In Google's apparent on-going quest to take over the entire (virtual) world, the latest rumors have the search giant making a major play for the tablet market on the biggest shopping day of the entire year.
If rumors are true, on the one day a year when apparently normal people turn into wild packs of crazed shoppers; a day which has been, fittingly, coined as Black Friday, Google may be planning to make a big splash with the release of a tablet that they hope will give the iPad a run for its money.
The blogosphere has been abuzz about the possibilities all day since the rumor first broke on DownloadSquad yesterday morning. It seems that the controversial partnership between Google and Verizon will make the deal happen with the hardware itself, reportedly, being built by HTC. The tablet will likely feature the Chrome operating system and not the Android as some at once speculated. This is most likely due to the fact that the status Google's Android OS may currently be in limbo as they deal with legal battles arising from an Oracle lawsuit which is but one of Google's current legal troubles.
While there are no confirmations as of yet from Google as to tech specifics, many of Google's features from their growing list of web apps are likely to be included according to early indications from when the project was first announced . The video below shows a conceptual mock up of what we could be seeing shortly.
If the rumors are true, the release date makes great sense to anyone who is retail minded; however, from a PR standpoint, flaunting the Google/Verizon partnership could backfire, at least in certain markets of geekdom where condemnation of both companies regarding their attempted destruction of net neutrality has been quite heavy. Further backlash could come from those who will see the writing on the wall that this new partnership would likely mean that iPad users will be saying so long to Verizon. If the new Google tablet can over come the PR hurdles it will be interesting to watch (from the safe distance of my beloved PC) how the technical aspects unfold to see if Google offers anything of real substance to warrant jumping ship to spite the growing (evil?) empire that has become Google.
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