logo
Syncing desktops and better AI wallpapers are coming to ChromeOS

Syncing desktops and better AI wallpapers are coming to ChromeOS

The Verge4 days ago
Google has released a new version of ChromeOS that allows you to sync desktops between devices, ideal for anyone who works across more than one Chromebook. It also significantly improves the AI wallpapers available on Chromebook Plus laptops with a completely freeform prompting field.
Desk sync is designed to help you pick up where you left off when changing devices. It will sync your windows, tabs, and cookies so you can change devices without losing where you were. Google suggests it'll be particularly useful for workers in healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing who might share a pool of devices. It's optional, but can be enabled in the ChromeOS user settings under 'Desk sync.'
ChromeOS version 138 also delivers a major update to AI wallpapers, which remain exclusive to the more powerful Chromebook Plus models. The previous version, introduced in May 2024 along with Gemini, limited users to specific art styles and a narrow range of prompt formats. Now it offers a freeform text field for prompt inputs, allowing users significantly more control over generated wallpapers. If that sounds like too much freedom, the 'Inspire me' button will generate wallpapers and prompts to give you a few ideas to start from.
Chromebook Plus users will also get the AI-powered 'Help me read' feature, which will simplify jargon-heavy or technical text. All ChromeOS devices will get the ability to use Lens to search from on-screen content or directly select text from images, along with a variety of bug fixes intended to improve accessibility.
Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
See All by Dominic Preston
Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
See All AI
Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
See All Chromebook
Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
See All Google
Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
See All News
Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
See All Tech
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

I'm a Mom and I Use ChatGPT to Help Solve My Kid's Boredom
I'm a Mom and I Use ChatGPT to Help Solve My Kid's Boredom

Yahoo

time6 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

I'm a Mom and I Use ChatGPT to Help Solve My Kid's Boredom

I've lost track of how many times my sons have told me their bored this summer. Luckily, I found a way to help by using generative AI. As I write this, we're well past the halfway point of summer. And if you're anything like me, you've lost count of the number of times your kids have complained, 'I'm bored.' Luckily, I found a way to help curb their boredom by using generative AI. Since school let out, I've been experimenting with AI hacks to help my kids pass the time. One day, my 10-year-old grabbed paper and a pencil and wrote a prompt for ChatGPT to invent a game. I offered a few suggestions, like specifying the number of players and equipment, then plugged it in. A few minutes later, he was in our backyard setting up for 'Bounce Battle." Tips To Create Anti-Boredom Prompts My favorite prompt of the summer has been, 'Give me a list of 100 things my sons (ages 10 and 13) can do when they say 'I'm bored' this summer. This list should include enjoyable activities as well as some light chores (like sweeping floor or emptying dishwasher). No activities involving electronic devices. The list should include some physical activity.' As with most AI responses, the list required some fine-tuning. I customized it to match my kids' interests and personalities, and our household needs. Now, the printed list is on the refrigerator, complete with spaces to check off completed activities so they can track their progress. When they finish seven activities, they receive a small reward, like a book or movie-sized candy. Here are some more prompting tips to help the anti-boredom campaign: Be specific. For example, rather than asking ChatGPT to simply "create a game," instruct it to "create a game for two to four players that can be played indoors with a ball." Provide context. To generate the list of 100 activities, I informed the AI tool on all my kids' favorite activities, like playing soccer and coding. Be sure to leave out sensitive information you believe could compromise your children's safety or privacy, most generative AI tools collect data to train their models. Use the search function. For certain prompts, like creating an itinerary for a local day trip, families need up-to-date information. Most AI tools have a web search option that can help gather current details. On ChatGPT, press the search button after typing your prompt or instruct it to search the web in your prompt. My 13-year-old and resident tech wiz is an avid coder and uses AI to troubleshoot his code. He says parents should watch out for inaccurate information and avoid providing personal information. Things to Consider When Using ChatGPT Tracy Foster, co-founder and executive director of Screen Sanity, shares that in her family AI has helped with everything from creating kid-friendly baseball drills to writing funny songs. Some of the songs may even end up becoming anthems in her household, which she says 'creates such fun family shared culture." Foster recommends only using AI to generate fun activities or to refine kids' knowledge on topics they're already experts on. She points to a 2025 study that found that those who relied on large-language models to write essays had more trouble responding to questions about their work than participants who did not rely on AI. In her own family, Foster discourages her kids from using AI to write any content. When her older son takes notes during family trips (to use later in a photo book), she allows him to use AI only to transcribe the handwritten notes, not to write them. 5 Prompts to Try With Your Kids If you're curious about using AI to help find ways to entertain your kids, here are some prompts to get you started: Give me a list of 20 meal ideas that would be easy for a 13-year-old with limited cooking experience to make. The list can include prepackaged food and mixes, such as hamburger helper and similar. This one worked well for my son, who has taken some of the cooking responsibilities this summer. As long as he has clear and simple instructions, he enjoys the process. Plus, my husband and I enjoy a night off of dinner duty. Invent a new sport for 2 players and up where you have to keep track of score. At least one person needs to be on each team. There can be up to five people on each team. You only need a pickleball to play. After that write down the rules for the sport. My youngest and I created this one for a game. The prompt is largely in his words, with tweaks for detail where needed. Give me 5 jokes for elementary-aged kids. This prompt is a bit broad, so we later narrowed it to request more specific jokes that better suited my kid's interests and humor, which sometimes is required when using AI. You are a world-renowned comic book author and illustrator. You have writer's block. You are working the finale of your best-selling series. Create 10 ideas for the storyline, including a villain, exciting action, and a compelling plot. This one's great if your kid loves to write but doesn't know how to get started on a new project. My son is an aspiring author and writes graphic novels, he came up with this prompt when he was frustrated trying to come up with new ideas for his 'Lightning Man' superhero. What's a craft project inspired by outer space that doesn't involve glitter? Finally, this one from Foster is a good example of prompts that restrict certain ingredients or materials, which can help families use what they have around the house. Not All Boredom Is Bad, Though No solution to the summer doldrums is perfect, though, and I won't deny that we've had our share of boredom, even with my new AI hacks. I give myself some flexibility and remember that my kids do not need constant stimulation and sometimes it's actually good for kids to experience boredom. Foster agrees. 'We can feel the expectation to be cruise director parents and if our kids say they're bored, it's like an insult to us that we are failing,' she says. 'Instead, having them learn how to work through boredom is so powerful and forces them to unleash creativity.' Read the original article on Parents Solve the daily Crossword

