One of the things that made Google apps the web-based productivity suite to beat was the ability to access your information offline using Gears. When that experiment was killed, many of us let loose a single tear as we contemplated returning to our desktop apps. Well, as promised, HTML5 is finally returning Gmail to its former offline glory. Docs and Calendar will follow in the coming days, but anyone can get access to their Gmail accounts offline now by installing the Offline Google Mail app for Chrome. Before we had even finished spreading the wonderful news we already had it installed and fired up. So, how’s it work? Well, you’ll just have to keep reading after the break to find out.

Continue reading Offline Google Mail hands-on

Offline Google Mail hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Aug 2011 14:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How do you solve a consumer education problem like the Chromebook? You put it into the idle hands of urbanite travelers — that’s how. The fast-booting neither laptop, nor netbook entity with negligible storage and not-yet-defined purpose will find a temporary summer home at select Virgin America gates and New York’s Ace Hotel starting Friday. Jet-setters flying between San Francisco and either Chicago O’Hare, Dallas / Fort Worth, or Boston Logan can get an on-the-fly, marketing-fortified crash course in Chrome OS computing by visiting special ‘Chrome zones’ located near departure gates. Virgin’s also thrown in some free in-flight WiFi to ensure you test drive Google’s Cloud-dependent lap-dweller . And if you’re one of the millions of tourists planning on seeing the Big Apple in all its humid splendor, the Ace Hotel’s got an on-the-house stash that lobby lizards can use, but only guests can take out. But the promotional push doesn’t just stop there: all partners involved have bundled specialized travel-planning apps into the experience — sure to be ripe with cooler-than-thou recommendations. It’s a noble attempt by our search giant overlord to make a name for its portable computing entrant, and a helpful distraction from that armrest hog next to you.

Continue reading Chromebook boards Virgin America, checks-in at Ace Hotel for summer vacation

Chromebook boards Virgin America, checks-in at Ace Hotel for summer vacation originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Jun 2011 18:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kogan, the Aussie company behind such gadgets as the fist-sized Bluetooth GPS watch and gesture-controlled IPTV, is adding a Chromium OS laptop to its family of Google-powered Agora products. The 11.6-inch computer has a spec list rivaling the midrange notebooks of 2006, including a 1.3 GHz Celeron processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 30GB SSD. That’s not a lot of oomph, but with cloud-based storage and Google’s open source Chromium running the show, this thin client laptop should be in decent shape. There’s also a 3.5-hour battery, SD card reader, webcam, Bluetooth, and an HDMI output. Like all Kogan products, the Agora is only available in Australia (AUD 349, about $372) and the UK (

Remember that massive security vulnerability that Adobe identified in its Flash Player, Acrobat and Reader software? Well, shockingly enough, it hasn’t yet taken over the internet and ground productivity to a halt, but Google’s been proactive about it and patched the flaw by itself. Of course, the fix applies only to its own Chrome web browser, Firefoxes and Internet Explorer types will have to wait for Adobe’s fix, which is expected any minute now. Still, it’s good to know someone’s looking out for the security of our data, even if that someone already has access to most of it anyway.

Google patches Flash vulnerability in Chrome, leaves other browsers hanging originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Mar 2011 09:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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