Google previews upcoming ChromeOS features: Help me read, Focus, and Where was I?

In announcing the latest Chromebook Plus features and devices, Google today also previewed what’s coming next to ChromeOS.

ChromeOS is adding a “Where was I?” feature that groups together what you were previously looking at on your Chromebook. Meant to help you quickly resume, a new overview screen shows “what you had open across your windows, tabs and apps.”

A bar at the bottom shows the weather, recently opened documents in Google Drive, and any upcoming Calendar events. The “Welcome back” card will prompt you to “Open windows and apps from your last session” with a preview provided. This might include webpages from your signed-in phone:

Suggestions from across your devices on other operating systems will point you in the right direction, so if you start reading an article in Chrome browser on your Android or iOS phone you can finish reading on your Chromebook with a click.  

Meanwhile, Help me read can be activated to summarize a web page or PDF. You can then ask follow-up questions about it in a conversational manner.

A Focus feature elevates Do Not Disturb by letting you set a countdown and select a YouTube Music playlist or “focus sounds.” 

Google also briefly demoed a Pixel Recorder-like “Live Transcription” capability for Chromebook Plus, and Live Translation that will be handy when watching something and during video calls.

Lastly, Google demoed “face and gesture tracking” for ChromeOS based on Android’s Project Gameface. It will let you “compose and send an email, open and use an app or browse the web, all without using the keyboard or needing to download and manage third-party software.”

While we’re early in this project, this will be a leap forward for making sure our products are accessible for everyone.