Chrome

The days of needing an app, add-on, or extension to make video calls in your browser are numbered. Google and Mozilla, the respective makers of Chrome and Firefox, just demonstrated a new development in HTML5's WebRTC protocol that lets people talk to each other using two different browsers and no third-party apps.

Currently only available in Chrome 25 beta and Firefox Nightly, the change in WebRTC comes thanks to the development work of several groups. These include members of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), as well as engineers at Google and Mozilla. … Read more

Moving its PC line beyond Microsoft's Windows operating system by embracing Google's Chrome OS, Hewlett-Packard today announced the $330 Pavilion 14 Chromebook.

Samsung and Acer were the first to offer Chrome OS devices, with Lenovo following suit. Now HP evidently believes it's worth jumping on the bandwagon for the browser-based operating system, describing the Chromebook as part of its "multi-OS approach."

"Google's Chrome OS is showing great appeal to a growing customer base," said Kevin Frost, general manager of HP's Consumer PC, Printing, and Personal Systems group. "With HP's Chromebook, … Read more

Pandora's Web-based client keeps a tab open in your Chrome window. Unfortunately, if you're one of those people who has a lot of tabs open, you may accidentally close the Pandora tab in the middle of a great song. You could easily re-open the tab, but you probably won't continue hearing the same track.

With the SoundControl extension you can control Pandora from the Chrome toolbar, and even hide the actual Pandora tab from your window. Here's how to get started:

Step 1: Head to the SoundControl extension page in the Google Chrome Web … Read more

Google is getting closer to building Google Now notifications into Chrome, marrying the anticipatory alert system of Android with its browser.

Yesterday, developers committed a patch with an "initial implementation of Google Now notifications."

According to the code, the patch means that "The Google Now event page gets Google Now cards from the server and shows them as Chrome notifications. The service performs periodic updating of Google Now cards."

Google's work to build Google Now into Chrome emerged in December. Although Android is Google's highest-profile operating system project, Google Now would ensure Chrome OS … Read more

It seems Hewlett-Packard plans to follow Samsung, Acer, and Lenovo into the Chromebook market.

The company published a spec sheet for the Pavilion Chromebook 14-c010us that reveals a 4-pound model with a 1.1GHz Intel Celeron 847 processor, 16GB SSD, 14-inch LED-backlit display with 1,366x768 resolution, a Webcam, and three USB 2.0 ports.

It appears the device will ship in the coming weeks. The spec sheet, spotted by The Verge, lists an advertising embargo date of February 17.

"The HP Pavilion Chromebook gives you fast and easy access to the things you love and depend on, from … Read more

Acer hasn't been doing well lately, and the company is pointing a finger at weak demand for Windows 8.

"Windows 8 itself is still not successful," Acer president Jim Wong told Bloomberg in an interview published yesterday. "The whole market didn't come back to growth after the Windows 8 launch, that's a simple way to judge if it is successful or not."

Acer was stung by an annual loss in 2011 and will post another loss for 2012, according to the Wall Street Journal. Last week, the company announced a $120 million write-off … Read more

It's easy to forget you've shared a folder from Google Drive with someone. There are visual indicators that show a folder is shared, but if you're busy working, or don't spend a lot of time logged into Google Drive, you may not notice them.

When you come across a situation where you want to limit the amount of time that your folder remains shared, there's a script that can help you add an expiration date to the sharing status. The way it works is by creating a duplicate of what you originally shared (minus the … Read more

Google has released a new beta of its Chrome browser for Android that gives people the option to try new features such as WebGL and CSS graphics features.

The update, the third since the inaugural version of the Chrome beta for Android, shows not only more of the browser team's ambition but also a faster pace of change.

The unbranded stock browser that shipped with Android for years moved comparatively glacially, but in particular with the new Chrome beta releases for Android, Google is pushing for a broader feature set. And the code base is evidently an offshoot of … Read more

Google has finished a version of its Native Client programming technology that extends beyond mainstream x86 PC processors into the world of ARM chips.

Native Client, or NaCl for short, is designed to let programmers easily adapt the C or C++ software they've written for native software so that it can run as a part of Web apps, too. It's designed for high performance, but it's also got security mechanisms built in to counter the risks of running malicious code directly on the processor. The first version of NaCl, though, only worked on personal computers using Intel … Read more