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Google Building Fuchsia OS for IoT Devices

Google Building Fuchsia OS for IoT Devices

By Tasneem Akolawala | Updated: 16 August 2016 14:52 IST

Highlights

Google has released the project details on GitHub
The new OS is not based on Linux
It is built to favour IoT devices

In what can be considered as an interesting new development, Google is building a new operating system. The new OS is called Fuchsia, and is probably the first operating system built by Google that is not based on the Linux kernel.

While Google hasn't announced any official details about the Fuchsia operating system, the tech giant released the project on GitHub. The description is at its cryptic best, and reads Pink + Purple = Fuchsia (a new operating system).

After Android Police's investigation of the extensive documentation, it found out that the new OS was largely built to favour IoT and embedded hardware. The rapid increase of products in this space has evidently led Google to build a lightweight OS that was more compatible with modern IoT hardware. However, Fuchsia also appears to be designed so that it can scale to support smartphones and desktop computers as well.

Firstly, Fuchsia uses a new Magenta kernel that is specifically designed to compete with other embedded hardware operating systems like FreeRTOS, and ThreadX. Google has used Dart as the main programming language, and has introduced support for Flutter hinting that it will use Material Design as the UI. The new OS is meant to be open source as well, with full details yet to be finalised it apperas.

Google could be building Fuchsia as a separate OS only for its IoT devices, and probably isn't looking to replace its Linux-based Android and Chrome OS software at all. It is building IoT devices like OnHub and Google Home, and is probably looking to build a lightweight OS to pair seamlessly with these devices. Alternatively, Google could just be testing this operating system, and it could just shelve the project before release. As there is no clarity from Google yet, all of this is mere speculation and should be taken as such.

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