Google Chrome is the favorite browser of millions of users, and a huge part of that is that it works on just about every major platform. Slowly, Google has been making Chrome feel more native wherever it takes up residence, and with Chrome 68, that expands to Windows.
Google’s Pixelbook is easily one of the best laptops on the market today, but no one would be wrong if they argued that Chrome OS holds it back. Recently, we’ve been seeing the possibility of running other operating systems on the Pixelbook, and it seems that Google itself is looking to get the device certified for running Windows 10.
Despite being the most popular desktop browser in the world, Chrome is still a notorious resource and battery hog. While Google has promised to fix battery life many a time, many users have yet to notice significant improvements. Now, Microsoft has conducted a series of tests showing that Chrome is the most battery intensive browser on Windows 10. There’s always the possibility of bias, but the results do line up with most people’s experiences…
Back in April at Microsoft’s Build conference it was revealed that Cortana for Android users would soon be able to have their smartphone notifications show up on a Windows 10 PC. Now it seems that feature is rolling out, at least to some beta testers/Insiders.
In an updated post on the Windows blog, Microsoft has confirmed that it is removing the option to use any browser other than Edge, and any search engine other than Bing, as an integrated option within Cortana. That means if you want to use Cortana for launching web pages or for performing searches in Windows 10, you’ll no longer be able to use Google Chrome or Google Search.
This is a pretty cool tidbit to come out of Microsoft’s Build conference. Probably thanks to some much more exciting news from Tesla, it went under the radar entirely. Apparently, the Redmond, Washington-based company is planning to soon let a future version of Windows 10 mirror your Android phone’s notifications by way of the Cortana app (via The Verge)…
A notorious problem given by Android and iOS‘ dominance in the mobile space is the lack of interest developers have in putting their effort into less successful and widely adopted platforms such as Windows Phone. However, in its grand plan, Microsoft announced compatibility of apps between the desktop and mobile versions of Windows 10 under the “Universal Windows Platform” umbrella.
To encourage devs, the Redmond giant also worked on some porting tools, the so called Windows ‘bridges’, namely “Project Islandwood” and “Project Astoria” – for porting from iOS and Android respectively – which after a troubled beginning are seeing their roads separating, with the former going forward and Astoria officially shutting down as of today, after a period of apparent hiatus.
Microsoft announced today during its Build conference that it will release a tool for developers to port their Android apps directly to Windows 10 as “universal apps” that run on both phones and desktop computers. Developers will be able to feed their existing Java and C++ code into a new software package and have it converted to work on the upcoming PC operating system.
At least, that’s how Microsoft is pitching it, though the whole process is a bit more complex. Essentially Windows 10 will ship with APIs that mirror the expected behavior of many Android APIs, and this new conversion tool will help developers swap out Android code for matching Windows code.
Microsoft has a big day today at its Windows 10 press event, where in part it is expected to unveil a brand new web browser called “Spartan” as part of its latest operating system. ZDNet reports that Spartan will not simply be another Internet Explorer release, but rather a lightweight web browser that looks and functions more like Chrome, Firefox and Safari.
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