Last week a few updates came through for both the Chrome OS and the Chrome browser, and for the Cr-48 netbook.

Two major changes made are the change to use the click functionality of the Cr-48 mousepad to eliminate the problems with the tap, and the capability of the Chrome to accept voice input.

The ‘click’ functionality is actually a change to the default settings in the Chrome OS. The initial installation of Chrome had Enable Tap-to-click enabled as far as I remember. The new default for this is disabled, which prevents accidental clicking by resting the mouse of your hand on the mousepad. I feel the disabled option is working a little better.

The biggest thing is that Chrome OS is now capable of speech recognition. Currently there are a few fields that are enabled for speech recognition, mainly simple text fields. This is new functionality being developed in HTML5, and is a preview from the HTML Speech Incubator group. I have the Speechify plugin enabled, which shows a little microphone next to any field that allows speech input. I can’t wait for it to be enabled on multi-line text widgets, so I can dictate blogposts… 🙂

A minor change is the Chrome logo, which has become a little simpler: the old logo sported a 3D look with a small reflection on it, the new logo sports a more 2D look with clearer colors.