Chromebooks

Hot on the heels of Samsung’s announcement of its new “Milk” streaming music service, Google has announced that it will be offering 60 days of free access to its Play Music All Access service to certain users, as well as anyone who owns a Chromebook.

Normally, the service runs $9.99 a month for the premium plan. Play Music All Access allows users to access a library of millions of on-demand tracks on any Android device. Prior to this offer, Google was offering 30 days of free usage, but the company has graciously doubled that for a limited time.

If you’ve been wanting to try Play Music All Access, keep an eye on your inbox for two free months of the service.

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Samsung’s new Chromebooks leaked a little bit last week and again over the weekend, but now they are official.  The biggest upgrades include the form factor featuring the faux leather stitching made famous by its Galaxy Note 3 and a new 1080P 13-inch display on the higher end $399 model. Both still use Exynos 5 Octocore processors that lack a little bit of the oomph of Haswell Intel processors, but they compete very well in battery life (8.5-9 hours claimed by Samsung). These machines also have wake times of less than one second and cold boots in less than ten.

Another prime area of improvement is the Hangouts video chat experience enhance by a 720P front side camera paired with improved mic and 2x 2W speakers.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN0WrJGKNk4]

Google has announced an experimental feature in the developer version of Chrome OS that allows you to access more than one user profile at the same time, easily flicking between them, as well as passing both tabs and files back-and-forth between profiles.

Switching profiles is as easy as clicking on the profile picture in the system tray popup. […] One nice thing, but still highly experimental, is that you can move windows to different profiles with a simple right click in the window top bar. As you can see in the video, even the Files App even supports this feature.

To access the feature in the Chrome OS dev channel, enter the following line:

chrome://flags/#enable-multi-profiles

If you’re not currently using the dev channel, you can find instructions for switching here, but note that by definition you can expect to experience some glitches. The stable channel is always recommended when working on anything important.

If you’re looking to give Google’s ChromeOS a try, the 11.6″ HP LTE-equiped Chromebook may be your best option right now. The non-LTE version of the Chromebook usually sells for $279, but the LTE model is actually available now for only $249. The connectivity isn’t the only difference between the two, either. The LTE model comes with 16 GB of flash storage while the more expensive, less-capable version uses a standard hard drive of the same size.

Both come with 2 GB of RAM, a 1.7 GHz Samsung Exynos processor, built-in webcam, support for 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, and weigh only 2.3 pounds. Both models are also available in a range of colors. Obviously, the connectivity differs between the two, as the LTE model comes with support for Verizon’s 4G LTE network.

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While we’ve yet to get official word on the machines from Samsung, it looks like two new Samsung Chromebooks will be going on sale shortly as retailer B&H begins accepting preorders for the new models. The listings were spotted by OMGChrome (via GigaOM) but since removed.

Presumably replacing the original 11.6-inch Samsung Chromebook model that sells for $249 ($329 with 3G) is an 11.6-inch model starting at $299 featuring a Samsung Exynos 5 SoC and a $399 model with a 13.3-inch display. There isn’t much more information on the new Chromebooks at the moment, but we expect Samsung will announce them once it wraps up its big smartphone announcements at MWC this week. 
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Google announced a partnership with virtualization software maker VMware today that will bring Chromebook users access to Windows desktops and apps. The deal means enterprise Chromebook users will have access to Windows apps through VMware Horizon DaaS and an upcoming Chrome Web Store app:

Cloud applications allow flexibility, scalability and security and enable a work-anywhere environment, but many of our customers still use traditional desktop applications. Desktop as a Service (DaaS) helps bridge the gap between the cloud and a traditional desktop by allowing you to run your traditional software in the cloud and have applications appear on your Chromebook similarly to how they run today. An example might be your Windows based accounting application.

It might sound a little bit like Google is admitting that enterprise customers need more than just Chrome apps to get the job done, but it’s also embracing the upcoming end of life for Windows XP and encouraging business customers to upgrade to Chromebooks. Giving businesses access to the Windows apps many rely on is certainly a good argument for upgrading to Chromebooks. In a statement in VMware’s press release, Google’s president of enterprise Amit Singh said “Chromebooks can save businesses about $5,000 per computer when compared to traditional PCs.”
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ASUS has announced that the new Chromebox it promised last year will go on sale next month, priced from $179. The device – looking rather like Intel’s NUC ultra-compact desktop PC – is both the smallest and most powerful Chromebox to date, with a choice of three processors.

$179 will get you the base model, powered by a Celeron 2955U. Next model up is a Haswell Core i3 model, capable of driving a 4K monitor – and there will be an i7 version sold only outside North America. No pricing has yet been announced for the more powerful models.

“The Asus Chromebox offers the simplicity, security, and speed of Chrome OS in the most compact and powerful Chrome device to date,” said Felix Lin, director of product management at Google. “Perfect for home, the classroom or the office, Chromebox is designed for the way we use computers today” … 
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HP Chromebook 11

Since its release, Google has touted that Chrome OS is incredibly secure and can be used for any type of use case. In a blog post on the Chromium Blog, the company announced today that it is offering a total of $2.71 million USD to anyone that exploit Chrome OS. In order to compete for a portion of that pot, developers have travel to the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver, which takes place in March.

