The latest Dart SDK now provides a cohesive API for asynchronous programming. Some of the new or improved classes in this release include Stream, a sequence of asynchronous events, and Future, a single asynchronous result.

The Stream class is new and delivers on a common developer request for a more unified approach to events. An event can be any Dart object, which makes Streams very flexible. Consumers of a Stream can listen for events, and streams can be piped, transformed, filtered, and more. We are working to apply them across HTML, I/O, isolates, and more. Here is an example of using streams with the HTML library, treating clicks as a stream of events:

query('#button').onClick.listen((e) => submitForm());

Here is an example of streaming the contents of a file. Notice how streams can be transformed.

Today’s Chrome Beta for Android update brings your saved passwords and autofill entries from your desktop to your phone and tablet. This release also introduces an experimental data compression feature that will yield substantial bandwidth savings. This feature is powered by a connection to a SPDY proxy running on Google’s servers, paired with content optimization performed by our open-source PageSpeed libraries, specifically tuned for Chrome Beta on Android.

Today, we released the Zopfli Compression Algorithm, a C library that compresses existing web content 3–8% more densely.

Zopfli is compatible with the normal decompression mechanisms already present in web browsers and  uses a much slower but more exhaustive compression algorithm than, for example, the zlib library. This can result in smaller data sizes and faster web pages.

To learn more about Zopfli, visit our site.

Posted by Lode Vandevenne, Software Engineer

Earlier today we launched Chrome Super Sync Sports. It’s an interactive web game that enables up to four friends to compete in running, swimming and cycling events on a shared computer screen, using their smartphones or tablets as game controllers.

Chrome Super Sync Sports was built with the latest browser technologies:

Today’s Chrome Beta channel release includes a slew of awesome new features to help you make your web apps more powerful and beautiful. Unless otherwise noted, all updates apply to Chrome for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android.

Element

The element is part of Web Components, a set of cutting edge standards that will make it possible to build reusable widgets for the web. The element allows you to store HTML fragments that you intend to use for any reason at any time during the lifetime of your page, but that aren’t ready or shouldn’t be used during page load. Here’s an illustrative code snippet from the HTML5 Rocks article:

Today, on the Chrome dev channel for Windows, you can try the Chrome app launcher--a dedicated home for your apps which makes them easy to open outside the browser. This is the same experience as the app launcher on Chromebooks, but for other platforms. It’s available on Windows now, and will be coming to Mac OS X and Linux soon.

You’ll need to install a Chrome packaged app, such as IRC client CIRC or Text Drive, in order to try out the Chrome app launcher. Chrome packaged apps deliver a native-like experience across multiple platforms with the security properties of a web page. Just like web apps, packaged apps are written in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. But packaged apps launch outside the browser, work offline by default, and have access to powerful APIs not available to web apps.

We spend a lot of time online sharping our skills and looking at varies ways to improve our business as well as our clients. When we stumble over something that we feel will really help our clients business we like to share those findings. Today we shared on our Facebook page the Business in a [...]

Last year we ran a comparison of the memory usage of popular web browsers and discovered that Chrome used more memory than Firefox, Opera or Internet Explorer despite its leaner and slimmer image that it has. While that may not be an issue at all, if you have lots of memory installed, it may be an issue for users who run systems where memory is always maxed out.

Chrome users who do not want to switch to another browser to reduce the memory consumption of their web browser can use tricks to reduce it. One option is for instance to restart the browser regularly which resets the memory it uses. While that may be an option, it is not really practicable. A far better solution is to make use of extensions that help you reduce the memory consumption.

The Great Suspender is a free extension for the web browser that can suspend tabs manually or automatically after a set period of time.

Here is how it works. The extension adds an icon to the browser’s address bar that you can click on to suspend the active tab, all tabs, or to reload all tabs. Suspending in this regard means that the extension saves information about web pages before they are replaced with a placeholder that uses less memory and lets you reload the page when the need arises. A click on the information reloads the page in the browser.

