The interwebs were a flutter today with the news of Chrome, the new web browser by Google. The project, outlined in a very cool web comic is designed to provide an easy and efficient way to browse the web and essentially bring even more Google Apps integration to the desktop.

For years now I’ve been asking for a dirt cheap laptop PC that has one functional application - a web browser, nothing more. When the One Laptop Per Child launched, I laughed. A custom Linux distribution with plans to license Windows in the future? What’s the purpose? Classrooms across the world need computers for two reasons - access to knowledge and a simple office suite. With the mind blowing number of web apps today, desktop software is slowly becoming a thing of the past, except for prosumer to professional users who need more powerful editing tools.

Recently Michael Arrington asked his readers to help develop an open source Internet tablet. The first alpha prototype was recently shown and Arrington states that there is a full time team working on the project with significant progress being made. This is definitely a step in the right direction. The $199 price point that they are trying to hit makes the product significantly cheaper than the Amazon Kindle, but I really think $99 is the sweet spot and could easily be hit.

Google Gears integration will allow you to access your Gmail, Calendars, Documents, Reader and more while offline, making the computer useful even when a connection isn’t available. A friend who is an ex-Googler tells me he was using Chrome internally and insists that it’s pretty nice. It will be very exciting to see how Chrome really works and if it will be widely adopted, putting even more pressure on Internet Explorer’s market share. Will we someday see a Google laptop? With the official Google Phone launching soon, I wouldn’t doubt it.

Update: Chrome is now available for download. It is currently Windows only but a Mac version is in the works.