Google is readying orientation detection for the upcoming Chrome OS, giving the Chrome browser the ability to use accelerometer data to keep track of which way is up.
If you rotate, the interface rotates with you.
Furthermore, upcoming apps and games can use the tweak as a method of control.
There are no current browsers with the capability, although Mozilla has promised a stable version of it for Firefox 4.0. Safari is likely to add it as well, as it is part of WebKit.
Chrome OS, for the most part, still remains a mystery to the general consumer, although Google took time to explain the cloud OS in a series of videos.
Result for: Firefox
Last week, Mozilla released Firefox 3.6.4 with “Crash Protection” which isolates third-party plug-ins when they crash, if you are using the Windows or Linux versions of the browser, allowing the main browser to remain stable.
Today, the company has had to rush out another small update, after the company was bombarded by complaints from Farmville players, the popular game available through Facebook.
The complaints mainly came from users with older computers, which were seeing the game crash from within their browser due to Firefox’s update.
How “Crash Protection” works, explains Mozilla, is if Flash, QuickTime or Silverlight crash or become unresponsive for over 10 seconds, the browser kills the plug-in.
Users with older computers say the 10-second rule is too short, as they normally have 30 seconds or more of non-responsiveness, when playing any games requiring a plug-in.
Says Mozilla: “Following the release of Firefox 3.6.4 we heard from some users, mainly those using older computers, that they sometimes expect longer periods of non-responsiveness from plug-ins, especially with games. For these users, the default timeout of 10 seconds was too short.”
The new update bumps the termination period to 45 seconds.
Bugzilla, Mozilla’s bug-tracking database says complaints mainly came from Farmville players.
“Now that (Firefox) 3.6.4 has shipped, we are seeing an increasing number of reports that some users are unable to play Farmville, because Farmville hangs the browser long enough for our timeout to trigger and kill it,” adds Mozilla developer Justin Dolske. “Let’s hit this with a big hammer and make it 45 (seconds).”
Result for: Firefox
In April, Google announced the addition of “drag-and-drop” attachment support, giving users a chance to drag attachments from their respective folders right into an email or message without the need to hit the “attach file” button.
Today, the search giant has expanded that feature to include images, letting you drag in the image to any email or message right from any folder on your computer.
Additionally, it allows for resizing.
For now the attachment support feature works in Chrome and Firefox but the image support only works in Chrome.
