chrome

Thank you, Google. For obsoleting my MacBook.

Question: What two killer hardware features are missing on MacBooks? My answer: a touch screen and 4G.

What a coincidence. Just what Google is offering on the Chromebook Pixel. And in a package that comes close to matching the MacBook's aesthetics.

Not everyone may agree with that. Take the laptop flat-earthers. They will say touch is stupid (or "pointless" as one columnist said) on a laptop. Yeah right, just like the mouse was a stupid idea.

Then there's Apple's your-arm-wants-to-fall-off on vertical touch surfaces excuse. That will eventually … Read more

Google removed the ability to display a custom background image on your Google Search homepage. However, there's a Chrome extension that can help you regain your little slice of customization.

Aside from allowing you to change the background image, the extension will let you do some other neat things, too. You can remove the Google logo, search and lucky buttons, footer, and promotional links.

Head to the Google Chrome Web Store and install the Custom Google Background extension.

After installing the extension, you can select where you'd like to use an image from. You can also … Read more

Are you still flying solo instead of jumping on the Mailbox or Mailstrom bandwagon? That doesn't mean you can't get a little help from Astrid, your friendly squidface to-do list app, when using Gmail in Chrome.

Each time you read your Gmail, you may star or label some of the messages that you want to get back to. This is a great idea in theory, but messages can easily be forgotten. Instead, you can add a reminder to your Astrid that will keep up with your lack of focus on the Internet.

Here's how to get started:… Read more

Chrome users can now tell their browser what to do.

Launched yesterday, Chrome version 25 includes support for voice recognition. This means developers can integrate the feature into their Web apps.

As one example offered in a Google demo, you can create an e-mail via your voice directly within Chrome 25. Simply click on the microphone icon and start talking. You'll see your words appear in a text box. Click the mic icon again when you're finished.

I tried out the feature and was able to dictate an e-mail message that then appeared in Microsoft Outlook. The accuracy … Read more

In an attempt to satisfy cloud-computing power users, Google today launched its Chromebook Pixel, a $1,299 laptop with a high-resolution touch screen that's now the flagship of the Chrome OS fleet.

"The goal was to push the boundary and build something premium," Sundar Pichai, the senior vice president of engineering in charge of Chrome and the Google Apps online services, said in an interview. Google engineers set out on the "labor of love" project two years ago, asking themselves, "What could we do if we really wanted to design the best computer possible … Read more

Google's Chrome OS app launcher is now available to Windows users, the search giant announced today.

Available through the Chrome dev channel -- which means it's not a final build -- the application houses all of a user's Web-based apps in one space and allows the user to open them outside of the browser. The apps that work with Chrome's app launcher are written in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS but can be opened while a person is offline.

According to Google, the app launcher icon will show up on the Windows taskbar. However, in order to … Read more

As the divide between laptops and tablets continues to shrink, word is that Google has already developed its first Chrome-powered touchscreen laptop.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the tech giant's new device would come with cloud computing and could go on sale as soon as this year.

This endeavor would put Google in closer competition with Microsoft, which has already developed its own Windows touch-screen laptops. According to the Wall Street Journal, 25 percent of all Windows 8 laptops sold in the U.S. last month had touch screens.

Microsoft also has a major claim on the low-cost … Read more

Dropbox is one of the top cloud storage solutions for anyone who needs to share or collaborate on documents, audio or images. As long as you have Internet connectivity, you can access your files from anywhere, giving you peace of mind that a specific file won't be forgotten when you're away from the computer.

If you're often saving documents or images from the Web, you may notice that the process isn't very streamlined on its own. You either have to use the Dropbox software on your PC and choose that folder every time you want to … Read more

It is nearly impossible to hear the acronym "IE" in a workplace setting without somebody appending to it the word "sucks." To be more genteel about it, older versions of Internet Explorer on corporate computers simply do not reflect the quality of modern browsers. So why does that massive corporation you work for make you use IE 8 or older in the first place?

A complicated problem Why you're forced to do at least some work in slow, standards noncompliant, security risk-prone legacy versions of Internet Explorer comes down to your employer's need to … Read more