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A vulnerability found in Spotify's web player has been exploited, allowing users to download permanent copies of songs from the service. A Chrome extension by the name of Downloadify used the exploit to download MP3 files that were free of DRM, rather than just stream them, something which Spotify has been quick to rectify.
The Chrome OS notification center -- already in the Windows releases of Chromium and Chrome Canary -- is in the process of being ported to the Mac version of Chromium, says Google's François Beaufort. The Chromium evangelist points to a logged Chromium issue titled "[Mac][MC] Implement notification updates and relayouts." He comments that the Mac version of the notification center is still "under heavy development," but that it can already be toggled on by running Chrome with an "--enable-rich-notifications" switch.
Google has released a beta Office Viewer extension for the Mac and Windows editions of Chrome. The add-on requires either the Chrome 27 beta or the latest Canary release, but enables viewing Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files within Chrome instead of separately. To protect against trojan attacks the extension is sandboxed, limiting the reach of any malicious code hackers might insert into a document.
Google has updated Chrome for iOS with a handful of new features. iPhone and iPod touch users now have access to a fullscreen view, which hides the toolbar after a brief scroll. Scrolling back down again should cause the bar to reappear.
Google has released a new beta of its Chrome browser for the desktop and mobile. New in this release is a revamped user interface for HTML5 date and time input forms, DevTools updates, the ability for Chrome Packaged Apps to use the Sync FileSystem API for offline storage, support for live audio input with the Web Audio API, and up to five percent faster content loading.
An update to the Google Search app on Android has added package tracking to Google Now. New cards will show updates to shipped online orders from retailers in real-time, including an estimated arrival date, according to Droid-Life. Individual cards also have an info button, providing quick settings for the card's contents, while the overall settings menu for Google Now has been reorganized with each section having their own toggle options, and a separate "My Stuff" section for quicker alterations to sports teams and stock choices.
Google has introduced its own browser rendering engine, Blink, that will serve as Chrome's alternative to the WebKit2 engine used by competing browsers such as Safari. The search giant suggests its WebKit-based engine will enable developers to streamline innovation, eliminating approximately 4.5 million lines of code and thousands of files that only serve to support WebKit2's features, according to an Ars Technica report.
Evernote has updated its Android app to include a new camera interface, as well as a number of UI improvements. The new Multi-shot Camera mode can take multiple photographs and combine them into one single note, while Page Camera can take a shot of a notebook, line up the edges, remove shadows and improve the contrast of the image for easier reading. Shortcuts that appeared in the Mac release in October make the transition to Android, allowing for quicker navigation between notes, and premium users will be able to use a more powerful document search facility.
A new Mac trojan is inserting ads into Safari, Chrome, and Firefox, says a Russian security firm, Doctor Web. Nicknamed "Trojan.Yontoo.1," the malware is so far being distributed through movie trailer pages, which prompt people to download a browser plugin, a media player, a video enhancer, or a download accelerator. When launched, the malware asks to be installed under a name such as "Free Twit Tube."
Google appears to be edging closer to including Google Now into Chrome itself. Flags associated with the service have been spotted in chrome://flags in the latest Chromium build, suggesting that the search giant may bring Google Now to Chrome OS computers and desktops carrying the Chrome browser in the near future.
Google has updated the iOS version of Chrome to v25.0.1364.86. The primary change is that the browser now provides quicker access to a tab's history by holding down the Back button. For sharing webpages, though, links can now be sent through iOS' built-in Messages service.
Google may be introducing a proxy-based connection enhancement to Chrome for Android, in order to improve Internet speeds for mobile devices. Flags listed in the Chromium Git commit mention about SPDY proxy authentication, calling it a way to "Reduce data consumption by loading optimized web pages via Google proxy servers."
Google may be adding Google Now integration into its Chrome browser in the near future. A notification center has been added to the company's latest build of Windows Chromium, giving developers a chance to add Chrome notifications to their applications, as well as being an ideal platform for the Google Now cards that were hinted at in December.
Google announced today the addition of a new Web Speech API for its Chrome web browser. The new API will bring the ability to control the browser, interact with web apps, and dictate text through built-in speech recognition. The API allows developers to integrate speech recognition into their apps, and it is available on the Chrome Beta Channel.
Google has introduced a new Chrome Beta channel for Android smartphones and tablets. The new portal for Android will sit alongside similar channels for the desktop versions of its Chrome browser on other platforms. It will allow developers and early adopters the opportunity to shakedown the browser between major releases, while also permitting early access to new features.
We got a chance to check out a demonstration of Ubuntu's mobile operating system that was announced at the start of the year. It was running on a GSM-version of the Galaxy Nexus, and was certainly impressive when viewed from a close distance. The graphics look clean and smooth, without any hiccups on what is an older, though one-time flagship device.
Google is preparing to bring its Google Now predictive search service from the Android platform to its Chrome browser. This according to a posting on the Chromium developer site. The Google Now code is currently non-functional, but its addition indicates that Google is looking to expand the reach of its digital assistant-like service beyond mobile devices.
