9
Verge Score
An OLED display, a fast processor, 16GB of RAM, and all-day battery life for $749? That’s a lot to like.
An anonymous Vancouver school guidance counselor told Associated Press that the Gaggle monitoring software “is good for catching suicide and self-harm” risks, but students then look for workarounds once they’re caught. An AP investigation found that many students’ Gaggle incident documents shared by the district weren’t protected and could be read by anyone with a link.
Good news for Joe Joyce and other assistive technologists who help students and computer users around the world: ChromeOS now supports Bounce keys, which ignore repeated keystrokes if you accidentally tap them too much within your specified amount of time. It’s part of the ChromeOS M133 update.
New updates coming “soon” to Google Classroom will let teachers notify students about homework due dates right on the home screens of their Chromebooks.
Those Chromebooks should also last longer, as Google announced last year that it will provide 10 years of automatic updates to Chromebooks, but only for laptops bought in 2021 or later. That, unfortunately, doesn’t cover Chromebooks bought in 2020 at the start of the pandemic, which are now breaking down or reaching their end-of-life expiration dates.
Chromebooks are good now. And such low prices!
8
Verge Score
Google’s midrange ‘Chromebook Plus’ cohort is off to an excellent start.
HP’s new Chromebook Plus devices aim to fulfill the needs of today’s young people — who are looking, HP has determined, for “technology that is flexible, adaptable, and delivers powerfully immersive experiences, while keeping the planet in mind.”
The Plus, coming in 14-inch and 15.6-inch options, will feature 12th-Gen Intel processors, AI video conferencing tools. The 15-incher ($599.99) has a 144Hz screen option; the 14-incher ($749.99) has recycled material in the cover and hinge. Both go on sale October 8th.
So, technically this feature has been floating around for a while in developer channels and such, but it’s been officially announced today with the release of Chrome OS 116. As of now, Chrome OS enables owners of RGB Chromebooks to customize the colors of each color zone.
This is particularly interesting since customizable RGB is, stereotypically, a gaming laptop thing, and gaming Chromebooks are...well, they’re not doing so hot over at Google these days.
[chromeos.betacommunity.com]
Google launched the feature in beta during Google I/O in May. The company says the update, ChromeOS M115, is coming out “soon.”
[support.google.com]
We’re about to see one in the wild. Asus has launched its Chromebook CM34 Flip, one of the first models that will include AMD’s new Ryzen 7020 C-Series processors (which are basically the same chips that AMD released for budget laptops last September, but nevertheless).
The CM34 has Wi-Fi 6, a 16:10 screen, a full-sized backlit keyboard, a physical webcam cover, and a starting price of $499. Asus is claiming 13 hours of battery life, rather than 17, so there’s that.
