Google Fuchsia: what is it?

First the subject of many rumors and speculations, Fuchsia has finally been officially deployed on the first “made in” device Google. First named Fuchsia OS by the giant digital and media, Google’s new operating system is available in version 1.0 and can now be installed on its Nest Hub.

Fuchsia, what is it exactly?

Fuchsia is therefore the third operating system of Google, placing itself alongsideAndroid and Chrome OS. Like his big brother for smartphone, its code is open source and can therefore be viewed and edited by contributors. But, unlike the two other OS of the Mountain View firm, it is not based on a kernel Linux to function, preferring instead a house kernel named Zircon. The code of this kernel suggests that it was developed to easily adapt to any type of electronic object, from a simple object Automation to thecomputer laptop through the smartphone.

Google’s new weapon in the Internet of Things?

For the moment, Google has not specified its ambitions with Fuchsia, and today we are limited to a few guesswork by analyzing the operating system code and the few statements of the company. In 2019, Hiroshi Lockheimer (the vice president in charge of Android) declared that “ Fuchsia is all about pushing the boundaries in terms of operating systems and the things we learn from Fuchsia can be incorporated into other products.“. The company hopes in particular to integrate Fuchsia into connected objects which suffer from a clear lack of uniqueness when it comes to operating systems.

If we take the Nest Hub for example, Fuchsia does not change anything from a functional and visual point of view for the user, it could seem disappointing but it is actually a good thing since Fuchsia will be compatible with applications Android and Linux. Google therefore seems to have in its hands a versatile operating system, rid of the archaisms of its predecessors, and therefore promising.