Acer made a move today to expand the availability of its recently announced Chromebook, bringing the $199 notebook to three new online outlets. Starting today, TigerDirect, NewEgg, and Staples.com will carry Acer's C7 Chromebook, joining Google Play, BestBuy.com, and Best Buy stores. The Chrome OS-powered notebook will still sell for $199, though some outlets are packaging it with other accessories.
Google has posted updates to two of its flagship iOS apps, Chrome and Drive. Chrome 23.0.1271.91 supports opening PDFs in other apps, and can save tickets and boarding passes to Passbook in iOS 6. To cope with garbled text on webpages, a text encoding detection option has been added under Settings.
Google today released the latest stable version of its Chrome browser, which improves on the browser's performance when rendering GPU-accelerated video. According to Google, the improvements in this version bring 25 percent better battery performance when GPU-accelerated video decoding is enabled. The update also gives users greater control over website permissions involving geolocation, pop-ups, and camera/microphone access.
Over 80,000 Google Chrome browser users have been hit by a fake, malware infected, version of Rovio’s Bad Piggies that is attracting users because it is free. The malware was detected by Barracuda Labs who warned users about a free web-based version of the game found on the official Google Chrome web store that carries the title Angry Birds Bad Piggies. According to Barracuda Labs, the app installs an ad injector that replaces original ads on sites including Yahoo, MSN and others, instead promoting other products.
Twitter has released simultaneous updates for the Mac, Windows, Chrome, and web versions of TweetDeck, its more advanced client software. The main change is the addition of a new theme which casts black text on a white background, instead of the standard white text on gray. A simple toggle control flips the theme back and forth at will.
Google has patched an exploit in Chrome less than 24 hours after it was disclosed at a hacker conference. The Pwnium 2 competition at Hack in the Box 2012 saw a single security flaw being discovered, which earned a hacker going by the name “Pinkie Pie” a free Chromebook and $60,000, the highest reward level in the contest.
Google has released a new Chrome build for Windows and Mac platforms. The stable Chrome 22 build brings several new features, including a pointer-lock Javascript API that will enable mouse control in 3D first-person shooters. Rather than interrupting control when the mouse moves outside of a window or hits the screen edge, the cursor is hidden and input is locked until the user hits the Escape key.
Google's latest Chrome Experiment combines Cirque du Soleil with webcam controls. Movi.Kanti.Revo. lets users navigate through the site by speaking into a microphone or leaning left and right, in a demonstration of how a mixture of CSS with 3D transitions. HTML5 APIs, and the getUserMedia feature of WebRTC could be used in the future.
Google's own Chrome browser celebrates its fourth birthday, and the company has chosen to observe the milestone with an interactive timeline of Chrome development that allows users to scroll backward or forward through Chrome's history. In addition, the company released an updated version of Chrome for iOS that addresses numerous bug fixes -- including an issue with Yahoo Mail, blank "Most Visited" pages and other improvements based on user feedback.
Google has released an update for its mobile Chrome browser for iOS devices (free, App Store). The latest version focuses on social networking, enabling users to share pages via e-mail, Google+, Facebook or Twitter. A dedicated Share menu can be accessed from the primary menu bar for quick access.
Google's Chrome team has developed and released a new set of JavaScript benchmarks. Titled Octane, the new suite "aims to measure a browser’s performance when running the complex and demanding web applications that users interact with daily." The new test group keeps the previous eight tests in the V8 suite, and adds five more, allowing for a better translation of real-world JavaScript performance to metered testing data.
Google is putting $2 million up for grabs if hackers can exploit the Chrome web browser. The Pwnium 2 contest, to be held on October 10 at the 10th anniversary Hack In The Box security conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, following two successful hacks being demonstrated at the CanSecWest conference earlier this year. The $2 million is divided down into four prize levels.
Twitter has released TweetDeck 1.5, an update of its optional desktop client. Web, Windows, Chrome, and Mac versions of the client are available. The new code is meant to speed up navigation, for instance by arranging columns in a single row for quick scrolling using the scrollbar. Clicking a new Columns button displays a full list of open columns, and arrows to either side let users scroll several columns at a time.
The version of the Chrome Beta released yesterday included new APIs that allow developers access to a device's camera and microphone, with user permission. The new features were announced in a post on The Chromium Blog. The new permissions are aimed at increasing the quality of video and audio communication on Google's browser.
A member of the Apple Support forums posted yesterday that an employee of the company had told him that "the specific combination" of Google's Chrome browser, it's built-in version of Flash and the Intel HD 4000 chip found in the latest MacBook Airs was causing a problem that Apple was working to fix, with some owners reporting frequent crashes and even kernel panics as a result of the issue.
Less than 12 hours after initial release, Google Chrome is the number one free application on the iOS App Store. The new Webkit-based browser app supports the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch, and requires iOS 4.3 or greater. The iOS version shares its features with the desktop versions, which are available for Mac, Windows and Linux.
