There are strong indications that Google is building a replacement for Android called Fuchsia. Yesterday, the company revealed what their new Armadillo user interface looks like.
Here’s what we know about Fuchsia so far:
- It’s written partially in Dart, an open source programming language developed by Google, which compiles to JavaScript
- Unlike Chrome OS and Android, Fuchsia doesn’t use the Linux kernel. Instead, it has its own microkernel called Magenta.
You may be wondering: what the heck is a microkernel? It’s basically a stripped down version of a traditional kernel (the core of an operating system that controls a computer’s underlying hardware).
Google hasn’t officially said anything about the purpose of this operating system, so here is an expert’s speculation:
- Since Oracle’s 2010 acquisition of Sun Microsystems, the Java ecosystem (which Android is built on top of) hasn’t been as friendly to open source as it used to be. In fact, Oracle unsuccessfully sued Google for $9 billion last year claiming Android violated Sun’s licenses. Google’s new operating system represents an opportunity for Google to stop using Java all together (and so far, none of Fuchsia’s open source code is written in Java).
- By moving away from the Linux kernel and focusing all its energy on Magenta, Google may be able to introduce specific features it needs faster than the Linux community?—?with its more diverse interests?—?would be able to.
- Android wasn’t designed with virtual reality or augmented reality in mind. This seems to be where computing is heading. Starting fresh with Fuchsia will allow Google to focus on virtual reality from the beginning.
