Search giant Google today announced updates to test versions of both of its Chromes—the browser and the operating system.
The browser news is relatively minor, with Chrome 19 beta getting the ability to sync tabs to multiple devices on which you've signed into a Google account. As for Google's flailing operating system, Chrome OS, the company has conceded to conventions of the incumbent PC operating systems, Windows and Mac OS X, by using actual windowing and a taskbar.
Yet a third Chrome-related announcement appeared on a Google blog today, as well. The software maker announced its roadmap for WebRTC, a proposed HTML5 real-time audio and video specification.
The new browser beta was big enough news in Google's mind for it to appear on the Google Chrome Blog. "When you're signed in to Chrome, the tabs you have open on one device are available on all your other devices—just click the "Other devices" menu on the New Tab page." Chrome has had some syncing capability since version 4, when you could sync bookmarks," Google said. "More recently, version 16 added separate syncing for different accounts."
The update to Chrome OS includes the Aura desktop, which represents one of the bigger breaks with previous versions of Chrome OS we've seen. Buried in the middle of bullet points about multi-monitor support and new file format support is the simple entry, "Redesigned UI and updated Window Manager," with no further details. It's a pretty major change, which we'll no doubt hear more about at Google I/O.
The Aura project is described as follows on the Chromium Project site: "The goal is to produce a new desktop window manager and shell environment with modern capabilities. The UI must offer rich visuals, large-scale animated transitions and effects that can be produced only with the assistance of hardware acceleration." Another interesting note is that it should be able to run on Windows, as well as in standalone Chrome OS.
The new version 19 of Chrome OS and Chromebook appeared yesterday as an update to the Dev(eloper) Channel, and then again today was elevated to Beta, a more ready-for-primetime designation than the more experimental Dev. Both announcements appeared on the Chrome Releases developer blog, rather than the more high-profile Google Chrome Blog or the Official Google Blog. Both updates only apply to the Acer AC700 and Samsung Series 5 laptops.
For a look at the new Aura desktop, check out the video below.
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