Hasta La Gadget!

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

In October, Google rolled out a new Gmail compose box that would allow users to reference past emails and other content in the account while composing. While it was a handy change and addressed issues many had complained about, others weren’t happy when it became the default option. Now, by popular demand, a full-screen option has been added.

Google announced the new feature today on Google+, saying that it was prodded to add a full-screen compose window by feedback it received from users. The option doesn’t do away with the current pop-out compose window, which is fixed to the right side of the inbox, instead giving a second option for those who prefer it.

With the new full-screen mode, the compose window expands to fill most of the center of the user’s display, with the outer margins dimming gray for a proper writing session. This can be achieved either temporarily, depending on need, or set as the default way Gmail’s compose box shows up when a new message is started.

The full-screen option can be triggered by clicking the Expand button on the menu bar. To make the expanded view your default option, the More Options menu on the bottom of the box holds the “Default to full-screen” option, which can be toggled on and off as desired. Those who don’t see it yet should be seeing it within the next couple days, since it is happening in waves.

In addition to the full-screen compose window, the formatting toolbar is also now on by default, making it easier to get to the formatting tools that, upon a quick glance, had seemed to disappear when the design change first took place.

SOURCE: Google

Gmail gets full-screen compose option by popular demand is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
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San Jose State University’s online education pilot held the promise of real course credit without the hassles of attending class in person. It hasn’t worked that way in practice, however, and both SJSU as well as its partner Udacity have suspended their plans for fall courses. Quite simply, there have been too many flunkies so far — while 83 percent of students completed their sessions this spring, no more than 44 percent of any given class earned a passing grade. SJSU and Udacity will use the break to learn what went wrong and retool the program, although it’s not clear just when (or if) internet-based classes will resume. Online education is far from finished when similar for-credit trials have yet to begin; for now, though, SJSU students will have to drag themselves to the lecture hall.

Filed under: Internet

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Source: LA Times

All you cool city cats on DSL, eat your heart out — a 1Gbps fiber internet service will soon be speeding up the lives of 8,500 residents in Olds, a rural community in Alberta, Canada. Around 60% of the populace can sign up for the $170 / month plan at the moment, but a new pricing scheme will bring it down to $57. That’s cheaper than Google Fiber, folks, which is made possible by the fact that the town itself owns the service. In fact, it’s the Olds Institute for Community and Regional Development (a non-profit) that took the bull by the horns, securing a $2.5 million grant from the Alberta government and a $6 million loan from the town itself to fund the fiber network construction. It’s thanks to the town’s authorities that the residents can soon rid themselves of crappy internet, while the rest of us can only look on in envy.

[Image credit: Barta IV / Flickr]

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Source: CBC News, O-Net

Though there’s no official word from Google yet, it looks like the Chrome launcher has come out of developer preview mode and into full release, at least for Windows. On our own PCs, the installation placed the launcher app on the start page, taskbar and desktop for Windows 8 and in Windows 7’s menu bar. From there, you can quickly access Chrome, the Chrome store, Gmail and any other apps that work with Google’s ubiquitous browser / OS. We’re not sure when it’ll hit OS X or Linux (Chrome OS users have had it for awhile), but if your Windows workflow revolves around Mountain View’s myriad products, you can enable it at the source.

[Thanks, Adam]

Filed under: Internet, Software, Google

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Source: Chrome Webstore