a couple stories pointed out that opensocial could be abbreviated OS. while the code.google.com page is still not up, a leaked press release said that opensocial was going to be usable completely from browser-side javascript.

while looking through google tech videos, there is one called 'google does crossdomain read/write javascript'. this might be web 3.0. use a web server for the initial http load, the html document and its javascript is a self-contained app. its got all the UI control it needs. it can talk any sort of xml over http protocol to other servers. as long as the user doesn't browse away somehow by entering a new url or using the forward/back buttons, thats mighty close to a native app.

Java did some cool work with Java WebStart, using the web to distribute local apps. perhaps something like that will be popular again.

add the gPhone as a hardware platform, and complex self-contained javascript apps with easy integration into many social networking apps, disk storage services, even compute cloud services, and thats a pretty exciting path for the Google OS to take.