Starting today, Google’s ChromeOS 130 update with Quick Insert, Focus Mode, Welcome Recap, and other features is rolling out. Chromebook Plus models with NPU also get exclusive special features in 130, such as the new recorder app with AI, enhanced mic, camera effects, and Gemini AI tools like “help me read” summaries.

There’s a long list of changes in 130, but here are some highlights. Quick Insert is a way to add emoji, GIFs, or links to recently visited sites and access AI features from a menu. On most devices, that means using the launcher or Google button plus f on your keyboard. The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus is the first Chromebook to replace the launcher key with a new button that activates Quick Insert with a single press, but more devices launching next year will have it, too.

Focus Mode lets you activate do not disturb and schedule time to reduce distractions while you work, while Welcome Recap is an opt-in feature that summarizes whatever you were doing last so you can reopen apps and tabs to get back to work quickly.

Strands is the NYT’s latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it’s great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my Wordle today, NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games.

Getty Images

Groomed at the age of 8

‘Problems with the design of Snapchat’

Record offending

As it continues its painstaking search for microbial life on Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover has also been reporting other other-worldly happenings occurring during its adventures.

Just recently, for example, one of its many onboard cameras captured some remarkable footage of a solar eclipse as Phobos — one of Mars’ two moons — passed between the red planet and the sun.

“Ever feel like someone’s watching you?” Perseverance said in a post on social media that included the video of Phobos. “That’s how I felt when I observed this transit of the martian moon Phobos! The pupil in this ‘googly eye’ is the potato-shaped moon, and the iris is our sun.”

Ever feel like someone's watching you?

That's how I felt when I observed this transit of the Martian moon Phobos! The pupil in this "googly eye" is the potato-shaped moon, and the iris is our Sun. Learn more: https://t.co/jUYoXY1jpK pic.twitter.com/7izVWOHEPH

— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) October 30, 2024

Advertisement

“Captured by the rover’s Mastcam-Z on September 30, the 1,285th martian day of Perseverance’s mission, the event took place when the potato-shaped moon passed directly between the sun and a point on the surface of Mars, obscuring a large part of the Sun’s disc,” NASA’s JET Propulsion Laboratory, which is overseeing the rover mission, said in a post on its website. “At the same time that Phobos appeared as a large black disc rapidly moving across the face of the sun, its shadow, or antumbra, moved across the planet’s surface.”

Named after the god of fear and panic in Greek mythology by astronomer Asaph Hall in 1877, Phobos is about 157 times smaller in diameter than Earth’s moon, and is only about 17 miles (27 kilometers) at its widest point, compared to the 2,159.2 miles (3,475 kilometers) of Earth’s moon.

NASA’s Mars rovers have been capturing footage of Phobos since 2004, providing scientists with plenty of data to learn more about it. For example, it’s been found that Phobos’ orbit is almost perfectly in line with Mars’ equator and relatively close to the planet’s surface, causing a fast orbit in which it loops around Mars in a mere 7.6 hours. Phobos is moving closer to Mars by about six feet every 100 years, a descent that suggests it will collide with the planet — or break up due to gravitational stresses — in about 50 million years’ time.

There are a variety of email apps for Android on the Play Store. Several developers of the major desktop email clients have developed versions for mobile devices. However, there is one in particular from Mozilla that, after more than two decades, was still lost from the ecosystem. That just changed with the release of an official Thunderbird app for Android.

After a long wait, Thunderbird receives an official app for Android

The name Mozilla probably sounds familiar to you, as it is the developer of the popular Firefox web browser. The nonprofit foundation is also responsible for other useful open-source tools. In addition to Firefox, Mozilla offers Thunderbird as a fairly popular email client. The primary focus of the app was desktop computers and laptops. Now, Mozilla is changing its strategy by releasing an official version of its email client for Android.

Interestingly, Firefox has had a mobile app for years, so it’s intriguing that it took so long for Thunderbird to have one. Anyway, the wait is finally over. Mozilla had already released a beta version of the official Thunderbird app for Android in early October. It seems that everything went well during the beta, as it didn’t take Mozilla long to roll out a stable version for everyone.

App developed on the K-9 email client code

It’s noteworthy that Thunderbird isn’t exactly a development from scratch. Its developers built it on the open-source code of K-9, a veteran email app that Mozilla acquired. Mozilla has been working on the Thunderbird app for Android since 2022 with direct collaboration from the original K-9 team. So, if you were a K-9 user back in the day, you might see some similar features. However, everything looks much more modern, and the new client includes a plethora of new options inherited from the desktop client.

If you want to give Thunderbird a try, you can download it from the Play Store right now.

Hydrogen-powered vehicles haven’t really caught on as an alternative means of eco-friendly transportation. Hyundai, however, hopes to fix that with a bigger investment in the technology and its newest hydrogen-powered concept SUV called the .

Hyundai announced it plans to start production on the hydrogen SUV in the first half of next year. The Initium can run approximately 404 miles on a single refueling and can also run on electric power as a backup that can be recharged from a household electricity supply. The vehicle will also make its public debut at the LA Auto Show and Auto Guangzhou in China next month. It’s not yet confirmed where the cars will be available when they go on sale so a US launch isn’t guaranteed.

The Initium may just be a concept car for now but Hyundai seems committed to bringing its newest hydrogen car to drivers quickly, even if the fuel source hasn’t made nearly as many strides towards widespread acceptance as electric options. The South Korean carmaker is planning on investing $4 billion to develop its hydrogen vehicle technology and infrastructure to meet its complete carbon neutrality goal by 2045 with cars like the Initium and unveiled last year.

Hydrogen may be an efficient alternative to gasoline but it still has a ways to go to be competitive with electric vehicles (and that’s without acknowledging the continued prevalence of gasoline-powered cars). There are only 59 hydrogen charging stations in the US with most of them in California, according to the . There are only a handful of carmakers who still offer a hydrogen powered option including Hyundai () and Toyota (). Honda used to offer a hydrogen car with The Clarity but it ended production in 2021, according to .