TechCrunch has gotten their hands on what may potentially be what the user interface looks like on the Google Chrome OS. The operating system was announced early last month.

It is tough to say whether these are real pictures of the operating system or not, but it is interesting nonetheless. You will notice a Chrome logo with a search panel at the bottom. And on the right there is a massive taskbar with massive logo sizes for the applications. Based on the fact that the Google Android user interface uses massive logo sizes, it would not surprise me if this user interface picture actually applies to the final product.

However the images above aren’t really consistent with what Linus Upson wrote on the Google Blog last month. Upson said that the user interface was “minimal” and was intended to stay out of your way. And those massive application logo sizes aren’t exactly “minimal.”

Google Chrome is expected to arrive in the second half of 2010. Until then, we’ll just keep dreaming about what the operating system will look like.

Ever since Google Inc. started chipping away at the market share that Microsoft Corporation had for search engine traffic, the two companies have been rivals.  Now Google is taking on Microsoft where it really counts, their operating system.  Microsoft line of Windows operating systems is powering about 90% of all active computers in the world today.

Google’s new operating system will be called the Google Chrome Operating System and it will be initially installed on low cost netbooks.  Eventually the Google Operating System will be installed on more powerful PCs.  The Google Chrome Operating System will be open source and will be available for consumers started in the second half of 2010.

“The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work,” stated Google VP of Product Management Sundar Pichai and Engineering Director Linus Upson on the Google Blog.

Google Chrome, the company’s web browser currently has 30 million people using the browser regularly.  The web browser along with Google’s mobile operating system Android is also open source.