ChromeOS just copied one of Windows 11’s best features
The ChromeOS 128 update adds snap layouts for apps, OCR text extraction from images, and improves camera and mic controls.
Google is rolling out a new ChromeOS update that makes it easier to keep your on-screen apps organized, copy text from images, and adjust camera and microphone settings on Chromebook devices.
One of the more notable features introduced in ChromeOS 128 is Snap Groups — a feature similar to Windows 11’s Snap layouts that allows you to easily group apps together in a variety of fullscreen layouts. The feature is even triggered the same way as Microsoft does it, by hovering over the maximize app button.
The ChromeOS camera app now supports Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to extract text from captured images of letters or other documents. It allows users to copy or search the text in images, more easily convert images into searchable PDFs, and have the built-in ChromeOS screen reader speak image-based text. Google says its OCR supports both horizontal and vertical detection in 77 languages, and is disabled by default in photo mode.
Additionally, the Magnifier tool will now work with ChromeVox — allowing the screen magnifier to automatically follow words when text is read aloud, helping visually impaired users to keep their place. This is also disabled by default, and will require both Magnifier and ChromeVox to be enabled in the device settings.