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

Editing video on Chromebooks just got a lot easier

Arif Bacchus
By

Later this summer, Google Photos will be gaining new video editing features on Chromebooks, helping address one of the weaknesses of ChromeOS when compared to Windows and MacOS. Also coming are tweaks to the light and dark themes, new editing features in the gallery app, and new calendar integration and notification improvements in ChromeOS.

The new feature in Google Photos is expected to work natively within the app, and all within a few taps for making quick videos.

The video editing features in the ChromeOS Photos app.
Google

Google Photos will even suggest themes for movies and suggest photos or video clips for you to include for creation. You’ll also have manual control to select and arrange your own video clips and photos that you want in your movie you want by using the Files app. You can then edit clips, the brightness, and contrast of those clips, add titles, music, or even apply Real Tone filters to adjust skin tones.

Related

Even with these features, Google Photos won’t be a professional video editor. It is rather a bit similar to the native video editor in the Windows 11 photos app which is more for sharing personal moments and video montages with friends and family. Google says it is still working to bring professional-grade video editing to Chromebooks with LumaFusion. This is will let you add graphics, visual effects, transitions, distortions, and more complex things to your movies.

Recommended Videos

Other than the video editor in Google Photos, Google is planning to roll out the ability to set a wallpaper in ChromeOS with Google Photos albums and have it change daily. Additional changes include tweaks to light and dark mode so you can select one of them all the time, or have your Chromebook transition between the two, and tweak your wallpaper accordingly. Both of these will be coming to ChromeOS in August.

The new wallpaper options in ChromeOS
Google

Also coming to ChromeOS later in August is a new ability to edit PDFs in the Gallery app, which is ChromeOS’s new default media app. This tweaks things so that you can fill out forms, highlight text, sign documents and add text annotations without printing and scanning first.

Capping out the list of things coming to ChromeOS this in the coming months are a closer calendar integration, notification improvements, and virtual desks. There will soon be a monthly calendar on the ChromeOS shelf after you click the date in the system tray, letting you see Google Calendar events. With notifications, meanwhile, your Chromebook will group notifications from the same sender, and you’ll also see bigger buttons to join a meeting or respond to messages from within the notification.

The calendar in the system tray in ChromeOS
Google

As for the tweaks to virtual desks, Google says you’ll soon be able to close and save virtual desks as you see fit. This can better let you focus and come back to a specific set of grouped windows or apps that you have open on your Chromebook with just a tap. Google is targeting a late September release for this feature.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Arif Bacchus
Arif Bacchus
Computing Writer
Arif Bacchus is a native New Yorker and a fan of all things technology. Arif works as a freelance writer at Digital Trends…
Google may have just fixed Chrome’s most annoying problem
A Macbook with Google Chrome opened to a Gmail inbox.

While Google Chrome is one of the best web browsers, over the years it has gained a reputation for being something of a resource hog, gobbling up your PC’s memory like it’s going out of style. That can be a problem if you’re running other resource-heavy tasks and don’t want things to slow down. Now, Chrome has been updated with two new features that cut down on memory usage and extend your laptop’s battery life, according to Google. The changes are set to roll out today with the latest release of Chrome on desktop (version m108).The first new feature, dubbed Memory Saver, is designed to reduce the amount of memory Chrome’s tabs use. It does this by freeing up memory from inactive tabs, and putting them to sleep so they can’t monopolize your system’s resources. When you need to access the tabs again, they will be reloaded and become active. The goal of Energy Saver, meanwhile, is fairly self-explanatory -- helping your laptop battery last longer -- but it does so in a somewhat interesting way. When your battery drops to 20%, Chrome will try to prolong your battery life by “limiting background activity and visual effects for websites with animations and videos.”Presumably, this means Chrome will limit the kind of flashy effects that have made a comeback in web design in recent years. Google says that when these new features launch, users will still be able to customize them to their liking. You can disable either Memory Saver or Energy Saver (or both), and mark certain websites as exempt in Chrome’s settings. The changes could turn out to be important. While Chrome has managed to become the dominant Windows web browser and one of the best browsers for Mac, it has been plagued by poor memory management for years. If Memory Saver and Energy Saver are able to help ameliorate that -- and make your battery last longer too -- then Google might have gone some way to fixing Chrome’s biggest problem. Both Memory Saver and Energy Saver will be launched globally over the next few weeks. The features are coming to Chrome on Windows, macOS, and ChromeOS.

Read more
Steam enters beta on Chromebooks, tripling number of supported devices
Chrome OS Chromebook Gaming Android Gaming

After a long incubation period, Valve's Steam gaming platform is now available on the beta channel of version 108 of ChromeOS, bringing along improved user experience, broader availability, and greater compatibility with popular gaming titles.

Gaming publisher Valve had, at the beginning of this year, been collaborating with the ChromeOS gaming team in releasing Steam in the alpha channel of ChromeOS. Graduating to the more stable and reliable beta channel means more users can try Steam out for themselves.

Read more
New phishing method looks just like the real thing, but it steals your passwords
A MacBook with Google Chrome loaded.

Thanks to a new phishing method, hackers could steal all sorts of personal information by simply mimicking real login forms in Application Mode. This is a feature that's available in all Chromium-based browsers, which includes Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Brave.

Using Application Mode allows threat actors to spread highly believable-looking local login forms that look like desktop applications. In reality, all inputs are sent to a malicious attacker.

Read more