Summer travel with a Chromebook

A Chromebook makes a great travel companion, with its 8-hour battery life, light weight, built-in Wi-Fi and available 3G. So we’ve teamed up with Virgin America and Ace Hotel to give you the chance to experience a Chromebook on your summer travels.

When you fly Virgin America from San Francisco, Chicago O’Hare, Dallas/Fort Worth or Boston, look for the Chrome Zone near your departure gate. Check out a Chromebook for free and browse away with complimentary Wi-Fi in the terminal and on your flight.


If your travel plans include a stay in the Big Apple, check into Ace Hotel New York and you’ll find a Chromebook waiting in your room. Use it anywhere, in or out of the hotel, with free Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity.


To make your trip even more enjoyable, we’ve also developed two new web apps: The Ace New York Field Guide tips you off on the hottest spots in town, from cool clubs to unique boutiques, and the Beat the Boot game which challenges you to get the highest score possible in the 8 seconds it takes to boot a Chromebook. Plus you can choose from thousands of other web apps in the Chrome Web Store.

Chromebooks arrive this Friday, July 1st at Virgin America and Ace Hotel New York, and are available for the rest of the summer. Get all the details here, and happy travels!

Posted by Heaven Kim, Product Marketing Manager

Faster than fast

What if a waiter handed you your meal, hot and fresh, the instant you ordered it? What if the elevator doors opened onto the eighth floor the instant you pressed the eighth floor button in the lobby? What if a web page appeared in your browser, loaded in its entirety, the instant you clicked on a search result?

Well, you might have to wait for Instant Restaurants and Instant Elevators, but Instant Pages is available today in the latest beta release of Chrome. Thanks to Chrome’s new prerendering technology, some Google.com search results will appear to load almost instantly after you click on them. You can see this feature in action in the following video:




Although Google.com is the most high-profile site to use this new prerendering technology, it can be used by other sites since it’s been designed as a web standard. Web developers interested in learning more can see our post in the Chromium blog.

We’ve added a few more features in this release that users have been eagerly awaiting for some time. First, we’ve added some awesome to the omnibox by suggesting partial matches for URLs and page titles from your browsing history. For example, say you’ve listened to the song “Zorbing” by Stornoway a few times on YouTube, but you can’t remember the full song title or band name. Now, when you type just part of one of the words, like “orb,” you should get a suggestion due to the partial match: “YouTube.com - Stornoway - ‘Zorbing’ Official Video.”

Second, we’re happy to announce that issue number 173 in our public bug database, which has collected more than 900 “stars” from users around the world since it was filed in 2008, has been implemented on Windows and Linux (the Mac version is coming soon). That’s right--we’ve finally added Print Preview! Print Preview uses Chrome’s built-in PDF viewer to display the page you want to print, and it updates automatically as you adjust your print settings. You can also choose to save any web page as a PDF file, using the “Print to PDF” option that’s automatically included in the printer list. Thanks for being patient with us on this one!

Posted by Chris Bentzel, Software Engineer

FORE! Golf comes to the Chrome Web Store

This Thursday, the productivity of tens of millions of golf fans around the world will hit new lows as the U.S. Open, the second of the four major golf championships, kicks off at the Congressional Country Club. For those of you who are determined to keep up with what promises to be an exciting tournament, there are plenty of apps in the Chrome Web Store that can keep you from missing a single shot.

The USGA has just launched the U.S. Open Today app that provides you with the latest news, video highlights and photos from the tournament. For additional coverage, you can try the Eurosport app or catch the latest photos at Sports Illustrated.




If all this tournament coverage gets you excited to play, you can add the WGT Golf Challenge app to Chrome. This is the most realistic golf game on the web, allowing you to play a closest-to-the-hole challenge at Congressional Country Club, or a new championship course every month.




If you get inspired playing the U.S. Open in the virtual world and you want to plan your next golf expedition, the Fairways360 app will come in handy. With Fairways360, you can explore new courses as if you were standing on the tee. You can also use the app to book tee times at over 1,700 golf courses across the United States, as well as get the current weather conditions and directions to the golf course of your choice.




Finally, to take care of scheduling tee times with your friends, you can try ClubDivot. With ClubDivot, you can create leagues with your friends and instantly notify them via email when you book a tee time to let them know to sign up. You can also organize your favorite golf courses and view your monthly calendar of tee times. This way you can get back to the things that matter most, like working on your swing.