Google showed off motion-based interactivity for apps in its Chrome web browser today at its developer conference. The demo showed off a Cirque du Soleil Chrome app that featured complex gesture interactivity but was said to have been written using relatively simple coding. The new capability could open a range of interaction possibilities across multiple devices running Chrome..
The iPad and iPhone will be getting their own versions of Google's popular Chrome web browser, the search giant revealed today at its I/O developer conference. The iOS version (free, App Store) of the browser will duplicate the features currently seen in its desktop and Android counterparts.
The next version of Google's Chrome browser, codenamed 'Canary,' will support Apple's new MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Anandtech has tested the developer version of the browser on Apple's latest notebook and found that it marks a significant improvement over how Chrome currently renders to the display. As can be seen from the images (below), the new browser takes full advantage of the Retina Display and renders text and images much more sharply.
Google has announced that Chrome 19 is now available as a stable build, enabling users to try out the new features that were announced early last month. The latest overhaul to the company's browser broadens sync capabilities between devices and platforms. Users can open multiple tabs on the desktop browser, then pick up their Android 4.0 phone and access the same content from the mobile Chrome beta.
Google is likely to launch a version of its Chrome browser for Apple's iOS line of devices in the coming months, according to analysts at Macquarie Capital. Macquarie sees the iOS Chrome launch as the opening salvo in a new round of Browser Wars, the likes of which the Internet hasn't seen since the late 1990s.
Google has just detailed its Automatic Message Translation feature for its Gmail service, having graduated it from the beta Gmail Labs. The feature was around in the Labs section since 2009, and now gives users the option to automatically translate e-mails into their native language. The feature is similar to that of Google Chrome when visiting a page that's written in a foreign language.
Google’s Chrome browser for Android is tipped to come out of beta ‘in weeks,’ reports CNET. Google’s senior VP of Chrome and Apps, Sundar Pichai, revealed as much in an interview following the recent release of an update for the version currently still in beta. According to Pichai, his team of software engineers is addressing outstanding issues following the beta 2 release.
The co-founder of Russia's top search engine Yandex has gone on record to criticize Google's Android and Chrome products, UK paper The Guardian reported. Ilya Segalovich called the Android OS a "strange combination of openness and not openness," while the Chrome browser was said to be anti-competitive. Segalovich's comments, in turn, were prompted by Google co-founder Sergey Brin's opinions on the threats to the open Internet.
Google has expanded Cloud Print both for device support and, in a rare step, commercial printing. Those using a mobile app or Chrome can now push a print project to a FedEx office in the US with Print & Go self-service as an option. The gesture helps reduce the need for a home or work printer, particularly for phone or tablet owners who might be traveling and need to print a hard copy.
Google gave the Chrome for Android beta a major update (Google Play) Tuesday that filled in key gaps in the otherwise advanced browser. Like the stock Android 4.0 browser, Chrome can now ask for the desktop version of a page if the mobile version is either undesirable or doesn't work. Address a feature that's been on iOS devices for years, Google now lets users add bookmarks as shortcuts on the Android home screen.
The often-rumored Google Drive might have at last settled on a more definitive launch plan that would include true cross-platform access. A draft press release sliped to The Next Web had the service more closely following the Dropbox formula, where files were stored in a syncing folder or folders on a Mac or Windows PC. Although widely suspected, it's now believed to have an iOS app to match the Android and desktop components.
A new Samsung Chromebook prototype that looks to be based on the Series 5 we saw at CES but sporting some new changes was spotted at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing. It runs on the current Sandy Bridge-series of Intel processors, unlike that dual-core Celeron-powered Chromebook from the Las Vegas trade show. It also gets the Linux-based Coreboot BIOS software that allows it to boot up in just five seconds.
Google has posted a Chrome 19 beta that answers a common call for fast access to tabs across devices. Signing in on the same Google account both on a desktop and an Android device running Chrome for Android will give either device access to whatever tabs happen to be open on that device at that moment. The approach makes it easy to continue reading an article from an Android phone or to check directions that were just on the desktop.
Mozilla is gearing up to allow a plugin-free approach to video chat in upcoming versions of Firefox. A demo at the IETF 83 conference caught by TechCrunch showed off the implementation of WebRTC, an HTML5 component that will allow two-way voice, video, and file swaps. As shown, it would sign in with Mozilla's Social API.
Google on Wednesday detailed some changes to its Chrome Web Store to make it easier for users to search the tens of thousands of apps and extensions. The changes include a new Trending filter that will show the most commonly downloaded apps. The early version of the feature will categorize apps by 'warm' to 'on fire' to indicate their rate of growth.
Motorola's Webtop interface for its Android docking mode has been updated to support Android 4.0. Leaked in a video, embedded below, the Webtop 3.0 beta software appears to be much improved, and offers a less heavily customized appearance and feature-set than before. Unfortunately, Firefox is cut from the preloaded software and has been replaced by a version of the stock Android 4.0 browser.
New NetApplications data has shown that Internet Explorer might be on a sustained, if slight, recovery in web share. Microsoft's browser gained almost exactly one point to hit 53.83 percent of browser use online. The gain roughly mirrored one from January and saw IE at its highest position since October.
