Tag: Google Chrome

Google Chrome To Pause All Auto-Playing Flash Ads

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Just a week after Amazon announced its plan to stop its support for Flash ads starting September 1st, Google also decided on that same date as the day its Chrome browser will block auto-playing on all Flash content that isn’t “central to the webpage” – i.e. the Flash-based ads.

What Brands Should Do
Due to Flash’s long-standing security problems, Google’s AdWords network already automatically converts most Flash ads into the more secure HTML5 format. As the industry continues to move toward HTML5, brands would be wise to make the switch sooner than later, both for ads and for product demo videos.

Source: Ars Techica UK

Rdio Comes to Chromecast

Posted on by Lab Team

Rdio announced support for Google’s Chromecast media accessory, meaning that Rdio users can cast their music from their iPhone, iPad, Android phone, and Chrome, wirelessly. And with Rdio’s existing remote feature, users will also be able to control playback on the TV from wherever they are, as long as they’re logged into their Rdio account. As with other Chromecast-ready technologies, the icon for casting now appears in the Rdio app, enabling easy casting. It means that there is now well-defined music streaming for cord-cutters and other early adopters of the technology, taking Chromecast’s transition from a TV replacement to a living-room dominating media center to the next phase. 

New Google Chrome Beta Bakes In Web Payments

Posted on by Lab Team

Google announced the release of Chrome 31 beta, with new features that include web payments. What this means, practically speaking, is that users can now fill out online forms with very little effort. Web developers can access the browser’s autocomplete information through a new function that allows the user to pick existing payment data stored within the browser itself. They can also enter new details through a browser-provided interface, such as Google Wallet. The same system exists for Android, Chrome OS, and future Mac versions. So this means that it’s very likely that we’ll see Google Wallet begin to really step up its e-commerce game as this beta is rolled out universally. 

Chrome Adds Touch-Friendly Features

Posted on by Lab Team

Google looks to be adding a host of touch-friendly features for its Chrome browser. In its latest Canary beta, a new slide-to-navigate feature – almost identical to that in IE 10 or Windows 8 – has been added, and pinch-to-zoom is now in the code as well. These new additions make sense in the context of the new touchscreen Chromebook Pixel, as well as the new Windows 8 OS. The new features will outfit the browser for the next generation of touch-screen devices and operating systems.

App vs. WebApp: A philosophical difference

Posted on by Lab Team

App vs WebApp (Chrome/iTunes)Last week two items of note occurred. Apple released the iPad, and Google announced they would be building Flash into Chrome and Chrome OS. These two announcements highlight a growing difference between Apple and Google’s strategies for the future of computing. Both agree it’s mobile, but they have strong differing opinions on the issue of App vs WebApp.

Apple has had an interesting evolution. When the iPhone OS was first released, Apple staunchly positioned it as web apps only, with no native applications allowed. Eventually, after a small community of hackers got apps to work on the phones and even created a single app to find, download, and update their apps, Apple caved in. We then got a SDK for native applications, and finally arrived in the age of “There’s an App for that.” The iPad as a device is the epitome of this mentality. The iPad is about taking experiences that live elsewhere, whether Netflix or the New York Times, and creating an even better, completely customized experience for a single device. It’s all about the apps. Continue reading “App vs. WebApp: A philosophical difference”