Chrome OS Weekly S1 EP 8: A Phone Mount For The Stadia Controller, AUE For Chrome OS, New Web Framework Bundle And More
Stadia News Update
There was some big news this week concerning Stadia. Google tweaked its list of available games on launch day stating only twelve games will be playable with an additional fourteen slated before the end of the year.
However, with Stadia only a day away, Google said twenty-two games will be playable instead of the previously reported twelve. This is a piece of much-welcomed news as the search giant left a sour taste in our mouths after revealing much of the promised features for the streaming platform won’t make it on launch day.
The new revelation means some of the games pegged to be released next year are getting an early birth.
The newly updated list includes:
- Assasin’s Creed Odyssey
- Attack on Titan: Final Battle 2
- Destiny 2: The Collection (available in Stadia Pro)
- Farming Simulator 2019
- Final Fantasy XV
- Football Manager 2020
- Grid 2019
- Gylt
- Just Dance 2020
- Kine
- Metro Exodus
- Mortal Kombat 11
- NBA 2K20
- Rage 2
- Rise of the Tomb Raider
- Red Dead Redemption 2
- Samurai Shodown (available in Stadia Pro)
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider
- Thumper
- Tomb Raider 2013
- Trials Rising
- Wolfenstein: Youngblood
A Claw For The Stadia Controller
In another Stadia-related news, Google is working with its “Made By Google” partners to build an accessory for the Stadia controller. The new un-released product is called the Claw and will function as a phone mount for the Stadia controller.
Having gone through several design iterations, Andrey Doronichev, Director of Product for Stadia at Google explained how his team went through the laborious process of creating the perfect phone mount for your Stadia controller.
No details were given for the availability and price of the device, but be sure to keep a lookout here as we will share the details as soon as they made available.
The Settings Page Will Now Show You Chromebook’s Auto Update Expiration Date
How long a Chromebook receives updates from Google plays an important role in the overall user experience of the device.
Google periodically adds performance-enhancing features to its Cloud-based platform and during the duration for the time allocated to the specific hardware, you also receive bug fixes and security updates.
But, the information about how long your Chromebook receives updates was only accessible through an external source meaning you will need to go to support.google.com to know when your device will last get an update from Google.
However, movement through the Chromium Gerrit has indicated that the search company is working on adding AUE dates to the settings page.
Google Wants Web-Apps to Load As Quickly As Native Apps
For the most part, Chromebooks rely heavily on Web Apps as much of Chrome OS is cloud lenient. But web apps aren’t as robust as their native counterparts with the latter being richer feature-wise and workable in conditions where the internet isn’t accessible.
However, with a new set of tools for developers, Google wants to help them create web apps that load as fast as native apps and sport features like offline capabilities and easy transferability.
The bundled framework will allow developers to add some interesting features to their web applications like context indexing and background syncronizing, the apps will cache data in real-time making sure access to them is possible even without access to the internet.
Crostini is Getting an Upgrade
Linux like Android is one of the external pillars Google is betting on to make Chromebooks more enticing not just to the general public to the niche developer market.
Much of what Google has planned for Chrome OS is to make the platform an all-around usable product for everyone including the much rigid Linux die-hards.
Integration of Android was the first step in the realization of that goal and Linux beta aka Crostini was the second.
Through a Chromium Gerrit, commit spotted by an XDA developer, Google seems to be planning a major update for the Linux container within Chrome OS that allows for the provision of Linux-based apps.
The company will be moving to Debian “Buster” which marks as version 10 of the Linux derivative Crostini is based on.
The upgrade is expected to bring an improved Linux application support, new features, and a host of several improvements.
Deal Of the Week
As Black Friday draws ever closer, there are rarely any good deals available on the internet. However, a recent Walmart discount for the Lenovo 100e was too good to ignore.
The device is powered by a Mediatek MT8173C Quad-Core Processor and 4GB LP-DDR3 1866MHz RAM and comes with 16GB of eMMc storage.
These aren’t top-of-the-line features but they work well with the price it is going.
The Lenovo 100e can be yours for only $109.