YouTube rolls out age-estimation tech to identify US teens and apply additional protections
YouTube rolls out age-estimation tech to identify US teens and apply additional protections

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

YouTube rolls out age-estimation tech to identify US teens and apply additional protections

YouTube on Tuesday announced it's beginning to roll out age-estimation technology in the U.S. to identify teen users in order to provide a more age-appropriate experience. The company says it will use a variety of signals to determine the users' possible age, regardless of what the user entered as their birthday when they signed up for an account. When YouTube identifies a user as a teen, it introduces new protections and experiences, which include disabling personalized advertising, safeguards that limit repetitive viewing of certain types of content, and enabling digital well-being tools such as screen time and bedtime reminders, among others. These protections already exist on YouTube, but have only been applied to those who verified themselves as teens, not those who may have withheld their real age. For instance, in 2023, YouTube began limiting repeated viewing of videos that could trigger body image issues or those that display social aggression. The company has also been developing digital well-being tools since 2018. If the new system incorrectly identifies a user as under 18 when they are not, YouTube says the user will be given the option to verify their age with a credit card, government ID, or selfie. Only users who have been directly verified through this method or whose age has been inferred to be over 18 will be able to view the age-restricted content on the platform. The machine learning-powered technology will begin to roll out over the next few weeks to a small set of U.S. users and will then be monitored before rolling out more widely, the company says. The plans to introduce age inference technology were announced in February as part of YouTube's 2025 roadmap. The plans are also the latest step in attempting to make YouTube safer for younger users, following the 2015 launch of the YouTube Kids app and the 2024 rollout of supervised accounts. The features also arrive as social media more broadly is coming under increased government scrutiny in the United States, where platform makers, including Apple and Google, have pitted their lobbyists against those from big tech companies like Meta over who's responsible for age verification and children's safety. In the meantime, a handful of U.S. states have taken matters into their own hands, as over a dozen states have passed or proposed laws to regulate minors' use of social media. Many of these require age verification or parental consent, including those in Louisiana, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Utah, Texas, Maryland, Tennessee, and Connecticut, among others. (However, some laws, like those in Utah and Arkansas, are blocked by litigation at this time and are not enforceable, while others are still pending implementation.) The U.K. also began enforcing its own age-verification checks this week following the 2023 passing of the Online Safety Act. YouTube isn't sharing specifics about the signals it's using to infer a user's age, but notes that it will look at some data like the YouTube activity and the longevity of a user's account to make a determination if the user is under 18. The new system will apply only to signed-in users, as signed-out users already cannot access age-restricted content, and will be available across platforms, including web, mobile, and connected TV.

Alphabet's AI Push Is Accelerating -- Is the Stock a Buy Now?
Alphabet's AI Push Is Accelerating -- Is the Stock a Buy Now?

