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Google Chrome is a speedy web browser with a minimal user interface. But if you’re using it on a Windows computer it can be a bit of a resource hog… and there’s a “bug” that causes it to drain your laptop battery more quickly than some other apps.
This has been true for ages, but Google has finally agreed to address the issue. But it turns out it wasn’t ever really a bug so much as a feature. Google decided early on to emphasis speedy performance over energy efficiency. Now Google’s taking another look.
Here’s a roundup of tech headlines from around the web. You can keep up on the latest news by following Liliputing on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.
- Why it took Google 4 years to promise to address Chrome’s battery-draining “bug”: It was a feature.
It all has to do with how often the CPU wakes up when idle. On Firefox it’s about 64 times per second. Chrome causes the CPU to wake 1,000 times every second. [Ars Technica] - Nexus 8 prototype tablet shows up at Zuaba
Is it *the* Nexus 8? Who knows. [Zauba] - Google will support Android Wear custom watch faces with a new API… but it’s not ready yet
There’s already an API for third-party apps for wearables. But Google wants developers to wait for an official watch face API before launching apps that change the time-telling UI of your device. [9to5Google] - Sailfish OS hardware adaption dev kit lets you run Sailfish on an Android device (with Android drivers)
Ironically you can run Android apps in Sailfish when you have a device that ships with the software. If you install Sailfish on top of Android on a device that normally runs Android… there’s no support for running Android apps. [The Jolla Blog] - Root/jailbreak/security research expert GeoHot (George Hotz) is now part of Google’s Project Zero security team
A guy best known for found security vulnerabilities that let you hack iOS and Android devices as well as the Sony Playstation 3 (which got him in a bit of legal trouble) is now trying to make the web safer by finding more security vulnerabilities (so they can be patched). [BBC] - Linux founder Linus Torvalds gives a tour of his home office (video)
Looks like I’m not the only one who decided to switch to a walking desk this year. [YouTube]
Does Chrome OS have a very short idle timer as well? Chromebooks tend to have long battery life (although I didn’t really look into the battery capacities). If Google doesn’t decrease the timer then why don’t they for the same reasons as in Windows?
Windows and Linux (ChromeOS kernel) have different behaviors. On Windows they used a hack to make the kernel ‘clock’ more often. On linus I guess it’s adaptive by default without having to force 1000 wakeups per second.
Not only in windows, it’s high battery consuming in my macbook. I don’t know about the bug in windows or it’s existence in Mac OS. I use safari for low battery usage.