Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

Google Chrome may start resurfacing tabs from your other devices

Add as a preferred source on Google

Google has announced that it is currently “experimenting” with a feature that suggests pages to you based on open tabs from other devices. Chrome is already handy at picking up where you left off on other devices through tab syncing. To bolster this seamless handoff between devices, this potential new feature will serve up these tabs.

Google didn’t detail exactly how this would look, but the blog post reads that it would “proactively suggest pages” on the Chrome New Tab page. Right now, this page is filled with quick links to your most viewed websites and hand-picked shortcuts. For what it’s worth, to me this seems like a convenient place to put these tabs.

Recommended Videos

But that’s not all. Google is also making a tweak to how tab groups function cross-platform. You could already save and sync tab groups to make them accessible on other computers, but now Chrome will do that automatically rather than requiring a manual save. This will happen on desktop, Android, and iOS.

New features being added to the Search bar.
Google

Google also has some updates for commercial users on Chrome. Workspace users will be able to see an overview of their Google Calendar when opening a new tab. You’ll also be able to access site shortcuts directly from the search bar that have been customized by administrators within the Workspace. Google says these features are currently rolling out and will be available for “all managed users, even if they aren’t using Workspace.”

There are a number of other administrator-specific features coming as well, so if you’re in that world, make sure to check out Google’s full blog post for all the details. These include enhanced security features and a clearer separation of work and personal data through work and personal profiles.

Luke Larsen
Former Senior Editor, Computing
Luke Larsen is the Senior Editor of Computing, managing all content covering laptops, monitors, PC hardware, Macs, and more.
Tech giants are gaga over AI, but employees say the AI race is making their jobs harder
Employees at some of AI’s biggest companies say the AI push is bringing longer hours and heavier workloads
Claude on a MacBook Pro.

Tech companies have spent years promising that AI will help people accomplish more in less time. Inside several companies leading that race, some employees are describing an awkward consequence. More productive tools haven’t necessarily produced shorter working days.

Workers at OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Google told the BBC about punishing schedules and AI projects consuming nights and weekends. The twist is that their employers increasingly have evidence that AI really can help people get more done.

Read more
Your MacBook trackpad can now purr like a cat, and it’s surprisingly convincing
A clever new Mac app uses your MacBook's Force Touch trackpad to recreate the feeling of a real cat purring under your palm.
PurrPad featured

Mac developers keep finding new ways to make their laptops do things Apple never intended. Earlier this year, an app went viral for making MacBooks moan when slapped. Another unique app lets you feel a webpage's buttons through the trackpad before you click them. Now, a developer has built one that makes the trackpad purr like a cat.

PurrPad makes use of the Taptic Engine built into MacBook trackpads, so instead of hearing a purr through your speakers, you feel one under your palm. Developer Francesco Pavanetto, who shared the app on Reddit, says he tuned the vibration to the actual measured pitch of a real cat purr and built it so the pattern never repeats exactly.

Read more
MIT researchers found a new Spectre attack that can slip past Intel and AMD defenses
AMD Ryzen CPU inside a socket installed on a motherboard

Spectre has been haunting CPU security since 2018, and MIT researchers have now found another way to make it misbehave. The new TONTOU attack can bypass some of the defenses Intel and AMD have added over the years by exploiting a tiny gap in how those protections work. The research comes from Daniël Trujillo and Mengjia Yan at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). Their findings show that even after a processor wipes or isolates information used by its branch predictor, there can be a brief window before that information is actually used. TONTOU, short for Time-of-Neutralization to Time-of-Use, attacks precisely that gap.

The tiny gap that TONTOU exploits

Read more