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HP Leaks Plans For Its First Google-Powered Chromebook

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HP Chromebook
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HP will be launching its first Chromebook in February, according to a leaked document found on the HP website.

Chromebooks are Google's name for laptops that run its stripped-down, Web-friendly Chrome operating system.

The document is no longer on the site but it revealed pretty detailed plans and specs for a device called the HP Pavilion Chromebook.

It will have a 1.1GHz Celeron processor, 2GB of RAM, a 16GB solid-state drive, and a 14-inch, 1366x768 display, reports Nathan Ingraham on The Verge.

That means the Chromebook will have a bigger display than the ones available from Lenovo, Samsung, and Acer, Ingraham says. The others have 11.6-inch displays. Other than that, specs seem pretty similar.

HP is officially offering no comment on the device yet but the document also noted an "ad embargo date" of February 17. So looks like we can expect to hear more about the device then.

Chromebooks are built around Google's free operating system, Chrome OS, which is based on Linux and competes with Microsoft Windows.

HP's apparent tie-up with Google is a blow to Microsoft. It's been a particularly hard time for the software giant in its relationships with PC makers. For instance, on Sunday, Acer president Jim Wong said that Chromebooks were selling better than Windows 8 PCs, Bloomberg reported.

A week earlier, HP's PC boss, Todd Bradley, also said that Windows 8 was off to a slower-than-expected start.

A big factor with partners' discontent is Microsoft's move to offer its own Surface Windows 8 tablet and PCs, in direct competition with HP and other PC makers.

In November, Hewlett-Packard ponied up $500,000 to became a Platinum member of the Linux Foundation, the organization responsible for Linux and other open-source software projects. As we reported at the time, this gave HP a big voice with one of Microsoft's biggest competitors. The foundation has operating system projects for servers, PCs, and smartphones.

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Julie Bort was Business Insider's Editor at Large for the Tech team. She loves investigating stories and shedding light on the tech industry's most amazing people.Here's a small sample of some of Julie's work.Former Pinterest employees describe a traumatic workplace where managers humiliate employees until they cry, Black people feel alienated, and the toxic culture 'eats away at your soul'Sex, tequila, and a tiger: Employees inside Adam Neumann's WeWork talk about the nonstop party to attain a $100 billion dream and the messy reality that tanked itInsiders say WeWork's IT is a patchwork of cheap devices and Band-Aid fixes that will take millions to fixWeWork's toxic phone booths were created in-house by its Powered by We business70-hour weeks and 'WTF' emails: 42 employees reveal the frenzy of working at Tesla under the 'cult' of Elon MuskElon Musk works so many hours at Tesla, employees are constantly finding him asleep under tables and desksHow this woman went from a Pizza Hut employee to a founder of a $4 billion startupAn Oracle insider explains how some salespeople gamed the system to sell more cloudTHE TAKEDOWN OF TRAVIS KALANICK: The untold story of Uber's infighting, backstabbing, and multimillion-dollar exit packagesMicrosoft is in talks to buy GitHub, a startup at the center of the software world last valued at $2 billionThe alarming inside story of a failed Google acquisition, and an employee who was hospitalizedInside Facebook's plan to eat another $350 billion IT marketHow a registered sex offender wound up living in an Airbnb hosting unsuspecting guestsA controversial ex-banker is the person who really runs Twitter — and he's gambling the company's future on one risky betSecret passages and skipped meals: Oracle's CEO gave us a rare peek at what it really takes to run a $37 billion companyHP told some employees to choose between becoming contractors with no benefits or being fired without severance'I felt like we were being extorted': Customer says Oracle tried to strong-arm him into a cloud saleHow the queen of Silicon Valley is helping Google go after Amazon's most profitable businessAirbnb host: A guest is squatting in my condo and I can't get him to leaveLIES, BOOZE, AND BILLIONS: How one of the fastest-growing startups in Silicon Valley history raised $580 million then spiraled out of controlGitHub is undergoing a full-blown overhaul as execs and employees depart — and we have the full inside storyWhen she's not writing for Business Insider, Julie can usually be found on the trails, on my mountain bike, or on my skis, if you know where to look.