ARM chips, the OS software architecture is simple according to Google — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using already available web technologies. Since these apps run within a browser, they will operate on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

As expected, Google confirmed Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android, it’s mobile OS. Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems.