Chromebook Beta Channel

Have you ever heard of the Chromebook beta channel? That’s one of the topics that I get into with my guest in this epsiode of the Chromebook Classroom podcast!

My guest is Gabriel Brangers, co-founder of ChromeUnboxed – arguably the top resource for ChromeOS related news on the internet. Gabriel is a US Army veteran, coffee connoisseur, and all around Chrome junkie!

This is the first time I have ever interviewed a professional blogger, so I start the interview asking Gabriel what it’s like to write full time for a blog. Surprisingly, Gabriel did not like writing as a high school student; in fact, English was one of his least favorite subjects! Despite this, Gabriel has helped author over a 1,000 original articles on ChromeUnboxed. If you are an English teacher, you will want to listen to the advice that Gabriel gives to students and teachers about writing.

Gabriel has been called the “Sherlock Holmes” of Chromebooks because he explores the deep reaches of the open source Chromium code repository looking for clues about what Google developers are working on for the next generation of Chromebooks. Gabriel explains the testing process and shares how you can help test new features by switching to the Chromebook beta channel.

(If you are interested in switching to the Chromebook beta channel, here are the instructions that I promised to share! And here’s a video demo of the new “peeking launcher” that we were talking about)

Gabriel also shares how ChromeOS is making an impact outside of the classroom, at universities, financial institutions, and even Starbucks!

We wrap things up by talking about the future of Android Apps on Chromebooks and the adoption of Chromebooks by universities, financial institutions, and companies like Starbucks! Chromebooks are not just a device as a classroom, and Gabriel has a bold prediction that we are just entering “the age of Chrome…”