Google Releases New, Faster Chrome Beta

By Digital Trends Staff Published October 25, 2009

Google Releases New, Faster Chrome Beta

It seems like yesterday – actually just September – that Google released its Chrome browser, but it’s already come out with a new Chrome beta, one that’s not meant to replace the old one, but run alongside it.

“Getting on the beta channel means your version of Google Chrome will regularly get updated with new speed enhancements, features, and bug fixes before most users see them,” said Google Chrome product manager Brian Rakowski.

Recommended Videos

“The best thing about this new beta is speed — it’s 25% faster on our V8 benchmark and 35% faster on the Sunspider benchmark than the current stable channel version and almost twice as fast when compared to our original beta version.”

The beta also has auto form completion, zoom, and a new kind of tabbing. Rakowski said:

“We’re doing our best to quickly churn out new features as they are available rather than saving them up for occasional major releases. Riding the beta channel is a great way to let us know about what’s working and what’s not, but don’t be surprised to find some rough edges.”

Digital Trends Staff

Digital Trends has a simple mission: to help readers easily understand how tech affects the way they live. We are your…

Computing

I tried out Google’s latest AI tool that generates images in a fun, new way

Google's Whisk AI tool being used with images.

Google’s latest AI tool helps you automate image generation even further. The tool is called Whisk, and it's based on Google’s latest Imagen 3 image generation model. Rather than relying solely on text prompts, Whisk helps you create your desired images using other images as the base prompt.

Whisk is currently in an experimental phase, but once set up it's fairly easy to navigate. Google detailed in a blog post introducing Whisk that it is intended for “rapid visual exploration, not pixel-perfect edits.”

Computing

Google strikes back with an answer to OpenAI’s Sora launch

Veo 2 on VideoFX

Google's DeepMind division unveiled its second generation Veo video generation model on Monday, which can create clips up to two minutes in length and at resolutions reaching 4K quality -- that's six times the length and four times the resolution of the 20-second/1080p resolution clips Sora can generate.

Of course, those are Veo 2's theoretical upper limits. The model is currently only available on VideoFX, Google's experimental video generation platform, and its clips are capped at eight seconds and 720p resolution. VideoFX is also waitlisted, so not just anyone can log on to try Veo 2, though the company announced that it will be expanding access in the coming weeks. A Google spokesperson also noted that Veo 2 will be made available on the Vertex AI platform once the company can sufficiently scale the model's capabilities.

Computing

A new test shows Microsoft Recall’s continued security problems

Recall screenshot.

Microsoft is currently previewing its latest version of Recall to Windows Insiders on Snapdragon-, Intel-, and AMD-based Copilot+ PCs -- and the topic on most users' minds is security. The company updated its security and privacy architecture for the feature in September, but, according to tests run by Tom's Hardware, it still might not be good enough.

The new version of Recall includes a sensitive information filter that's supposed to detect when there's information like credit card numbers and Social Security numbers on the screen. If it detects them, it will avoid taking a screenshot. When Tom's Hardware put this filter to the test, however, it failed in a number of situations.