Here Are Five New Google Features That Make Life Easier And More Enjoyable

Google has recently made a few updates to its products, that makes using them even more easier than ever before. Google has never really stopped making upgrades and adjustments to its products but these new features are guaranteed to make life easier. Whether it be watching movies or hearing an audiobook, Google has got you covered.

Google’s new Features for Audiobooks: 

Starting its audiobook app back in Jan, Google has already started to get on with the updates to the service that is guaranteed to make your listening even more enjoyable. One such feature is “smart resume” whereby you can resume a book from a word or a sentence that you left off from. This feature is great when you stop a book unexpectedly for a long period and then want to start off just where you left off.

Google Play Book app has now started a bookmark feature where you can bookmark a page and return to it later by simply pressing on an icon. Another cool feature with the audiobooks is that you can now build them into your routine with Google assistant, so now for your daily commute to the workplace you can switch from listening to music to hearing an audiobook. The speed at which a book is read can now be expanded from .5 to 3 times the reading rate.

Letting your Home assistant control your Bluetooth Speakers: 

One cool feature Google has added with the home assistant is that it can now control the quality of an audiobook, so you can now get the maximum experience when listening to a voice read an audiobook over a home controlled Bluetooth speaker. One home device is capable of connecting to all the Bluetooth speakers in the house so your reading can stay with you wherever you move in the house.

Setting location based reminders using home: 

Apart from connecting to a Bluetooth speaker, Home can now remind you of a particular activity when you are at a specific location and at a specified time.

Accessing GIFs in Google Images: 

Instead of asking the assistant to remind you to place a certain GIF in a certain place at a certain time, you can now use Tenor which Google recently purchased. Tenor is a GIF sharing keyboard that you can use on your mobile or desktop. So you can now get the GIF you want at the right time and place.
Tenor has got over 300 million people search for over 12 billion GIFs every month using its platform.

New features in Google Play Movies and TV app: 

One of the new features added by Google is that you can now search for a movie that you want to watch and it will bring up not only the sale of the movie but also a list of places that the movie can be streamed online.

Another cool feature is that you can search for a movie by genre and tune the search according to a thumbs up or thumbs down system.

Chromebook Tablets for Versatile Learning

Google has introduced Chromebook tablets which can be used even by students in the third grade itself. The Chromebook tablets are for the low cost Chrome OS devices.

The Acer Chromebook Tab 10 is the first Chromebook tablet that has been revealed by Google. The Acer Chrome book Tab 10, will be the first tablet to run on Chrome OS.

Features 

The Acer Chromebook Tab 10 has a 9.7 inch, 2048 x 1536 display with front and rear facing cameras. It comes with an OP1 processor, 4GB RAM, 32 GB storage and a USB-C port. It has a microSD card slot and a headphone jack. The Chromebook tablet has about 9 hour battery life. The Chrome book tablets come with an in-built stylus that does not require a battery or any additional charging and touchscreen. The Chrome book tablets will be priced at $329.

The students of third grade, at a school in California were the first to test the device. The Chromebook tablets are a great device for them because of the technology and touchscreen.

The Chrome book tablet is first targeting the schools and later will be available for the consumers as well.

In classrooms, the teacher will give each student a device and the session begins. The student then logs in with their name and password, complete their work or even play on the Tab and when they are done, can log out. All the user information on the Chrome book tablet has been encrypted. Each time the device is booted, the verified boot checks the security of the device.

The Chromebook tablet comes with an in-built stylus which does not require charging or pairing to function.

The Chrome book tablets are light in weight with touch and stylus features. It is the ideal device for students to create multimedia projects and the user gets an engaging and absorbing experience. The Acer Chrome book Tab 10 supports many of the learning apps that can be obtained from a wide range of apps from the Play Store.

The first Chrome book tablet which is the Acer Chrome book Tab 10 is slated to be made available by the end of this year.

Advantages of Chromebook tablets 

The Chromebook tablets come with support, management and an in-built access to educational content. Google provides continuous support, updates and ensures security. Hence it becomes convenient and hassle free for the teachers and students using the Chromebook tablets.

The price of these devices is lower than laptops and hence they are more affordable even for personal use.

