 "Code reveals Google Now for Windows and Chrome OS is almost here")
Yet another exciting development is taking place in the Google world. Google Now for desktop has advanced a little further towards being available, rveals the latest Chromium release.
A new reference to Google Now support for Windows and Chrome OS has been spotted in the Chromium release. It specifically deals with toggling between enabling or disabling Google Now notification support. This comes only a month after it was noticed that Google’s open source web browser project Chromium had been updated with a new notification centre.
François Beaufort of Trapeze Media now noticed that a new flag has been added to the Chromium backend that allows users to enable the feature if you know the Google Now server. Sadly, Beaufort noted that since the Google Now server URL still remains a secret, we still can’t play with it.
It’s nearly here!
In February, Beaufort had noticed the new notification centre that seems to be “the perfect hub for Google Now cards.” Essentially a real-time search interface for Android users, Google Now has aimed to get users more relevant and real-time results since its launch at Google I/O in 2012.
Google has been working on bringing Google Now cards to desktop Chrome since a long time too, but in a hush-hush fashion. A screenshot put up by Beaufort last month detailed how this notification centre will appear and behave in everyday use. The code showed how users can manipulate and create their own notifications within a Chrome extension. But Beaufort said it will work with regular HTML5 notifications too.
The notifications look neat and simple, and have controls to change settings and clear all notifications at once, making it evident that multiple notifications can be lined up.
The Google Now service has been eagerly awaited on desktop ever since it was launched on Android. On the mobile platform, Google Now has about 25 cards detailing weather, traffic, events and more. The service intuitively throws up cards that could be relevant and/or important to you at particular points of time.
Google has kept mum about the development since the code surfaced in January. A spokesperson had said that Google was always experimenting with new features in Chrome but that they had nothing more to say at that time.
Chrome for desktop already has cards called Desktop Notifications that work well with Google services like Gmail and YouTube, and it is possible that Google Now would use this service as a base. Email notifications, comments and messages pop up thanks to Desktop Notifications even when the browser is minimised. ChromeDeck, TweedtDeck’s browser version, also uses such notification boxes.
Clearly, Google is in no hurry to launch Google Now for desktop. The company is making changes to Chromium at its own sweet pace before releasing the final version for Chrome. We’re all waiting with bated breath, Google!
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