Google Chrome will soon let you mute websites

We’re confident it’s happened to you before. You have multiple tabs open in Chrome and then a page loads and you suddenly get assaulted by really loud music. And if this has annoyed you to no end, Google is working on something to make sure you don’t have to hear autoplaying videos in the background anymore. The company is testing out in their experimental Canary build for the browser a way to permanently mute websites. But as Google’s François Beaufort says, they are still “experimenting with a setting to mute / unmute a website directly from the Page Info bubble.”

Right now you can already mute tabs by just right clicking on them and selecting “Mute tab” but this is a temporary fix because the sound will start playing again the next time you open the tab or Chrome.

Source: The Verge

Google adds video previews in Search for Android smartphones

With people consuming more and more videos on the internet, we’re not surprised Google is releasing something related to this. If you do search on your Android via Google app or Chrome on Android, there will now be video previews on top of the search results. Much like GIF-like teasers released for YouTube desktop users, there will now be clip snippets showing up to help you find what you’re looking for quickly. Don’t worry about using up your data, the feature will only work on Wi-Fi. Google started rolling the feature out on Friday and will be coming to more users next week.

Source: Google

Google Chrome adds support to MacBook Pro's TouchBar

Apple's opened up TouchBar support on its MacBook Pros since it launched the devices last year and Google Chrome, the leading browser on the Mac platform in now offering support for the feature. Now available, Chrome version 60, closely mirrors Apple's own Safari browser.

Chrome now gives users fingertip access to page back and forward, refresh, favorites and add new tab controls. Tapping a large central text box sporting the Google logo allows for quick input of search terms and web addresses. 

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EU-backed Chrome plugin debunks fake videos

Telling what’s real from what isn’t is a bit challenging these days. Thankfully, some people are trying to set things right for us. One of the latest technological attempts to rid us of fake news is a new Google Chrome plugin made by EU-backed InVID. This Fake Video News Debunker does as its name suggests. The tool will help out fact-checking journalists and truth-seekers of the original context of a particular clip. All you need to do is put in the URL of the YouTube or Facebook video in the Analysis tab and let it do the work. The plugin will pull up general information about the clip like time, location, and description, among others. You’ll even get an option to do reverse image searches and Twitter video search. It even has more in-depth features including a Keyframe tab, Thumbnails tab, Magnifier lens tab, Search tab, Forensic tab, and Metadata tab.

The clip above shows how the plugin works. It’s currently in beta version but it might be worth trying it out now, especially for the information it can provide. InVID has gotten funding from EU’s Horizon 2020 programme for projects like this. They’ve already launched other services that check credibility of videos and organizations and even copyright tools.

Source: The Next Web