ChromeOS

After Android apps and the cloud, Steam is the third way you can play games on ChromeOS. Steam is now entering beta and supporting several more Chromebooks.

After several months of quiet releases, ChromeOS 107 is rolling out with a handful of new features starting today.

Google is widening the test program for Steam on ChromeOS, allowing Chromebooks with (select) Intel i3 and Ryzen 3 processors to start gaming.

Chromebooks are no longer just a category within the broader laptop form factor. ChromeOS-powered devices span from affordable to midrange and premium, as well as traditional notebooks, convertibles, and tablets. Google now wants to make cloud gaming Chromebooks happen in a rather bold (and literal) play.

This week the Framework Chromebook was announced as the first modular ChromeOS laptop. The ideas behind Framework are ambitious, to say the least, but how will this Chromebook version differ from the Windows option, and what about modules? In a Q&A on Hacker News, Framework’s founder has answered some of the community’s biggest questions around this new device.

Google and Framework are working together on a modular Chromebook that can be upgraded with various components over time and is set for early December availability with pre-orders opening today.

Google is moving forward with bringing Steam games to ChromeOS, with an upcoming upgrade from Alpha testing to Beta, allowing more players to enjoy.

ChromeOS has long looked to Google’s own hardware as its trendsetter, an example of “the best” the platform had to offer. But in 2022, Google is mostly absent from its own platform. The last Pixelbook was the “Go” model released in 2019, which was mostly underwhelming. Now, though, HP has reinvigorated that flame with the Elite Dragonfly Chromebook – a Pixelbook reborn.

As video calling apps have become essential to getting modern work done, ChromeOS is preparing to enhance those apps with background blur and other helpful tools.

In announcing Steam support earlier this year, Google also said Chromebooks were getting a “games overlay” for Android titles to make them playable with keyboard and mouse. ChromeOS 105 introduces an early Alpha of these game controls.

Here’s your first look at the upcoming welcome screen for ChromeOS that brings “glanceable” widgets with meaningful, proactive information, similar to At A Glance on the Pixel series.

Google has begun working on a project to bring “glanceable” widgets to the ChromeOS desktop, which could act like a large-screen version of Pixel’s At A Glance widget.

There was a little bit of truth when people – especially in the early days of mobile – said that the iPhone was the best place to use Google apps. That’s definitely not the case today on Android phones, but I think a part of that argument rings true when comparing Google web services running on Chrome for Mac/Windows versus ChromeOS. Fortunately, that’s starting to change on Chromebooks as seen with one-click Google Calendar integration.

ChromeOS 104 is rolling out starting today with several big interface updates that improve how you use the operating system.

Google is previewing a number of new productivity and personalization features for Chromebooks that will launch over the coming months, including a redesigned movie editor inside Google Photos.

In an upcoming update, Chromebooks equipped with mobile data will be able to serve as a Wi-Fi hotspot for other devices, just like Android and iOS devices can today.

The Chromebook team kicked off 2022 by previewing a number of new Better Together integrations at CES. Chrome OS 103 is rolling out, starting today, with the ability to see your camera roll in Phone Hub and Nearby Share to get Wi-Fi credentials from your Android device.

ChromeOS is now more powerful for managing files, with new support for archive formats like 7z, iso, and tar — with more on the way.

Two things saw explosive growth in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic: Chromebooks and Zoom. Now, the video-calling app is shutting down its previous Chromebook app to make way for something better.