Google announced that Chrome 28, which is currently available in the beta channel, speeds up the browser with a new threaded HTML parser. What does that mean? Google says that Chrome 28 will load DOM content about 10 percent faster, and reduces the the maximum stop time by 40 percent. In other words, you’re going to see pages load much faster.

For users of Chrome for Android, you’re going to find that WebGL has been added as an experimental feature in the beta alongside Web Audio and WebRTC. WebGL and Web Audio can be combined to create web apps and games that run natively across any browser on any device.

Chrome for Android is also getting the Fullscreen API with this latest beta. When enabled, the browser UI and OS status bar will be hidden in favor of a full screen experience. You can test Chrome for Android’s Fullscreen API with this Chrome Experiment.

Google also details two major deprecated features that users and developers will need to be aware of. First, the Content Security Policy HTTP head is no more. Second, Chrome Extensions have been ditched in favor of the Rich Notifications Chrome API. Many see as a sign that Google Now is about to come to Chrome.

If you want to play around with the above beta features, be sure to download the Chrome Beta here.

“The Google Publisher Toolbar will continue to include the same popular functionality as before in addition to a new feedback mechanism and blocking capabilities,” says AdSense product manager Fiona Herring.

The new toolbar features pop-up account overview, ad details and a feedback box.

The overview shows you your estimated account earnings summary for today, yesterday, this month and last month, in addition to data on your top 5 channels or sites by revenue over a variety of date ranges.

The bar also gives you detailed info about specific impressions including buyer and advertiser details, the creative, and the ability to block the ad buyer.

Google says 234,000 people have installed the Google Publisher Bar since it launched.

Users will now see search queries in the omnibox, as opposed to the long search URL. This makes it easier to refine the query and to view more results.

“To make browsing the mobile web even easier, web pages also display in fullscreen on phones,” says Google in a blog post. “As you scroll, the top toolbar disappears so you can immerse yourself in the web page content. When you scroll up, the toolbar returns so you can get on to the next thing.”

An update for Chrome for iPhone and iPad is on the way, which will include the ability to speak searches into the omnibox. This should hit the App Store in the coming days.

“This update also enables faster reloading of web pages by using the cache more efficiently when the network is slow, which is especially useful when you’re on the go. Finally, other iOS apps can now give you the option to open links in Chrome and then return to the app with just one tap,” says Google.

Google has a rundown of other features for the Android app here.

Update 2: While we should be able to expect the “hotwording” functionality in the future, a Google spokesperson only offered, “Conversational search has started rolling out on Google.com in the latest version of Chrome. You can just click the mic in the search box, ask your question in a natural way, and get spoken answers.”

At Google I/O last week, Google announced that it was bringing conversational search to the desktop. Voice search features available to mobile users are coming to the desktop via Chrome.

You’re supposed to be able to just talk to Google without clicking any buttons, and ask it questions, and otherwise perform searches. You’ve been able to use Voice Search from the desktop by clicking the microphone icon for some time, but now you shouldn’t have to click.

Unfortunately, that functionality isn’t quite available, but the Chrome update that is supposed to bring it to users has gone live, along with the makings of said functionality.

When you update to version 27.0.1453.93, you can click the microphone icon, and it will ask you if you want Google to start listening, so you shouldn’t have to click any longer. The problem is that Google is not responding to queries after that, unless you click the mic icon as usual. It does at least speak answers back to you now. You can also continue the “conversation” in a natural way (at least on some queries), and Google will understand that you’re still talking about the same subject.

Danny Sullivan uses the example of asking, “How tall is Barack Obama?” then asking, “How tall is he?” Google delivers without missing a step. It understands that “he” is Barack Obama. But you still have to click the mic icon.

In the demo at Google I/O, Google illustrated that you would be able to say, “Okay, Google,” and conduct your search from there (not unlike the famous “Okay, Glass” command).

Right now, Google may be listening to what you’re saying, but it’s not quite up to the Star Trek experience just yet.

In the demo, Google refers to the “Okay, Google” command as “hot wording”. There does not appear to be a setting in Chrome to set a hot word.

The feature is also a bit buggy, as people are seeing “no internet connection” sometimes even when they have internet connections:

This is actually happening a lot.

[via 9to5Google]

Over the last three years since Google TV came out, its ecoystem has grown to 10 device manufacturers, 5 chipset makers and 5 TV operators across 10 countries. It uses thousands of apps through Google Play and Chrome.

Here’s what the Google TV team had to say about the news on Google+:

Google TV Developers46 minutes ago

Over the past few months Google TV has gathered momentum by launching powerful features for our users such as the highest quality voice search of any TV product and strong manufacturer adoption of the platform. At Google I/O, it’s time to talk about developers and enabling them to bring more great experiences to TV.

Today, Google TV is moving to the latest version of Android (Jelly Bean, 4.2.2), and we’ve refactored Google TV so that our TV OEM partners can update to future versions of Android in a matter of weeks rather than months. For developers, this means you can build TV experiences using the latest Android APIs, including the NDK. 

