Category: Chrome OS

Back in January, I posted about a new commit in the Chrome OS Gerrit that pointed to the ability for Android apps to be able to access a USB drive attached to your Chromebook.  At the time, it was only a commit and had not shown up in any channel for the platform but that now has changed.

The team over at Chrome Story had discovered a new flag that enables this feature in the Chrome OS Canary Channel.  The Canary Channel right now is based on what will be Chrome 68 so we are still several months away from it landing in the Stable Channel – but it appears to be coming.

In addition to the Chrome OS Beta Channel, which was updated today, the Chromium team in Google has also released a new build for the Chrome OS Dev Channel.  The update brings the third Chrome 67 build to the platform’s alpha testing channel, which is build 67.0.3383.0 (Platform version: 10539.0.0).  The updated build is available for the majority of devices that are currently in the Dev channel.

As a reminder to readers, the Chrome OS Dev Channel is the alpha testing channel for the platform and not intended for daily use.  It is aimed at testers and developers and will contain bugs and have crash issues as it is tested.

If there is any doubt that the growth of Chrome OS is going beyond simply being another OS alternative, spend some time in the Chrome OS commit Gerrit and you will see that the plans are big for the platform.  The latest proofpoint?  This commit.

It seems that ARCore, the Augmented Reality API and framework that is currently in Android, is coming to Chrome OS.  While there is no indicator of when we will see ARCore in the platform, the fact that it is being weaved into it is critical as tablet form factors start coming to market.

A new commit in the Chrome OS Gerrit points to an exciting new features for Chromebook users who need to access shared network resources.  It looks like the platform is going to be gaining native Server Message block (SMB) support, and it may be as soon as Chrome 68

For those that may not be familiar with SMB, it is a client-server communication protocol used for sharing access to files, printers, serial ports and other resources on a network.  If you have ever accessed a network based file or printer, odds are very high you accessed it via SMB.

Just a few days after the initial release, a second Chrome 66 based build has arrived in the Chrome OS Beta Channel.  The update is build 66.0.3359.67 (Platform version: 10452.30.0) for those keeping score at home.  This new build is available for the majority of devices according to the announcement and, more importantly, arrives for devices in the beta channel that can run Android apps.

I can confirm that my Acer Chromebook 15, which is in the beta channel, has received this update this morning.  For the first beta build on Monday, it was not available to it.

Earlier today I posted that the Chrome OS Beta Channel had moved up to Chrome 66.  In that post, I stated that the Chrome OS Dev Channel, the alpha testing channel for the platform, would likely move up to Chrome 67 at some point this week.  Well, actually, it took about an hour.

Build 67.0.3376.0 (Platform version: 10510.0.0) is now rolling out to devices that are in the Dev channel, coming out of the Canary channel where it has been the last few weeks.