The Chromebook tablets can be set up within minutes. A Chromebook management license enables you to access the web-based management console. From there you can configure and manage 10 or 10,000 devices across the institution, local education authority or even across the entire region.

The students can share a single device and can even get a personal learning experience by just logging in. Each student can access his or her own work, apps, books and videos.

Chrome 66 Beta Delivers On Async Clipboard API, Web Locks API

Google on Windows and Android has released the latest Chrome 66 Beta version.
The Chrome 66 Beta version is available for download in the beta channel and it will restrict media auto playback and reduce browser crashes on Windows. There will be additional features like Chrome Home Duplex and a new Design tab on the Android app.

The Chrome 66 Beta version, which is in the beta phase, promises to block autoplaying videos with sound. Google was supposed to do it in Chrome 64 in the month of January, but the block on autoplay video will come along with the Chrome 66.

The Chrome 66 beta is expected for release in mid-April.

According to Google, the Chrome 66 beta will allow autoplay only when the video is muted or when the media does not play sound or if the user is interacting with the media on the site or has frequently accessed media on the same site. This ensures that there will be no unexpected video playbacks with sound as soon as the web page is opened.

The Chrome 66 beta will reduce the number of browser crashes caused due to third party software on Windows. It will display warnings in case a crash occurs.

As regards the Chrome 66 for Android, the Chrome Home Duplex replaces the Chrome Home bottom bar. There will also be a new sliding bottom toolbar to redirect to the New Tab page. It will be a quick way to launch bookmarks, but it is still in the development stage. It also includes a new Modern Design flag which has a rounded bar for URLs and icons. There will be a white background on the tab switcher and New Tab page.

Features of Chrome 66 Beta: 

AudioWorklet API

Earlier, the Script Processor Node was asynchronous and required thread hops, producing unstable audio output. For developers, the Chrome 66 has the new AudioWorklet API for enhancing audio performance. The AudioWorklet provides a synchronous JavaScript execution. With the help of a program, the developers will be able to control audio without any additional latency and provide higher stability in the output audio. Media streaming resolution will be better on websites with the new decoding Info API which determines the decoding capabilities of devices.

Asynchronous Clipboard API

A new Asynchronous Clipboard API will improve the read and write functions on the clipboard and the later Chrome versions will provide additional support for copy and paste functions of images and other data.

CSS Typed Object Model

Earlier when the developers wanted to manipulate CSS properties, they had to do so by manipulating the strings for the browser and then convert it back to a typed form. The drawback was that when the value of the CSS property had to be read in Java, the typed value was converted back to a string.

With the Chrome 66, the CSS Typed Object Model (OM) Level 1 shows the CSS values as typed JavaScript objects instead of strings. The developers are able to write codes that can be maintained and easier to understand.

ImageBitmap Rendering Context

Previously, in order to render an image on to a canvas, the first thing was to create an image tag and then the contents were rendered onto the canvas. In the process there were many copies of the image which were created and they had to be stored in memory. With the new ImageBitmap rendering context, there is no memory duplication and the ImageBitmap objects were rendered more efficiently.

8 of the Best Google Chrome Extensions to Make Your Life Easier

Digital Gadgets – Google Chrome

Various digital gadgets are available in Chrome’s web store thus making web browsing experience besides being simple and fruitful, also pleasant. The following are some worth mentioning which can be downloaded at no cost within a few minutes-

LastPass

It means that the user needs to recall one password in order to keep the login details secured in one place. Moreover the gadgets could also be beneficial in keeping the other accounts secured by creating a secure password which would be filled in automatically whenever the need arises. An area for notes for offline details which can be secured is also available and can be installed if needed.

Colorzilla

Eyedropper of Colorizilla tends to check any pixel and can inform the user when you desire to know the exact hue of online matter. The data of the colour can then be pasted into another programme or the values adjusted and saved within the extension for reference in the later stage. These gadgets could be an important extension for the purpose of digital design work.

TinEye

TinEye’s reverse image search is said to be the best gadgets while locating the source of an image which seems complex. It targets the nearest match rather than the similarity which makes it advantageous in locating the originals, higher resolution versions or checking online replicas. The extension makes the possibility of search available within a couple of clicks and can be installed with ease.

