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While there’s still time for Google to officially launch its upcoming Chrome Operating System before the end of the year, time is running out. Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently stated that Chrome OS was due for release in the next few months, which many bloggers took to mean that the OS wouldn’t see the light of day until early 2011 — but last time I checked, the next few months still includes next month.

Now Engadget has some more evidence though. Apparently Acer’s Jim Wong said that the company will launch a netbook running Chrome OS next year, during the “consumer launch” of Chrome OS.

That doesn’t mean that Google won’t release a public beta, or maybe even a final build of Chrome for users to download before the end of the year. But it seems like we might have to wait until early 2011 before we actually start to see netbooks and other hardware designed to run the operating system.

Chrome OS is basically a fast-booting light weight operating system designed around Google’s Chrome web browser. It’s meant to get you online nearly instantly, while most apps will be web apps. There will also be some offline functionality such as media caching for offline playback, as well as services that will let you interact with hardware such as printers.