There are thousands of more apps in the Chrome Web Store. Discover them at chrome.google.com/webstore.

Posted by Brian Rakowski, Official Chrome Team Hacker

Chromebooks now available for sale

Last month we unveiled the first Chromebooks from our partners, Samsung and Acer. Chromebooks were built and optimized for the web to give you a faster, simpler and more secure experience without the headaches of traditional computers. In the U.S., you can now order a Chromebook from Amazon and BestBuy.com. In other launch countries, visit google.com/chromebook to find a local retailer.

If you’re interested in purchasing Chromebooks for a school or business, please contact our sales team.



Posted by Felix Lin, Director of Product Management

Live updates on the first Chromebook preview

Welcome to live updates on the first Chromebook preview, a 2-day exploration of the web that also gives you a way to get your Chromebook early. We will continue to live update this blog post with subsequent preview locations.

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Live Updates (latest at the top)

That’s it for the Chromebook preview! You can see a recap of all the preview sites in our slideshow below. Thanks for exploring the web with us and stay tuned for more details on Chromebook availability.

6:03pm PT - Last but not least, continue your exploration of the web and its possibilities at the Chrome Web Store. This is your last chance to access a Chromebook preview!

5:16pm PT - Clue: Web is all you need, especially once you see everything we've got in store for you. This is the last Chromebook Preview!

3:25pm PT - Surface is a mesmerizing HTML5 experiment where you can interact with a water-like surface, adding your own photos, raindrops, and more. It’s a beautiful experience that demonstrates the visual fluidity possible using WebGL technology.

3:01pm PT - Clue: Want more Chromebook Preview? There's more to this surface than meets the eye. Just add water. And WebGL.

1:47pm PT - We're excited by the many possibilities in 3D online gaming with HTML5. The simple yet captivating FastKat by omiod is just the tip of the iceberg, but we are definitely addicted.

1:14pm PT - Clue: The fast cat gets the Chromebook at this next Chromebook Preview location...

12:21pm PT - Explore the body with Google Body, a 3D model of the human body built for the browser using WebGL. You can peel back anatomical layers, zoom in, and navigate the body to identify anatomy, or search for muscles, organs, bones and more -- like the next location of the Chromebook preview.

12:09pm PT - Clue: Peel back the layers and take a journey within. You might find the next Chromebook Preview there.

10:55am PT: Denver punk rock band the Gamits literally had their video for their song "Pieces" smashed into pieces to create "This Shell", a music video puzzle built in HTML5 that rewards fans with a free download of the song at the end -- if you can put the puzzle together before the song ends.

10:33am PT: Clue: Put the pieces of this shell together & we think you'll like the sound of it…if you can do it before the song ends.

9:26am PT - The first Chromebook preview location of the day is at Wantist, a fun place to shop for gifts designed with a clever "one-sentence interface": I'm looking for [something] for [someone] -- all built in HTML5, of course.

9:06am PT - Clue: For the artist, romanticist, whatever-ist in your life, get them what they WANT...

9:03am PT - Welcome to day 2 of the Chromebook Preview, where you can get your hands on a Chromebook early. With limited quantities of Chromebooks left, we're going to up the ante today and make it a bit more challenging to find the preview. Are you ready?

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Tuesday, June 7

7:45pm PT - That’s all for today! Check out the slideshow below for a preview recap. We’ll be back tomorrow so stay tuned.

6:04pm PT - Addictive, challenging yet soothing are a few words we'd use to describe Sinuous, an online game built with HTML5 canvas. Avoid the red dots, and keep an eye out for the next Chromebook preview here.

5:05pm PT - The next Chromebook preview location is an HTML5 Experiment from 9 Elements which started as a performance study on how many particles a browser can calculate and display with a decent frame rate. Add in music and select quotes that contain the words "love" and "HTML5" and the end result is this beautiful, mesmerizing visualization. We love HTML5, too!

3:24pm PT - HTML5 meets the personalized music video in the Chris Milk-directed Chrome Experiment "The Wilderness Downtown". This project excited us because it showcased how the modern browser can change the way we experience music in a highly interactive, personalized way, and also frankly, because we love Arcarde Fire.
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2:03pm PT - HTML5 is becoming the leading standard for the future of the web, and the HTML5 Readiness project compares the progress of the top 8 browsers in HTML5 support. See how far the browsers have come since 2008, and you'll also find the next Chromebook preview.

