ChromeOS 128 rolling out: Snap groups upgrade splitscreens, Camera OCR, more

Google is rolling out ChromeOS 128 starting today with a number of sizable updates for Chromebooks. 

Snap groups are formed when you split-screen two windows. They are now paired instead of existing separately, with users able to “bring the windows back together, resize them simultaneously, or move them both as a group.” There’s a more prominent handle bar in the middle for resizing that makes one window larger and the other smaller, or vice versa.

To streamline how camera and microphone access requires both privacy controls and app permissions to be enabled, the ChromeOS Apps settings page will “provide actionable reminders” that let you quickly turn on something missing.

ChromeOS 128 enables Auto Gain Control (AGC) by default to “automatically optimize microphone volume for best audio quality,” especially on video calls:

• “When auto gain control is enabled and in-use, a message appears in the quick settings panel to inform the user that the microphone gain slider is being overridden.”
• “If you want to manually control the microphone volume even for apps that support AGC, you can go to Settings > Device > Audio and deselect Allow apps to automatically adjust mic volume.”

The ChromeOS Camera app now supports Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for extracting text in 77 languages. Both horizontal and vertical detection are supported. To enable:  Settings > Text detection in preview.

ChromeOS 128 now “significantly differentiates the visual look of pinned notifications from typical notifications to reflect their significant difference – we notify the user of an ongoing process rather than an instantaneous event.

Other changes include:

• “For ChromeOS cellular-enabled devices, we have made it easier to view, manage, and add Access Point Names (APNs). We’ve also improved registration failure handling and messaging.”
• “When you read text aloud using ChromeVox, the screen magnifier now automatically follows the words, so you never lose your place. To try this out, you can enable both Magnifier and ChromeVox in your settings. Zoom in to your preferred zoom level using Ctrl + Alt + Brightness up and Ctrl + Alt + Brightness down. A setting is available under the Magnifier settings to adjust this behavior.”
• “From ChromeOS 128 onwards, we store aggregated vitals data for one-year retention to better track the progress over time. Vitals data includes Android app performance metrics, such as crash rate, and these metrics will help us improve Android app performance on ChromeOS devices.”