Chrome Should Soon Be Easier On Your Mac’s Battery

Whatever the relative merits of the various browser options, there’s one big advantage that Apple’s homegrown Safari has over most of the competition – using it as your browser can have a significant positive impact in terms of battery life on portable Macs. Now, Google is hoping to close that gap with upcoming changes to Chrome.

Chrome already got a new feature that can disable crappy Flash ads and win you back some battery cycles, but there’s more in the pipeline. Per senior Chrome engineer Peter Kasting outlining future steps on Google+, we’re going to see changes to the way Chrome handles rendering of background tabs (i.e., the ones you aren’t immediately looking at), and eking out some minor but important gains in the CPU efficiency of searching with Google.

There’s a lot more going on, most of which is designed to help Chrome match or approach CPU efficiency found in Safari. Kasting even goes so far as to say the Chrome team has “no intention of sitting idly by (pun intended) when our users are suffering.” Groaning about Chrome’s efficiency cost in the Mac power user realm is indeed quite common, but it’s interesting to see Google so on the nose about the issue.

This is coming to the Chrome beta channel in a little over a month, which means general release probably a few months down the road. I’ve pretty much converted to Safari full-time at this point, but I’m definitely interested in seeing what a more battery-friendly Chrome has to offer.

Via TechSpot

Google fixes 7 Chrome security holes just before CanSecWest

The day before two annual Google-sponsored hacking contests kick off at a security conference in Vancouver, Google tidies up some of Chrome's loose ends.

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Chromebase: LG's all-in-one desktop that runs Chrome OS

LG's upcoming Chromebase will run Chrome OS.

(Credit:LG Electronics)

LG Electronics has officially jumped into the Chrome OS market. The electronics giant announced Tuesday that it would be unveiling its all-in-one Chromebase desktop computer during the upcoming 2014 Consumer Electronics Show.

"Simple to operate for all types of users, the award-winning LG Chromebase computer represents the successful combination of simplicity, power and great design," LG's head of IT Business Hyoung-sei Park said in a statement. "LG Chromebase is the wave of the future for desktops, expected to be widely adopted not only at home, but especially in schools, hotels, call centers and other business settings."

The Chromebase will have a full HD IPS display on its 1080p 21.5-inch screen. It will come with 2GB of memory, 16GB of storage, and an Intel Celeron processor. Also included will be a 1.3-megapixel webcam and microphone for video calling, 5-watt speakers, keyboard, and a mouse.

The fact that LG has been working on a device to run Google's Chrome OS isn't that surprising. In January 2012, the company signed a deal with Microsoft allowing it to use operating system patents for devices running Android and Chrome OS. LG has also already teamed up with Google to create the Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 smartphones.

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There were hints in October that LG was planning some sort of Chrome OS device. It had filed for trademarks on three names that contain the word Chrome -- ChromeOne, ChromeDesk, and ChromeStation. The three trademarks were listed in the device class as "Laptop computers; Computers; Convertible computers; Tablet computers."

It's still unclear when Chromebase will hit the consumer market or how much it will cost. Given the lower prices of other desktops and laptops that run Chrome OS, like Chromebooks, chances are the Chromebase won't be over-the-top expensive.

Topics: PCs Tags: computer, Chrome OS, Chromebase, desktop, Google, Chrome, LG

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Google emulates 1980s-era Amiga computer in Chrome

An emulated version of Amiga's operating system now will run on Chrome using the Portable Native Client software foundation.

(Credit:screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

The Amiga 500 lives again -- in Google's browser.

Google developer Christian Stefansen on Thursday resurrected a version of the venerable computer system from the 1980s in the form of a Web app that runs in Chrome. Forty-year-olds who want to relive their childhoods or younger people who want to see just how hard their elders had it can visit the Amiga 500 emulator for Chrome online, boot the machine, and play some games.

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Chrome emulates the old operating system by a Chrome-specific version of the Open Source Universal Amiga Emulator. Stefansen brought its 400,000 lines of code, written in the C programming language originally, to the Portable Native Client (PNaCl) foundation built into Chrome.

The Native Client technology runs software written to run on a particular processor at close to the speeds that native software runs. The approach gives software more direct access to a computer's hardware , but it also adds security restrictions to prevent people from downloading malware from the Web that would take advantage of that power.

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