Tag: chromeos

ChromeOS 117 Announced With Material You Design, Adaptive Charging and Several Improvements

Google has started rolling out ChromeOS 177 to eligible Chromebook devices. The new software includes Material You design and brings tweaks across elements such as Quick Settings, notifications, battery charging controls, colour accessibility settings, and more. The update adds new rectangular buttons for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and other settings. It also lets users find the specifications of their Chromebook through Launcher. The new software also adds an Adaptive Charging feature for improved battery life. With ChromeOS 17, users can search for GIFs in the emoji picker as well.

In a new blog post on September 26, Google announced the launch of ChromeOS 117 for Chromebooks. It comes with Google’s Material You makeover and Quick Settings display controls like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Nearby Share, Cast Screen, VPN, Screen Capture, and Do Not Disturb in a grid layout instead of previous small circles. The latest update also brings a new notification panel on the bottom right of the screen that allows users to access new messages, emails, and other alerts from apps.

Google also added improvements to the Calender that show any upcoming meetings and lets users join them directly through a button. The update brings dynamic colour theming to Chromebook devices based on the shades of wallpaper. With this functionality, accent colours will adapt to the light and dark modes. It can be accessed from the Wallpaper and Style app by right-clicking on the desktop.

In the new software, users can find the specifications of Chromebooks like the CPU and RAM quickly, through a search in Launcher. It also brings a microphone privacy indicator on the bottom right status area to inform users when apps are using the microphone or camera of the device.

The new ChromeOS also includes an Adaptive Charging feature for battery health. It can be enabled by heading to Settings > Device > Power and once enabled, this functionality will slow down charging when the battery hits 80 percent capacity. It will let the battery reach 100 percent charge at a slower speed. It also allows users to listen to audio from an Android app and the web at the same time without pausing the other.

Other significant upgrades available in the ChromeOS 117 updates include GIF support in the emoji picker, time time-lapse video recording in the Camera app, improved Vietnamese Telex, and VNI input method experience and more.

The ChromeOS 117 update is expected to reach all eligible devices automatically over-the-air (OTA). However, Chromebook users can manually check if the update is available on their devices by navigating to Settings > About ChromeOS > Check for updates.

Google I/O 2023 saw the search giant repeatedly tell us that it cares about AI, alongside the launch of its first foldable phone and Pixel-branded tablet. This year, the company is going to supercharge its apps, services, and Android operating system with AI technology. We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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Chromebooks to Get 10 Years of Automatic Updates, Better Security Features

Google is adding significant upgrades to Chromebooks, increasing the number of years for upcoming updates. In a recent announcement, Google mentioned that all Chromebook platforms will now get regular automatic updates every four weeks to provide better security. Meanwhile, for Chromebooks that no longer receive automatic updates, there will be strong built-in security features. Moreover, the repair process will also get faster with new ChromeOS updates for Chromebooks. There will also be new energy-efficient features in the coming months, with adaptive charging technology for a longer battery health. 

In its latest blog post published on September 14, Google made new announcements for Chromebook users. The company, which introduced Chromebooks in 2012, has revealed that all Chromebooks released in 2021 or later will now get 10 years of automatic updates after the platform’s release, starting 2024. Previously, Google offered software updates for up to 8 years for ChromeOS.

On the other hand, users who have Chromebooks that released before 2021 can extend automatic updates to 10 years from the platform’s release. The tech giant plans to prioritise security for Chromebooks users with these updates. 

Another major update will be a quicker repair process. Currently, users can get their Chromebook repaired either through Chromebook Repair Program partners or through organisations that offer repair certifications for Chromebooks. However, Google will soon introduce new repair flows that will let authorised repair centres, especially in the US, to repair Chromebooks without a physical USB key.

Taking a step towards environment conservations, Google is now taking approaches to introduce energy-efficient features in the upcoming updates. It will also add adaptive charging support to make Chromebook batteries’ last longer. The battery saver feature will help in reducing energy-exhausting functions on the device. 

In a conscious decision to reduce e-waste, with devices being dumped once they stop getting updates, Google has made recycling easier and accessible for Chromebook users, too. Now, they can recycle Chromebooks with the help of a reseller or refurbisher. The company also plans to cut the operational costs of the device, to make it feasible for more students. 

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ChromeOS to Get New Editing and Productivity Tools, Coming to Chromebooks Starting August

ChromeOS is getting a bunch of new video editing tools and productivity features as soon as next month. Google is releasing a new movie editor with new editing features in Google Photos apps, and it is claimed to ease the process of creating videos “with just a few taps”. Apart from these tools, there are new features in Google Photos wallpapers, Light and Dark Themes, new PDF editing features, deeper Calendar integration, and new capabilities in Virtual Desks. The features will start rolling out to Chromebooks from the first week of August.

The first major set of features is coming to Google Photos in the form of a new movie editor and video editing features. As per Google, the movie creation tool has been revamped allowing the users to quickly create “high-quality movies” by using suggested themes, applying AI effects like Real Tone filters, adding music and title cards, among other options. Users will be able to open a video in the Gallery app and continue editing it in Google Photos with a tap with the help of deeper integration into the OS.

Furthermore, Google says that the new features of Google Photos can also automatically create a movie. The user has to choose a theme, photos as well as videos of people (or pets), and Google Photos will compile them to create a movie — just like in Android. These features will be available first on Chromebook starting August.

Apart from the new movie and video-related features, Google Photos is also getting enhancements in wallpapers. Not only can you set wallpapers from Google Photos albums but also have them automatically change daily. Further, Google is introducing Light and Dark themes on ChromeOS. You can choose either of the themes or the “auto” option that will automatically transition from light to dark when day turns to night. Some wallpapers also support this transition, Google says.

There are other features which include new PDF editing features to the Gallery app (Chromebook’s default media app), deeper Calendar Integration for quick glance at details without opening another app or browser tab, and notification improvements allowing cleaner user interface. All these features will also be rolled out to ChromeOS in August.

The Virtual Desks, a feature that allows users to keep all related apps and windows related to a specific project grouped together, will let them save and close an entire desk, and then continue from where they left with a tap. This feature will roll out to ChromeOS late September.

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Google Photos to Be Directly Accessible From Gallery App on ChromeOS for Easy Editing: Report

Google is reportedly planning to better integrate Google Photos on ChromeOS in order to offer a better media editor by adding a convenience feature. The integration will help ChromeOS users perform more advanced edits with the new addition of Google Photos. Earlier, users had to manually open Google Photos and look for media files they wished to edit. Now, the new option in the editor area is expected to allow users to open a selected image or video in the full-featured Android version of Google Photos.

According to a report from 9To5Google, the technology giant, Google is planning to add handy features to Google Photos to make a better editor available on ChromeOS. The said integration of Google Photos to make an editor with more features is aimed at allowing users to perform more advanced edits on images and videos.

The new option in the editor area of the current Gallery application will reportedly allow users to open a selected image or video in the fully-featured Android version of the Google Photos application. From there, users can access the advanced editing features of the app including, white point, black point, skin tone, and vignette.

The said features were accessible on Chromebooks earlier as well, but now users will have the option to directly open the selected media files on Google Photos and edit them. Earlier, users had to manually open Google Photos and find the media file they wish to edit. Hence, this makes the minor new addition a convenience feature. This feature will also users to make choices between the two editors, they can opt for the Gallery app editor for minor edits and the Google Photos app for advanced edits.

Apart from this, recently Google was also planning to take a stronger approach to tackle the spam notifications on its web browser, Google Chrome, according to a recent report. It is expected that a new code change will allow Google to block a website from sending spam notifications.

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