The criteria for this Pwnium contest, which Google has been holding for years, is pretty specific. Developers and hackers won’t get money for exploiting any portion of the operating system. Instead, Google has guidelines for how much they will be paid, depending on how deep the exploit is.

• $110,000 USD: browser or system-level compromise in guest mode or as a logged-in user, delivered via a web page.
• $150,000 USD: compromise with device persistence: guest to guest with interim reboot, delivered via a web page.

Google will also consider cash bonuses for demonstrating a particularly impressive or surprising exploit. Hackers will be able to choose between the Haswell-based Acer C720 and the ARM-based HP Chromebook 11.

If this sounds like something you want to try, Google requires that interested parties register ahead of the even by emailing security@chromium.org. Registration will close at 5:00 P.M PST on March 10th.

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Update: Best Buy is already listing the new model online for $379 (via Liliputing).

Reuters is reporting a claim by Israel’s Altair Semiconductor that HP will be launching a LTE-only Chromebook 11, with connectivity provided by the company’s chips.

“Our solution equips the Chromebook with a dependable and incredibly fast Internet connection,” said Eran Eshed, vice president of marketing and business development at Altair. “By focusing on 100 percent LTE and eliminating costly 3G components, we were able to help our partners lower the cost of this critical LTE connectivity feature” …

Google’s high end Chromebook Pixel is also LTE-only but the move for a more bargain-centric product has some folks scratching their heads….
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Editor’s note: As noted in the graph above, the numbers in this article refer only to the commercial channel, as NPD does not measure direct sales. Some of the language below has been updated to clarify this point.

A new release from the NPD Group indicates that notebooks running Google’s Chrome OS have gained significant ground in the past year. According to the statistics, over one-fifth of all laptops sold in 2013 were running the free software. Of course, it should be noted that the numbers presented don’t take built-to-order machines or direct sales into account, instead relying on sales of pre-configured options, but even so, this impressive figure is still very good news for Google.

In fact, when considering all computer sales, including desktop and notebook form factors, Chromebooks have still gained a pretty sizeable chunk of the market. Last year Chromebooks took home a measly 0.2%. This year, however, the number comes in closer to one-tenth of the market at 9.6%.

While that may not seem like much next to the 34.1%  of all computer sales held by Windows-powered notebooks, it’s over five times better than Apple’s sales for its entire MacBook lineup combined. It now seems that Google—not Apple—is in the best position to someday knock Microsoft from the top of the notebook computer market.

Amazon has never been a company to provide specific sales numbers, but their just-issued press release shows us that Android, Kindle and Chromebooks dominated their holiday shopping season. Surprisingly, or perhaps not surprising at all is the Chromecast, which is the best seller in the Computers and Accessories category outselling the company’s own Kindle Fire lineup as well as Apple TV and the Roku 3 Streaming Media player.

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Oh the weather outside may still be frightful, but inside the morning after Christmas is definitely delightful. Now that Christmas music is put back onto the shelf for next year, what Android, Chrome, Google-related goodies did you get for your holidays?

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Google’s Chrome browser and Chrome OS had another banner year in 2013 and with the Chromebook continuing to grow in popularity, 2014 looks to be even better. There’s little question that along with the growth of the Chromebook, Chrome as a web-browser continues to delight users the world over. With a bevy of new features and improvements in 2013, Google has its work cut out to improve on it next year. So without further delay, let’s take a look at the year’s top Chrome and Chrome OS stories of 2013 as determined by the number of pageviews each story incurred:

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Following the decision to stop sales of the HP Chromebook 11 pending an investigation into overheating chargers, today the US Consumer Product Safety Commission reports Google and HP will indeed recall the netbook’s charger. Google says it received nine reports in total of overheating chargers and melting with some cases resulting in injuries and property damage:

Google has received nine reports of chargers overheating and melting during use. There is one report of a small burn to a consumer and one report of minor property damage to a pillow from an overheating charger… This recall involves chargers that were sold with the HP Chromebook 11. The charger is black with outlet pins, measures 1¾ inches by ¾ inches, and has a 6-foot long cord with a micro-USB connector on the end. The model number of the charger is MU15-N1052-A00S, which is stamped on the face of the battery charger that has the outlet pins.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission’s report claims the recall will include around 145,000 units and that users can contact Google to get a free replacement. Google is yet to resume sales of the device on Google Play or through its retail partners, but its website says to “please check back soon.” More info on how to contact Google below.
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Microsoft’s renewed nervousness about Chromebooks was likely influenced by advance knowledge of Dell’s announcement that it would be joining Acer, HP and Samsung in manufacturing the ultraportable laptops in January.

The machine will have a Celeron 2955U processor, a choice of 2GB or 4GB RAM and 16GB of flash storage. The screen will be an 11-inch 1366×768 display with 720p front-facing webcam. You’ll get two USB 3 sockets plus HDMI in a case less than an inch thick and weighing under three pounds. Battery-life is said to be around 10 hours … 
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wAgB5J1gSQ&w=600&h=420]

Imagine my shock and surprise as yet another anti-Chromebook advertisement hits the YouTubes courtesy of Microsoft. The latest in the company’s anti-everything-Google campaign attacks the notion that a Chromebook has “everything you need” as a laptop.

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Chrome OS users take note, a brand new camera app is on its way offering a host of new features. The announcement came via Google’s “Happiness Evangelist” Francois Beaufort who suggested that while the current Chrome OS camera is good, the team can do better.

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