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Nearly three weeks after the initial Chrome 64 release in the Stable Channel, there is a new build that has been released for Chrome OS.  Build 64.0.3282.167 or 64.0.3282.169 (Platform version: 10176.72.0 or 10176.73.0) was released earlier today and it will be rolling out to the majority of devices starting today.  Users can manually check for the update by going to chrome://help on their device and checking for the update.

Generally the Chromium team has been releasing the first update of a new build to non-Android running Chromebooks while the second one in the train goes to those than can run the apps.  That appears to be the case here as reviewing the OmahaProxy shows the vast majority of devices now with either the .167 or .169 build as their stable release.

It has been pretty clear from previous announcements that 2018 will be the year that Google puts Google Assistant in all the things.  But in an announcement today, the scope of growth that the Mountain View company has for Assistant itself became a bit more clear.  And it is impressive.

First, the plan is to have Google Assistant available in no less than 30 languages by the end of the year.  That, in their words, would get Assistant to 95% of the Android install base globally.  This is something that we got a hint about earlier this month but now it is confirmed officially.

ARCore, the Augmented Reality SDK that allows for Android phones to create AR experiences, looks set to be one of the many things that Google is going to be releasing at Mobile World Congress next week.  According to an exclusive report in Variety, the Mountain View company will release the first version of ARCore to the public and it will work on Android Nougat and Oreo devices.

Google is set to make a major push to bring augmented reality technology (AR) to Android at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week, Variety has learned from sources familiar with the company’s plans. Central to these efforts will be the release of the company’s ARCore framework, which will allow third-party developers to bring AR apps to Android phones.

This is a significant step forward for the company’s AR plans as, to this point, ARCore has only been available on Google Pixel devices in a pre-release state.

The second build of Chrome OS based on Chrome 66 has landed in the platform’s Dev channel, just two days after the first build was released.  The new build is version 66.0.3350.3 (Platform version: 10425.0.0) for those keeping score at home and should be available to devices running in what is effectively the Alpha channel for the platform.

Just like the first release of Chrome 66, there were no release notes provided on this update nor any links to logs to see what had changes.  The Chromium team only provided the generic, “This build contains a number of bug fixes, security updates and feature enhancements“.  The lack of release notes however is not uncommon, especially in the Dev Channel.