New Chrome device codenames have popped up recently and the least we can say it's that the Chrome OS Team has been heavily inspired by Star Fox.
Here's what we know for now:
- Falco, Peppy, Slippy and Fox seem to be all upcoming x86 platforms.
- Fox (the leader in Star Fox) was the first to have Haswell, the next Intel generation of processor microarchitecture.
- Slippy is also Haswell-equipped.
Source: https://gerrit.chromium.org/gerrit/50550
Google Chrome Team is currently experimenting with a sample Chrome App called "Apps Editor" which is gonna use the chrome.developerPrivate Chrome API to load an unpacked Chrome App Project (a folder containing all your project's code basically) and synchronize it on Google Drive by using the chrome.syncFileSystem API. Obviously, you would also be able to export all your synced Chrome App Projects to your local fileSystem in order to work.
What it means is that my Chrome App's code would always be synced on my Google Drive (and its awesome revision history) - or any potential future backend storage behind the chrome.syncFileSystem API.
You can learn more about the public chrome.syncFileSystem API at http://developer.chrome.com/trunk/apps/app_storage.html#sync-filesystem and have a look at the chrome.developerPrivate API source code at http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/chrome/common/extensions/api/developer_private.idl
Source: https://codereview.chromium.org/14683005/
Last Chrome OS Dev Update brought new Spoken Feedback keyboard shortcuts that can be used everywhere:
<Ctrl> stops current speech
<Shift> + <Search> + <Up Arrow> navigates to previous item
<Shift> + <Search> + <Down Arrow> navigates to next item
You can give a try right now to the built-in Spoken Feedback feature by pressing <Ctrl> + <Alt> + z. And if you don't have a Chrome device, you can always play with the ChromeVox Chrome Extension at http://www.chromevox.com.
Source: http://codereview.chromium.org/14674002/
You listen to a song with your headphones where the volume is such that you reached a point where you're literally in trance. While music is still playing, you put down your headphones for a rest. You come back later, forget you were listening to music and unplug your headphones.
At this point it's too late, the entire crowd around you has the high privilege to hear your loud music...
Thankfully last Dev Update of Google Chrome OS fixed that. Chrome OS now remembers your volume settings per device. It means your headphones, Bluetooth speakers and internal speakers volumes are independently saved.
Source: http://codereview.chromium.org/14801002/
Chrome OS Team use powerful and big machines to heavily test trackpads on Chromebooks but that doesn't mean they didn't find other interesting applications for it too :)
A new Projection Mode has been added to the Touch HUD in the last Dev Update of Chrome OS. In this mode, only active touch points are shown without any trails.
If you want to play with it, go to chrome://flags, enable "Show HUD for touch points" flag, and restart.
Press twice on <Ctrl> + <Alt> + i to switch to projection mode and start to touch your screen.
Source: http://codereview.chromium.org/14399005/
If you start to type your password in the login pad and don't press <Enter>, your input will automatically be cleared 1 minute after.
First the traditional ways:
- Click or tap the "Go back" and "Go forward" buttons to the left of the omnibox
- Right click or tap with two fingers on the page and select "Back" or "Forward"
Then the cool ways:
- Scroll horizontally with two fingers on the trackpad
- Scroll horizontally with one finger on the touchscreen
EDIT: Look out for more ways in the comments!
Main advantage of Bluetooth Smart is that it's Low Energy. Therefore when two Bluetooth Smart devices are paired, they use a small amount of battery power since the connection is dormant unless critical data is shared.
On the other side, Bluetooth Smart Ready devices can be considered as the central device, waiting to send and receive data from smaller devices around it.
You can find a list of Bluetooth Smart Ready products at http://www.bluetooth.com/Pages/Bluetooth-Smart-Devices-List.aspx#SmartReady
Source: https://chromiumcodereview.appspot.com/13927010
Experimental support for Bluetooth Advanced Audio Distribution Profile aka A2DP has been added in Chrome OS Dev.
This profile defines how high quality audio can be streamed from one device to another over a Bluetooth connection.
If you have a Bluetooth Headset or some Bluetooth speakers that are A2DP compatible, go give it a try and fill a bug at crbug.com/new if you encounter some issues or say "woohoo!" if it works.
Source: https://gerrit.chromium.org/gerrit/45113