Since speed is critical for a good experience when using the web, at Google we’re always exploring ways to make the web faster. As it turns out, one of the biggest bang-for-the-buck ways to do that is by replacing JPEG and PNG images with WebP. WebP offers significantly better compression than these legacy formats (around 35% better in most cases), and when you consider that over 60% of typical page sizes are images, the benefits can be substantial. WebP translates directly into less bandwidth consumption, decreased latency, faster page loads, better battery consumption on mobile, and overall happier users.

Case in point: the Chrome Web Store uses many large promotional images and tiles on its home page, making it a very heavyweight page. The team was eager to find ways to improve its speed, without sacrificing the user experience or giving up image quality. WebP to the rescue!

Last year, Chrome introduced manifest V2 to Apps and Extension developers, which brings a variety of security and API improvements such as a default Content Security Policy. As of Chrome 18, manifest V1 was officially deprecated. At the time, we published our manifest version support schedule to give developers transparency and insight into our plans for migrating to the new version.

Today, we’re announcing a slight update to that schedule, to let developers know that they have until Monday, March 4, 2013 to make updates to their existing manifest V1-based items. After that date, the Chrome Web Store will block all updates to products based on manifest V1 unless the update includes switching it to manifest V2.

Earlier today we unveiled Find Your Way To Oz, a new Chrome Experiment inspired by the upcoming feature film Oz The Great and Powerful. Developed by UNIT9, this experiment brings together Disney’s unique storytelling tradition and the power of the web platform, allowing users to interact with the web in a completely new way.

The desktop version of “Find Your Way To Oz” uses many of the open web’s more advanced features:

• Immersive Graphics: The experiment uses WebGL for the main 3D environment, CSS3 features such as CSS Transitions for various visual embellishments, and GLSL shaders for the tornado’s ominous look and feel. 
• Rich Audio: As the user explores the experiment, the 3D sound dynamically adapts thanks to the Web Audio API. The same API powers the experiment’s music composing section. 
• Camera-based interactions: Through WebRTC’s getUserMedia API, users can become circus characters or record their own mini-movies. 

The experiment’s mobile web version also uses cutting-edge web technologies. These include graphics features such as accelerated 3D transforms and sprite sheets as well as mobile hardware features like camera, multi-touch, gyroscope and accelerometer. Together they create an experience that can normally only be found in native apps.

To learn more about how this experiment was built, read our technical case study and join us for a Google Developers Live event on February 11th at 11 a.m. GMT where we’ll be talking to the team behind the project. Alternatively, use Chrome’s developer tools to see how the experiment works on your own, perhaps finding in the process your own path to the yellow brick road.

For the first time, Chrome and Firefox can “talk” to each other via WebRTC. WebRTC is a new set of technologies that brings clear crisp voice, sharp high-definition (HD) video and low-delay communication to the web browser.

From the very beginning, this joint WebRTC effort was embraced by the open web community, including engineers from the Chrome and Firefox teams. The common goal was to help developers offer rich, secure communications, integrated directly into their web applications.

In order to succeed, a web-based communications platform needs to work across browsers. Thanks to the work and participation of the W3C and IETF communities in developing the platform, Chrome and Firefox can now communicate by using standard technologies such as the Opus and VP8 codecs for audio and video, DTLS-SRTP for encryption, and ICE for networking.

To try this yourself, you’ll need desktop Chrome 25 Beta and Firefox Nightly for Desktop. In Firefox, you'll need to go to about:config and set the media.peerconnection.enabled pref to "true”. Then head over to the WebRTC demo site and start calling.

For developers looking to include this functionality in their own apps, there are a few places you can go to get more information. You can look at the source code of the AppRTC demo, a library that makes writing cross-browser WebRTC apps a snap, and a document detailing some of the minor differences between browsers.

You can read more from Mozilla’s hacks blog here and view our first “Official” call at the video below: