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Do you still have to use a google account to use chromeos?

I believe you can sign in as a guest, but it won't save your browser settings. Since ChromeOS is all about having data "in the cloud" and keeping as little mutable state on the computer as possible, I guess this makes sense.

Can we coin an abbreviation for "in the cloud"? I put it in quotation marks to avoid the unconscious eyerolling that I do when I use that phrase in a non-ironic fashion. "ITC"?

Larry Ellison was right, "The Cloud" as used in today's marketing is simply a synonym for "The Internet".

PLAYD - possibly loses all your data?

How's that one?

Google's data centers are slightly more reliable than the average laptop hard drive.

But are they as reliable and available as a laptop and a USB stick? That's a hard one to prove.

I assume they make back-ups all the time, so yes. Definitely more reliable for most people.

But what if there's a bug where attackers gain access to your account and drain all of your Word documents into their bank accounts!!!11?

That's a pretty big assumption, for example:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/09/atlassian_cloud_stor...

Yes, it is fundamental to it's function. Basically it acts as a terminal system to your google applications and the wider web.

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