Hasta La Gadget!

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+)

Havok — the physics middleware engine used by almost every big console and PC game — announced its start-to-finish mobile game development suite will be available at no cost to developers. Project Anarchy has tools for everything: visuals, physics, artificial intelligence and animation. We say “no cost” instead of free for a reason: Havok expects a few things out of its users in return. It wants to co-market some finished games and for clients to become part of its development community. Currently, that dev community includes folks programming for iOS, Android and Tizen. Microsofties may not be left out, however, as Havok has “flexible business models” for Windows Phone if you ping its sales team. Full details in the links below.

Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Mobile

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Source: Project Anarchy

Microsoft wants developers to make Bing a central part of their apps, and it’s powering that with a new developer platform unveiled today at Build. The Bing kit will let programmers tap the search engine’s wealth of knowledge, providing direct information and translations when they’re relevant. It should also grant access to natural interfaces, such as gestures, as well as real-world map data. Microsoft showed the platform at work in both Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8, so it’s clear that developers who want Bing’s resources won’t be locked into any one device type.

Filed under: Internet, Software, Microsoft

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As quickly as 3D printers have taken off, they haven’t had true OS-level support. Microsoft is fixing that with Windows 8.1: a built-in API will let developers weave 3D printing into their own apps. While the experience will be slightly more complicated than firing up an old-fashioned inkjet, it should include familiar-looking printing dialogs and persistent settings. The only real challenge will be picking up a 3D printer in the first place — but that’s getting easier by the day.

Filed under: Peripherals, Software, Microsoft

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Zeebox is clearly busy these days. It just added automatic show syncing and recommendations to its second screen app a few days ago, and it’s back with a new developer portal that opens the Zeebox APIs to everyone, not just partners. Those building mobile and web apps can now integrate Zeebox’s guides, social networking and tagging into their projects, as well as create synchronized widgets for Zeebox’s own release. If you’re inclined to build on the company’s TV experience, it’s free to try the programming tools you’ll find at the source link.

Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, Tablets, HD

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Source: Zeebox