Hasta La Gadget!

Luckily, most of us don’t have to think about the tangled infrastructure that keeps the internet ticking along. But, as profiled by Wired, that’s the obsession of the crew at CoreOS, who are building an operating system it ambitiously hopes will help make the web tidier and more nimble. It’s underpinned by Chrome OS, which the team aims to fork so that it can run every web service imaginable. That’d give smaller players in the web server game access to modular web infrastructure tech, like that used by Google on desktops and laptops with ChromeOS. It would also keep servers up-to-date automatically without the need to install brand new versions of an operating system — a peril-fraught hassle administrators often postpone as long as possible. If successful, the project could result in better server security, quicker response to evolving web technologies and less downtime. CoreOS is still early in its development, but the group has already sold another of its open source projects to cloud player Rackspace, and counts Linux kernal specialist Greg Kroah-Hartman among its collaborators. For more, check Wired’s in-depth take on it at the source.

[Image credit: Wired]

Filed under: Misc, Internet

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Source: Wired

If you’re running Chrome OS betas like it’s not even a thing, we’re pegging you as a bit of a maverick. The latest update (29.0.1537.32) rewards your non-conformity with a bevy of small, but useful new features. There’s Kernel 3.8 for the Pixel and Samsung 550 users, but likely you’re more interested in the new “immersive” full screen mode that hides the shelf and tool bar. Or, what about the ability to pin apps to the shells with drag and drop? There’s other tricks, too, such as wallpaper sync (across all your machines), UI scaling and a smarter app launcher. There’s a full list at the source, but knowing you, you already went there, right?

Filed under: Laptops, Internet, Software, Google

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Source: Google Chrome Releases Blog

Chrome OS hardware continues to proliferate, and on the software front, Google continues to add features to the platform in the hopes of persuading more folks to exit the traditional PC paradigm. Today marks a significant step in achieving that latter goal, as the dev channel of Chrome OS has received the ability to edit Excel and Word files thanks to Quickoffice integration. While it’s not ready for public consumption just yet, it shows that Google’s getting close to fulfilling its promise to deliver native doc editing to the Pixel and other Chromebooks.

Should you be among those on the dev channel of Chrome OS, you can enable the functionality now by going to chrome://flags, enabling document editing and restarting your machine. According to developer François Beaufort — the man who discovered the functionality — editing’s still a glitchy process, but the more folks that use the feature now, the faster the problems can be found and fixed. The power of productivity is in your hands, people, so get cracking squashing those bugs!

Filed under: Software, Google

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Via: The Next Web

Source: François Beaufort (Google+)

Things have been pretty quiet on the Chromebook front since the launch of Google’s gorgeous, but pricey flagship, the Pixel. It’s arguably a hard product to beat, but then again, the Chromebook battle is really taking place at the low end of the market with machines like Acer’s inexpensive $199 C7 and Samsung’s delightful $249 ARM-based model. This is exactly the arena HP’s decided to enter with its $329 Pavilion 14, the first Chromebook with a 14-inch display. Apparently, the company’s research indicates there’s room for a larger Chromebook that’s used primarily at home where thickness, weight and battery life are less critical. While that’s difficult for road warriors like us to understand, it only takes a visit to Best Buy to see row upon row of large, cheap, generic Windows laptops, so perhaps HP is onto something. Like Acer’s C7, the Pavilion 14 is a Chromebook based on an existing PC chassis. It features an Intel Celeron processor, 2GB RAM, a 16GB SSD and Bluetooth. So how does it compare to the aforementioned competition? Is there a market for a larger Chromebook that mostly lives at home? Read on to find out.

Filed under: Laptops, HP

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It was only last fall that AMD said it didn’t see a need to make its new “Hondo” chip for tablets to work with Android in addition to Windows and Linux, but it seems that the company now sees things a bit differently. Speaking with PC World at Computex, AMD Senior VP Lisa Su said that while AMD is “very committed to Windows 8,” the company also sees “a market for Android and Chrome developing as well.” Details remain light beyond that for the time being, with Su offering no indication as to when those chips might actually land in some devices. It does appear that the company is now working with developers on Android applications for AMD chips, though.

Filed under: AMD

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Source: PC World