12:18pm PT - YouTube changed the way billions of people watched, shared and discovered videos, but what was the first video uploaded to the site? It's also the location of the next Chromebook preview, now live here.

9:28am PT - The first Chromebook preview is now open here. For the first stop, we’re taking you back to where it all began: Tim Berners-Lee’s original memo calling for people to help with his CERN-funded WorldWideWeb project. Look for a familiar icon which will serve as your entryway to the Chromebook preview. Each preview will only be open for a limited time before moving to a new location.

Posted by Azhar Hashem, Product Marketing Manager

A new stable release of Chrome: safer and snazzier

Today’s new stable release of Chrome brings improvements in security, privacy, and graphics to Chrome’s 160 million users.

Chrome is now more secure, thanks to enhancements to our Safe Browsing technology. In addition to protecting you from certain malware and phishing websites, Chrome now warns you before downloading some types of malicious files. We’ve carefully designed this feature so that malicious content can be detected without Chrome or Google ever having to know about the URLs you visit or the files you download.

Chrome also now gives you more control over the data that websites store on your computer. This includes Flash Player’s Local Shared Objects (LSOs), which were previously only manageable using an online settings application on Adobe’s website. We’ve worked closely with Adobe to integrate Flash LSO deletion directly into Chrome, making it easier for you to manage your online privacy.

Finally, Chrome’s graphics capabilities continue to improve. This release includes support for hardware-accelerated 3D CSS, which means you’ll get a snazzier experience in some web pages and web apps that choose to implement 3D effects. To see hardware-accelerated 3D CSS in action, check out this Chrome Experiment on Windows Vista / Mac OS X 10.6 or above, featuring clips from Aardman Studio's “Shaun the Sheep.” In this simple experiment, you can rotate the video, scale it up and down, toggle the reflection on and off, and activate a rotating carousel of videos. Of course, you can also just enjoy the animated antics of a few funny animals.




As always, Chrome users will be automatically updated to this new version of Chrome in the coming days. As Chrome continues executing on its six-week release schedule, we’ve got many more improvements coming your way. Check back in a few weeks for our next beta channel release!

Posted by Adrienne Walker, Software Engineer

The curious guide to browsers and the web: now in 15 languages and open-sourced

When we published the illustrated HTML5 web book, 20 Things I Learned about Browsers and the Web, late last year, we were excited by the positive response from teachers, web developers and many of you who shared in the joy of rediscovering how the web works.

Today, we've made this web book available in 15 languages, including Bahasa Indonesia, Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Spanish, and Tagalog. If you have family members and friends around the world who speak these languages, you can point them to the translated guidebook at www.20thingsilearned.com, where illustrator Christoph Niemann brings to life topics ranging from 什麼是網際網路？ (“What is the Internet?) to so schützen moderne browser vor malware und phishing (“How modern browsers protect you from malware and phishing”) and otevřený zdrojový kód a prohlížeč (“Open source and browsers”).



For those of you who want to tinker with the code and build your own web books, you can now dive into the HTML5, JavaScript and CSS used to build 20 Things I Learned with the fully open-sourced code. In developing this web experience, we took inspiration from the things we love about books and extended them to the world of bits and bytes with the capabilities of modern web technologies. We paid special attention to finding the right balance and weight in the cover and page flips; making the book available offline, easily searchable, as well as bookmarkable by allowing you to pick up where you previously left off; and implementing a "lights-off" mode to simulate reading with a flashlight under the covers.

20 Things I Learned was celebrated this year as an Official Honoree at the 15th Annual Webby Awards in the categories of Education, Best Visual Design (Function) and Best Practices. To learn more about the technical details behind some of the most-loved features of the book, see our post on the Google Code Blog.



We hope you’ll continue to find this curious guide to browsers and the web useful and informative. 20 Things I Learned is best experienced in Chrome or any up-to-date, HTML5-compliant modern browser. For those of you who’ve previously read this web book, don’t forget to hit refresh on your browser to see the new language options.


Posted by Cory Ferreria, Localization Lead and Min Li Chan, Product Marketing Manager