Google is apparently trying to steal some thunder from Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference this week by releasing more details of its Chrome operating system.

So far the Chrome OS has been mostly FUD since it was announced in July but that may change at a Thursday press event where the company is promising demos.

But the buzz around that event is already being drowned out by unconfirmed reports that began Tuesday about Google planning its own mobile phone-handheld computing device.

TechCrunch said the gadget will be made by a Korean company such as LG, carry only Google's brand and probably use AT&T's 3G network.

Google is building their own branded phone that they'll sell directly and through retailers. They were long planning to have the phone be available by the holidays, but it has now slipped to early 2010. The phone will be produced by a major phone manufacturer but will only have Google branding.

A big ad campaign promoting Google's first consumer hardware will begin in January, TechCrunch added.

My guess is that Google will surface the device at the Consumer Electronics Show, which begins Jan. 7 in Las Vegas, where co-founder Larry Page last gave a keynote in 2006.

Maybe he'll take the place of Yahoo boss Carol Bartz, who canceled her appearance at the show last week.

At a press dinner last night in Seattle, Dan Cole, vice president of the trade group that organizes CES, hinted that another major keynote may be added but he didn't name names.

Here's a Chrome sign hanging in Google's new Kirkland campus, where they get quiet and change the subject if you ask if former Microsoft talent is working on the new operating system: