Chromebooks Could Automatically Delete User Data

The latest Chrome for Chrome OS Dev Channel release (14.0.835.87) added a warning at the bottom of the file manager which informs users that "these files are temporary and may be automatically deleted to free up disk space".



The warning links to a page that provides more details: "Your browsing data is automatically deleted if your Chromebook is running low on space. If additional space is needed, non-owner profiles that have not been accessed for more than 3 months may be erased (including downloaded files)."





In Chrome OS, the owner is the first user who logged in using a Google account. He's the only user who can restrict sign-in access or switch to the beta/dev channels. Regular users don't have these permissions, but they can save files. Google's warning informs users that these files are temporary and they could be automatically deleted if the accounts are rarely used. Google recommends users to upload the files to Google Docs or another "web-based storage application", but it would be a much better idea to add a new feature that automatically saves files to Google Docs.



Chromebooks include a 16GB SSD that's mostly used to store system files and cached user files. User data is encrypted and some of the data is automatically synchronized (preferences, bookmarks, extensions, apps, passwords). To reclaim disk space, Chrome OS can always delete discardable data like browser cache, so it's unlikely that important user files are removed first.



{ Thanks, Cougar. }

Google's Experimental Sign-in Pages

It's probably the first time when Google tests a new sign-in page by asking users to try it. If you go to Gmail and you aren't logged in, you should see a message at the bottom of the page: "Coming soon: A new sign-in page! Preview it." When you click "Preview it", you'll see a new sign-in page that uses the Google+ design.





If you opt-in to the new interface, the sign-in pages for Google Docs, Google Reader and all the other Google services will also change. "For a limited time, you can switch back to the old version of the sign-in page by clicking the link at the bottom of the page. However, eventually this change will be permanent and you will not be able to switch to the old look," informs Google.





For reference, here's the soon-to-be-deprecated interface:





The new input boxes are a lot bigger: you can type 31 characters in the username box and they're still visible. In the old interface, only 20 characters from the username were visible at a time.



{ Thanks, Herin and Evan. }

Google+ Games

6 weeks after the Google+ launch, the project received a major upgrade and added social games. "Games in Google+ are there when you want them and gone when you don't. When you're ready to play, the Games page is waiting — click the games button at the top of your stream. You can see the latest game updates from your circles, browse the invites you've received and check out games that people you know have played recently. The Games page is also where your game accomplishments will appear."





The nice thing is that game updates don't clutter your main stream, but this also means that the stream will no longer be comprehensive and it will be difficult for a game to become popular in a short amount of time.



For now, there's a small number of games from companies like Zynga, Rovio (Angry Birds), PopCap Games and it's interesting to see that the games APIs aren't publicly available. "We chose to start with a small number of partners so that we could experiment, get the kinks out of our APIs, and get real end-user feedback before opening up to the world. (...) Because we want to provide both a great user experience and a great developer experience, we're focusing on quality before quantity. We will continue to add new partners and new features in small steps, starting with today's release of the games APIs to a small number of developers," explains Google.



Games aren't available to all Google+ users because the feature is slowly rolled out. When you see a new tab at the top of the page, next to the search box, you should be able to play games.







Google+ games are social. When you play a game, you can share updates with your circles, buy virtual goods, send gifts, invite your friends. "Additionally, a game may involve multiple players in a single match (such as a poker table). In these situations, the other players in the room can see and interact with each other during gameplay. Some games allow you to partner up with (or work against) another player, such as a neighbor, ally, or an enemy/rival. These games use your circles to suggest people to interact with. You could show up as a suggestion to another player to become an ally or to challenge," mentions Google.



Forbes reports that Google charges a 5% fee to developers for virtual goods transactions. "With this much lower fee to attract developers, Google is going after Facebook, which takes a 30% cut from developers for using its required Facebook Credits virtual currency system."

No More Standalone Google Dictionary

Google Dictionary is no longer available as a standalone service at google.com/dictionary. You can still find it in Google Web Search and Google Translate. For example, you can search for [define keyword] and click "more" or search for [keyword] and click "Dictionary" in the search options sidebar.


{ Thanks, Arpit. }

Google Docs Tests New Interface

Google Docs has a new interface inspired by Google+ and you can try it here. The interface is cleaner and there's a lot of white space. You'll also find the familiar red buttons, the gray buttons, the new scrollbars and the labelless search button.

The new interface looks better, but there's a lot of white space that could be used to show more information about the files. The details view is no longer available from the interface, but you can enable it in the old UI and the setting is preserved.


{ Thanks, Petros. }

Chrome 13

Google released the first stable Chrome 13 build a week later than originally planned. Chrome 13 brings print preview for Windows and Linux, page prerendering and partial URL matching in the address bar.

Print preview uses the built-in PDF viewer, so it only works if you use the default settings and you haven't enabled Adobe Reader's plugin. Unlike other browsers, Chrome doesn't have a separate menu item for print preview and there's no modal window. When you click "Print", Chrome opens a new tab that shows the page converted to PDF and a small number of options for printing. For more advanced options, click "advanced" to open the native printing dialog.

Since Chrome automatically generates a PDF file, you can easily save it by selecting "Print to PDF" from the "Destination" drop-down.


Prerendering extends an old Firefox feature called prefetching. Instead of only loading the HTML code of a page, prerendering loads the page and all the associated resources (images, scripts, CSS files), while also running the active content. This is useful if it's very likely that the visitor of a page will go to another page and it makes sense to load the second page in the background. Google is the first site that uses prerendering. It loads the top search result if it's very likely that users will click it (e.g.: for navigational queries like [CNN], [Princeton]). Any developer can use prerendering by adding rel="prerender" to a link tag, but it should be used sparingly.

Another new Chrome feature improves the address bar by adding support for partial URL matches in your browser history. This means that you can type "web" in the address bar and Chrome will match "http://picasaweb.google.com" if you've previously visited the page, just like in Firefox. "The omnibox, Chrome's combination search box and address bar, has gotten much smarter in the latest release, making it even easier for you to get back to pages you've visited before. Just type part of the page's address or title and look in the dropdown for matching pages from your history," explains Google.

Chrome 13 is special because Google offered "$17,000 of rewards" to the security experts who found vulnerabilities in Chrome's code. This is "possibly the best haul yet," mentions Google.

{ Thanks, Gal. }

Rate Google Translations

Google Translate has a new feature that allows users to improve translation quality: rating translations. There are three options: helpful, not helpful and offensive, but Google doesn't let you highlight the text that's poorly translated.


Another way to improve Google Translate is to click a word from the translated text and choose one of the alternate translations. You can also enter a better translation or hold down the shift key and drag the words to reorder them.

While Google Translate supports 64 languages, you probably use it for a small number of language pairs. That's the reason why Google highlights the languages you've recently selected.


{ Thanks, Charlie. }