Google Chrome to support emojis on OS X soon

 

Mac users, rejoice! Emoji support is soon coming to Google's Chrome browser for the OS X platform.

 

A report on The Next Web said Google has fixed a years-old bug in Chrome that prevented emojis from displaying on Apple computers.

 

"Emoji support has landed in the latest developer builds of Chrome for OS X, meaning that emoji can be seen on websites and be entered into text fields for the first time without issues," it said.

 

The Next Web said the bug was fixed as early as Dec. 11, and was tested recently in Canary, Chrome's early testing channel.

 

Canary, however, may not be for everyone as its experimental features could render it unstable for everyday use.

 

"From there, we can expect it to move to the consumer version of Chrome in coming weeks," TNW said.

 

Emoji could already be displayed on Safari, OS X's built-in browser. — Joel Locsin/TJD, GMA News

 

source: gmanetwork.com

Having problems with Bitly? You’re not alone

Having problems accessing some sites using the bit.ly URL shortener? You're not alone.

For several hours Saturday, sites or pages referred by bit.ly were blocked by Google and even on Mozilla's Firefox browser, though Bitly said the issue has been resolved.

"We are aware of some intermittent issues with Chrome + Firefox. Our team is investigating the issue to solve ASAP!" Bitly said on its Twitter account Saturday night, PHL time.

It said it was "incorrectly listed" in Google Safebrowsing, which caused users to receive a malware warning.

But it maintained the issue "has been resolved."

It added no data or Bitlinks had been compromised.

Google's diagnostic page for bit.ly indicated the site "is not currently listed as suspicious."

But it said part of the site was listed for suspicious activity 31 times over the past 90 days.

"Of the 91856 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 721 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on (Oct. 25), and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2014-10-25," it said.

It said the malicious software includes 200 Trojan(s), 187 exploit(s), 151 scripting exploit(s). "Successful infection resulted in an average of three new process(es) on the target machine," it said.

Tech site The Next Web said the fact that Google was not alone in blocking the links, "this suggests that there could be something a little more malicious going on from Bitly’s side, with a higher-than-usual number of miscreant sites using Bit.ly links to trick internet users." — Joel Locsin /LBG, GMA News

source: gmanetwork.com

Adobe Photoshop comes to Chromebooks

 

Users of Chromebooks, laptops running Google's net-centric ChromeOS, may finally be catching up with the more established platforms as they will now have access to Adobe's Photoshop.

 

Product manager Stephen Konig said Chromebook users can access the streaming version of Photoshop thanks to a partnership between Google and Adobe.

 

But Konig said this will be initially available for education customers, and only for those who have a paid membership for Creative Cloud.

 

"Initially, this will be available for U.S.-based Adobe education customers with a paid Creative Cloud membership—so the Photoshop you know and love is now on Chrome OS. No muss, no fuss," Konig said in a blog post.

 

Yet, he cited the potential advantages of using the cloud, including using Google's online services such as Drive, Google+ Photos or Gmail.

 

He said the streaming version of Photoshop is designed to run "straight from the cloud to your Chromebook."

 

"It’s always up-to-date and fully integrated with Google Drive, so there’s no need to download and re-upload files—just save your art directly from Photoshop to the cloud," he said.

 

 Konig said IT administrators will find this easy to manage, "with no long client installation and one-click deployment to your team’s Chromebooks." — Joel Locsin/TJD, GMA News

 

source: gmanetwork.com

Chrome to offer 64-bit version for Windows

 

Finally, Google's Chrome has a 64-bit version for computers running Microsoft's Windows operating system.

 

Software engineer Will Harris said 64-bit Chrome will make its debut - at least on the Stable channel - as Version 37.

 

"64-bit Chrome offers many benefits for speed, stability and security. Our measurements have shown that the native 64-bit version of Chrome has improved speed on many of our graphics and media benchmarks," Harris said in a blog post.

 

He cited a 15-percent improvement in Chrome's handling of the VP9 codec, which is used to play high definition YouTube videos.

 

On the other hand, he said the 64-bit rendering engines are "almost twice as stable as 32-bit engines when handling typical web content."

 

As for security, Harris said 64-bit Chrome can "far more effectively defend against vulnerabilities that rely on controlling the memory layout of objects."

 

For now, Harris said 64-bit Chrome will be opt-in, so users will have to go to www.google.com/chrome to manually download the 64-bit Chrome.

 

He also said the only significant known issue is the lack of 32-bit NPAPI plugin support.

 

"The 32-bit channel will remain fully supported for the foreseeable future and we will continue to support 32-bit plugins until NPAPI is removed from Chrome," he said. — Joel Locsin/JST, GMA News

 

source: gmanetwork.com

Google bringing Windows apps to Chrome OS

Here's another reason for computer users to consider buying a Chromebook instead of the more expensive machines powered by Microsoft's Windows—Google is bringing Windows apps to its ChromeOS platform.

Chrome director of product management Rajen Sheth said VMWare will be used to bring the "traditional" Windows apps and desktops to Chromebooks.

"As the countdown to Windows XP end of life continues, deploying Chromebooks and taking advantage of a DaaS (Desktop as a Service) environment ensures that security vulnerabilities, application compatibility and migration budgets will be a thing of the past," Sheth said in a blog post.

Sheth said cloud applications "allow flexibility, scalability and security and enable a work-anywhere environment," adding that DaaS helps bridge the gap between the cloud and a desktop.

With the Chromebook, Sheth said cloud-based apps and desktops can work on Chromebooks running ChromeOS.

"VMware and Google are working together to make the migration of legacy applications even easier, by using the HTML5/Blast experience from Chromebooks. This means you can work with Chromebooks and connect to a Windows experience running VMWare Horizon View," Sheth said.

Sheth noted VMware Horizon DaaS lets customers centralize other desktop environments and manage these as a cloud service.

With it, Sheth said users "will be able to access their Windows applications, data and desktops using VMware’s Blast HTML5 technology to their Chromebook."

Google attacking Microsoft monopoly


A separate report on The Verge said Google through its Chromebooks aim to Microsoft’s Windows monopoly.

"The approach of low-cost devices and a modern cloud-powered OS has left Microsoft a little nervous, but Google is now launching the next stage of its continued attack: the enterprise," it said.

It added Google's move was timed with Microsoft's plan to drop support for Windows XP in April, even if XP is still widely used.

"While many big businesses are paying Microsoft extra money for XP support extensions, it’s clear Google is attempting to capture the smaller ones that are seriously considering migrating to virtual machines and other cloud-powered services," it said. — VC, GMA News

source: gmanetwork.com