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

Alphabet's AI Push Is Accelerating -- Is the Stock a Buy Now?

Key Points Alphabet turned in a strong quarter, led by cloud computing growth. Its Google search business saw growth accelerate in the quarter, helped by its AI Overviews. The stock is cheap for a company with a lot of opportunities ahead. 10 stocks we like better than Alphabet › Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) once again defied its critics who continue to believe the company will be a loser in artificial intelligence (AI). Not only did the company once again produce strong search revenue growth in its most recent earnings report, but that growth accelerated. In addition, Alphabet said that AI was positively impacting every part of its business. With cloud computing demand continuing to surge, the company upped its capital expenditure (capex) budget by an additional $10 billion to build out its data center capacity. It said in its Q2 earnings report that it now plans to spend $85 billion in capex this year, and anticipates spending even more in 2026, given the strong demand it's seeing for Google Cloud products and services. AI driving growth AI was the biggest growth driver behind Alphabet's strong results, with cloud computing once again leading the way. Google Cloud revenue surged 32% to $13.6 billion in the second quarter, while segment operating income skyrocketed from $1.2 billion a year ago to $2.8 billion. However, the company said its current capacity constraints could extend into 2026, despite its large capex investments. Ultimately, that's not a bad problem to have, as it's just a sign of how strong demand is. Alphabet called out its Gemini 2.5 models as catalysts for growth, saying that 9 million developers have now built with Gemini. It also noted how leading AI research labs are turning to use Google's Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) as their AI chips of choice. While cloud computing is leading the way with growth, all eyes continue to be on Alphabet's core Google Search business. On that front, the company once again delivered. Google Search revenue climbed 12% to $52.2 billion, which was an acceleration from the 10% growth it saw in Q1. Alphabet said over 2 million people in more than 200 countries use AI Overviews monthly, while AI Mode has over 100 million monthly active users, despite only being launched in the U.S. and India so far. It said that AI is contributing significantly to increased search usage, with AI Overviews now driving over 10% more queries globally. Meanwhile, the Gemini app now has more than 450 million monthly active users. Alphabet said the number of daily requests on the app jumped over 50% sequentially. The company also called out its strength in multimodal search, with Google Lens and Circle to Search. It said visual searches grew 70% year over year, and that many are shopping queries. YouTube continues to deliver strong results, with ad revenue rising 13% to $9.8 billion. YouTube, along with Google One (cloud storage) and Music, also helped drive a 20% increase in subscription and device revenue to $11.2 billion. The company said Shorts are becoming a significant contributor, and that the format allows for more ad opportunities on average. It recently introduced Veo 3 to Shorts; the AI tool can create videos from photos and add generative effects to make content creation easier on the platform. Alphabet is also continuing to expand its Waymo robotaxi business. It recently launched in Atlanta and is currently testing the service across 10 cities, including New York and Philadelphia. It hopes to launch the service in all 10 cities in the near future. Overall, Alphabet grew total quarterly revenue by 14% (13% on a constant currency basis), to $96.4 billion. Earnings per share jumped 22% year over year to $2.31. The results easily surpassed analyst consensus estimates (as compiled by LSEG), which were looking for EPS of $2.18 on revenue of $94 billion. Looking ahead, Alphabet said it was cautious on the advertising outlook because it's lapping strong spending in the financial services vertical last year and will see no benefit from political ad spending this year. However, it does expect to see a tailwind in Q3 from current foreign exchange rates. Is it time to buy the stock? Alphabet yet again turned in a strong quarter, demonstrating that the company is on track to be an AI winner. It continues to see solid growth in its search business, though its new AI Mode is currently only in two countries. Gemini has become a top AI model. And with the huge distribution edge it has with the Chrome browser and Android operating system, the company is well positioned in a shifting AI-search landscape. At the same time, Google Cloud continues to be a monster, generating robust revenue growth; it has scaled up to the point that it now has incredible operating leverage. Throw in the strength at YouTube and the emerging Waymo robotaxi business, and Alphabet is cooking. Best of all, you can still get into Alphabet stock on the cheap. The stock only trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of around 19 times 2025 analyst estimates, and a forward price/earnings-to-growth ratio (PEG) of 0.8. (Stocks with PEG ratios below 1 are typically considered undervalued.) With AI helping drive growth and Alphabet's AI push only accelerating, now is a great time to buy the stock. Should you invest $1,000 in Alphabet right now? Before you buy stock in Alphabet, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Alphabet wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $636,628!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,063,471!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,041% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 183% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 21, 2025 Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Alphabet. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Alphabet's AI Push Is Accelerating -- Is the Stock a Buy Now? was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store