Jolicloud, the cloud-based operating system that hopes to let you breath new life into the old computer you’ve got gathering dust in your home, is updating, changing its name, and launching new versions all at the same time.

“As you know, we started Jolicloud to create the best experience to enjoy the Internet. We looked around for the perfect OS to host that experience and we couldn’t find it, so we started to build our own OS,” the company says on its blog before outlining the new plans.

So what’s happening? Well the biggest news for the operating systems 300,000 and counting users is that the new version, Joli OS 1.2, will be available next week and bring with it a stack of new features.

Then there is the expansion of the of the Web app currently used by around 60,000 people and available in Chrome. Now thanks to the wonders of HTML5, the software will soon be available to Firefox 4, Safari 5 and iPad users as well.

So as not to confuse, the system is getting a name change from Jolicloud to Joli OS to “avoid confusion,” says the company. That means that desktop version will be called Joli OS and the online version Jolicloud.

And finally, the company is promising to develop an Android app in the future that we presume could mean the chance to breath new life into that Android tablet that you’ve bought before realising that Android 1.6 just isn’t designed for tablet use.