Today Google TV is also moving to the latest version of Chrome, and from now on Google TV benefits from Chrome updates on the same six week cycle that you’ve come to expect from Chrome. In Chrome on Google TV, we’ve added support for hardware-based content protection, enabling developers to provide premium TV content in HD within their web apps. 

Google TV-powered devices in market will start to receive updates in the coming months, and we expect to see new devices launched later this year.  If you are attending Google IO, please check out the “Android: As seen on TV!” session and stop by the Google TV Developer Sandbox area.
https://developers.google.com/tv/

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Google I/O 2013: Android: As seen on TV!
Google TV gives developers a consistent Android platform to create and deliver applications, games and high quality media on the largest screen in the house. In this session we’ll show you how to unlock the potential of the current Google TV devices and explain the new features of the next generation Google TV platform. 37    29 Powered by socialditto

1. Checkout Button
2. Sign in or Guest
3. Billing name
4. Credit Card Type
5. Cred Card Number
6. Expiration – MM
7. Expiration – YY
8. Credit Card CSC
9. Billing Address
10. Billing City
11. Billing State
12. Billing Zip
13. Billing Country
14. Shipping Address
15. Shipping City
16. Shipping State
17. Shipping Zip
18. Shipping Country
19. Shipping telephone
20. Contact Email
21. Submit

So yeah, it’s easy to see where Google’s model could be a bit more helpful.

The Verge, liveblogging the event, says, “BIg play from Google to take its payment service to mobile in a subtle way.”

Update: Google has put a blog post out shedding more light on this announcement, which is an invitation to developers in the U.S. to sign up for the Google Wallet Instant Buy Android API.

Google’s Prakash Hariramani explains, “The Instant Buy API is designed for merchants and developers selling physical goods and services, who already have a payment processor and are looking to simplify the checkout experience for their customers. Developers selling digital goods within their apps will continue to use Google Play In-app Billing, which offers full payment processing capability, including support for carrier billing and gift cards.”

More at the blog.

Last year Chrome had 450 million monthly active users. Since then, it has added over 350 million new users in last 12 months.Today, it has over 750 million active users.

Much of the new Chrome use comes through mobile, according to Google’s Sundar Pichai. He also talked up the Chromebooks (coming out from an increasing number of partners) and Chrome OS.

Google also showed off a new Chrome experiment inspired by The Hobbit.

More from Google I/O here.

In an interview with Wired, Android and Chrome boss Sundar Pichai, who had just recently taken over Android from Andy Rubin, said that this year’s Google I/O is going to focus on developers, and what Google can do for them:

It’s going to be different. It’s not a time when we have much in the way of launches of new products or a new operating system. Both on Android and Chrome, we’re going to focus this I/O on all of the kinds of things we’re doing for developers, so that they can write better things. We will show how Google services are doing amazing things on top of these two platforms.

Pichai’s wording implies that not only are we not going to see any hardware announcements, but we also won’t be seeing any new versions of Android announced at the show either. Both seem at odds with rumors and speculation from the past few months that suggested Google would be showing both a new version of Jelly Bean and a new Nexus 7 at the annual conference.

It would seem strange to not announce at least a new version of Android at I/O, but Google may be holding off on that for a separate event later this year. We also can’t ignore the possibility that Pichai is intentionally misleading us.

Either way, we’ll know for sure on Wednesday when Google I/O kicks off with a three hour keynote beginning at 9 a.m. PST/12 p.m. EST.

[h/t: Engadget]

“The Google Keep Chrome app launches in its own window, so you can create notes, cross out your to-do lists, and attach photos to tasks while you work on other things,” says Google software engineer Eddy Mead in a blog post. “And if you don’t have an internet connection, don’t fret: the Chrome app works offline because we all know that ideas (big and small) can be sparked at any time.”

You can find the app in the Chrome Web Store here.

In semi-related news, rival Yahoo just acquired Astrid, another to-do list app, so don’t be surprised to see Yahoo launch its own Google Keep competitor in the near future.

Google announced that Chrome Beta for desktop can now open Microsoft Office documents directly in the browser. In other words, all of your Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint files can be accessed in the browser without having to open Microsoft Office.

You could interpret this as Google firing a warning shot across Microsoft’s bow, but Google says it’s only watching out for its users:

In addition to saving you time, the Chrome Office Viewer also protects you from malware delivered via Office files. Just like with web pages and PDFs, we’ve added a specialized sandbox to impede attackers who use compromised Office files to try to steal private information or monitor your activities.

If you want to start viewing Microsoft Office files in Chrome, you’re going to first need the Chrome Beta. You can grab that here. Next up, you’re gonna need the Chrome Office Viewer which is also in beta. Google reminds users to help them squash any remaining bugs in the Office Viewer by submitting bug reports whenever things go wrong.