I first heard about a new Google service, Wave, during the Emerging Technology Interest Group pre-conference at CLA in early May.    The whole idea is "What would e-mail look like if it was invented today?"  And Wave is Google's answer. 

I never got around to posting it then but with yesterday's announcement that Google is creating a full-fledged OS, built on a Linux kernel and centered on their Chrome browser with a focus on web-based computing, the time is as good as any.

The MetaFilter thread I linked to, as always, has tons of discussion, speculation and observations about what this means for Google, Microsoft and computer users in general.