Unpaywell

Users interested in reading academic papers without subscription fees could utilise Unpaywall gadgets. This free extension navigation is beneficial for those looking for research andis a probable saver on time as well as money.

Instapaper/Save to Pocket

Any ofthese extension gadgets would enable the user to save web pages as well as the articles to read later on synced devices without an internet connection. They have premium version if the user needs to support the developers and obtain additional features

The Great Suspender

To open illogical amount of tabs in the browser is a simple task. Here the Great Suspender gadgets are supportive in handling the performance of the computer by restricting abandoned tabs till the clicks back on them. Plenty of space is available for configuration and the extension enables in keeping certain sites open for an indefinite period of time or unloads the other after a shorter duration of time.

Backstop

One wrong key press could take you back to the earlier page and at times some of the information edited could get erased. This can take place with any one. These simple extension gadgets tends to stop the backspace key from moving to the previous page thereby saving the user from wasting time and inconvenience.

Wunderlist

These are amazing gadgets in helping the user in tracking and sharing to-dos. This extension available as an app helps in creating as well as saving the to-do lists ranging from work project to the things needed to be brought from the grocery store to the items for reading during your journey back home. Moreover it also enables you to share the list with several co-workers. These can be saved across several devices and on accomplishment,the same can be termed as completed.

Researchers Demonstrate Existence of New Form of Electronic Matter

According to the news that has been published in the journal ‘Nature’, engineers based at the University of Illinois have shown that a new form of electronic matter exists. It is called quadrupole topological insulators (QTI).

The properties exhibited by this electronic matter, QTI could bring about a wide range of possibilities in the computer field. It holds great promise in the manufacturing of low-power, robust computers and various devices, that are all defined at the atomic scale.

The topological insulators (TI) are basically electrical insulators on the inside but are conductors along the boundaries. This unique property exhibited by the topological insulators makes them a special type of electronic matter.

A group of electrons form their own phases within the materials. This can be either in the solid, liquid and gas phase, as is seen in water. They can also form an uncommon phase like a topological insulator.

What is this new phase of Electronic Matter? 

The new form of electronic matter is the Quadrupole Topological Insulator. According to theoretical physics, some of the topological insulators have an electrical property known as quadrupole moment.

As we see in a material, the electrons carry a charge. In the process, the material becomes bipolar, that is it contains the positive as well as the negative charge.

Now, in a higher order class of material, we get a quadrupole which is a coupling of two positive and two negative charges. In crystals, the electrons can arrange themselves in such a way that they can give rise to high-order multipoles besides the usual dipole units. In the case of multipoles, four or eight charges are collectively arranged in a unit. The basic forms of multipoles are the quadrupoles wherein two positive and two negative charges are coupled together in a unit.

An analog of a QTI was shown by the researchers of the University of Illinois. They demonstrated it by using a special material from printed circuit boards.

Each circuit has a square of four identical resonators or devices that can absorb electromagnetic radiation at a particular frequency. The boards were positioned in a grid to form the crystal analog.
Each of these resonators behaves like an atom and the connections between the resonators act as bonds between these atoms.

The system is then subjected to microwave radiation to measure the amount that has been absorbed by each of the resonators. This in turn will indicate the behavior of the electrons in an analogous crystal. If the microwave radiation absorbed by a resonator is more, then there are higher chances of finding an electron on the corresponding atom.

In the above experiment it was inferred that the corners of the connected resonators absorbed the microwave radiation at a specific frequency whereas the rest of the units did not do so. The researchers then separated the bottom row from the grid and on subjecting it to the microwave radiation, it was noticed that the next highest rows showed the topological effects on absorbing the radiation.

They concluded that the edges of a QTI are not conductive unlike that seen in a TI. It was only the corners which are active and they correspond to the four localized point charges that form the quadrupole moment.

On measuring the amount of microwave radiation each of the resonators absorbed in the QTI, it was confirmed that the resonant states was in a particular frequency range and localized in the four corners. This shows the existence of predicted protected states that would be filled up by electrons that would in turn form four corner charges.

With the experiment conducted, scientists are beginning to understand the possibilities of the new electronic matter and its application. As of now, the physicists can predict that the new form of electronic matter exists, but no material has been found to have these properties.