Google has issued an assortment of software updates for its new Chromecast television dongle and for its existing Chrome Web browser, Chrome OS, Chrome for iOS and Chrome Beta for Android applications.
The Chromecast update was announced in a July 31 post by Ambarish Kenghe, the Chromecast product manager, on the Chrome Releases Blog. "Today, we are pushing a bug-fix update to Chromecast devices to improve performance, reliability and security," wrote Kenghe. "The update will roll out over the next few days and will happen automatically; users do not need to take any action."
The Stable channel update for Chrome OS, to version 28.0.1500.95 for all Chrome OS devices, was unveiled in a July 30 post by Danielle Drew of the Chrome team, on the Chrome Releases Blog. The release contains several stability and security improvements, including crash fixes related to suspend/resume on Samsung Chromebooks, correction of a problem in which the keyboard backlight could not be turned off properly when watching full-screen video on Chromebook Pixel devices, and a Pepper Flash update to version 11.8.800.94-r10, wrote Drew.
The latest Chrome Web browser has also advanced to its Stable channel, with Version 28.0.1500.95 being released for Chrome Frame, Linux, Mac and Windows, according to a July 30 post on the Google Chrome Releases Blog by Anthony Laforge of the Google Chrome Team. The latest Chrome browser has 11 security fixes, including one medium-severity fix and five high-severity fixes, wrote Laforge.
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The latest Chrome for iOS browser has been released as Version 28.0.1500.16 and contains improvements to embedded video playback on iOS 5.1 and other bug fixes, according to a July 30 post by Jason Kersey of the Chrome team, on the Chrome Releases Blog. The update is rolling out in the Apple App Store, he wrote.
Also released is an update to the Chrome Beta for Android development channel, to Version 29.0.1547.40, according to a July 31 post by Kersey, on the Chrome Releases Blog. The release is being rolled out through Google Play and includes crash fixes and feature fixes, he wrote.
With the latest Stable channel update for Chrome OS rolling out, Google also updated the Dev Channel, or developer's channel, of Chrome OS to Version 30.0.1581.2 for all Chrome OS devices, according to a July 31 post by Josafat Garcia of the Chrome Team, on the Chrome Releases Blog. The new dev version includes a host of improvements and bug fixes.
In July, Google announced previous updates for many of these applications, including a new version of its Chrome browser for iPhones and iPads, as well as a new Chrome Beta version for Android that introduced a new Web audio API and support for WebRTC.
In June, Google introduced a video game, Cube Slam, to demonstrate and show off WebRTC capabilities. WebRTC allows users to see, hear and communicate with each other using only a Web browser, whether they are playing a game or participating in an online video conference. Google has been working on WebRTC projects for some time as a Google Chrome Experiments project. The technology could find its way into many other business and consumer uses in the future. The Cube Slam video game lets users play face-to-face against their friends by simply using a WebRTC-enabled browser.
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