Whether you’re cozied up at home or on the road, Chromecast has a bunch of new goodies for you and the family. Just in time for the holidays, we’re adding more Chromecast-enabled games for both Android and iOS to the list.

Now casting is Rovio’s Angry Birds Friends, featuring everyone’s favorite red bird, where you can compete in weekly tournaments.  Also available is Ubisoft’s Driver Speedboat Paradise, where you race your boat through beautiful canals and waterways around the world.


We’re also introducing several new family-friendly Hasbro games which have been remastered for the big screen experience, including Monopoly Here & Now, Yahtzee Blitz, The Game of Life, and Scrabble Blitz 2.0. These are perfect companions for the downtime before that ball drops this New Year’s Eve.  And lastly, we’re excited to introduce a new way to play Risk -- on Chromecast. Now you can compete for world domination with friends and family. (Hasbro games available in the US and CA only)

With Chromecast, you can get a great split-screen experience for your mobile games. For example, if you are playing Monopoly Here & Now, only you can see your cards on your phone while the moves you decide to make get displayed on the big screen. It unlocks fun multiplayer experiences, and the ability for you to use your phone or tablet as the controller while gameplay takes place on the TV.


Many games now work with Chromecast, and many more will continue to be made available.
So whether you’re playing with friends or by yourself, you can now play mobile games on the biggest screen in the house. Check out these great games and more on chromecast.com/apps.

Posted by Wendi Zhang, Chromecast Business Development Games Lead and Ultimate Bird Caster

You don’t need to be a Jedi to master a lightsaber — just go to g.co/lightsaber on your phone or desktop to wield your very own lightsaber in our latest Chrome Experiment, “Lightsaber Escape,” built for your phone and computer.

A couple of months ago we launched Chromecast Audio to provide an easy way to stream your favorite tunes from your phone, tablet, or laptop to your existing speakers. At $35, Chromecast Audio is an affordable way to connect your speakers via WiFi so you can stream tons of popular apps including Spotify, Pandora, and Google Play Music from anywhere in your home. Today we’re starting to add two new features to the latest software update to elevate your listening experience.

Introducing Hi-Res audio support

Close your eyes and imagine the musician is playing in the room. Today we’re rolling out high-resolution audio support, which gives you even higher quality music playback using Chromecast Audio. With support of up to 96KHz/24bit lossless audio playback, you can enjoy higher-than-CD-quality audio on your existing high fidelity audio equipment.

Blast the same song in every room

Now you can easily fill every room in your home—bedroom, kitchen, living room, or wherever you have a Chromecast Audio connected—with synchronous music. Multi-room lets you group Chromecast Audio devices together so you can listen to the same song on multiple speakers.

Setup is simple. Connect and setup a Chromecast Audio device for each of your speakers, then use the latest Chromecast app to create a group. You can cast to the group the exact same way you would cast to a single Chromecast device. Since anyone with a phone can easily cast without pairing, you can sync your home speakers together and invite your friends to be the DJ.

So grab your hairbrush microphone, dust off your tennis racket guitar, and jam out to your favorite tunes at amazing quality and in every room of your house.

Posted by Tomer Shekel, Product Manager and Patron of Loud Music

[Cross-posted on the Google Online Security blog]

Safe Browsing has been protecting over one billion people from traditional phishing attacks on the web for more than eight years. The threat landscape is constantly changing -- bad actors on the web are using other types of deceptive behavior to trick you into performing actions that you didn’t intend or want, so we’ve expanded protection to include social engineering.

Social engineering is a much broader category than traditional phishing and encompasses more types of deceptive web content. A social engineering attack happens when either:

• The content pretends to act, or looks and feels, like a trusted entity — like a bank or government.
• The content tries to trick you into doing something you’d only do for a trusted entity — like sharing a password or calling tech support.

Below are some examples of social engineering attacks that try to trick you into thinking the content is delivered by Google or Chrome. Other trusted brands are also commonly abused for social engineering attacks.


Posted by Emily Schechter, Program Manager and Noé Lutz, Software Engineer

Earlier this year, we announced that Google Chrome would continue support for Windows XP through the remainder of 2015.  At that time, we strongly encouraged users on older, unsupported platforms such as Windows XP to update to a supported, secure operating system. Such older platforms are missing critical security updates and have a greater potential to be infected by viruses and malware.

Today, we’re announcing the end of Chrome’s support for Windows XP, as well as Windows Vista, and Mac OS X 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8, since these platforms are no longer actively supported by Microsoft and Apple. Starting April 2016, Chrome will continue to function on these platforms but will no longer receive updates and security fixes.

If you are still on one of these unsupported platforms, we encourage you to move to a newer operating system to ensure that you continue to receive the latest Chrome versions and features.

Posted by Marc Pawliger, Director of Engineering and Early Notifier

Over the last few days, there’s been some confusion about the future of Chrome OS and Chromebooks based on speculation that Chrome OS will be folded into Android. While we’ve been working on ways to bring together the best of both operating systems, there's no plan to phase out Chrome OS.

With the launch of Chrome OS six years ago, we set out to make computers better—faster, simpler and more secure—for everyone. We’ve since seen that vision come to life in classrooms, offices and homes around the world. In fact, every school day, 30,000 new Chromebooks are activated in U.S. classrooms—that’s more than all other education devices combined. And more than 2 million teachers and students in more than 150 countries have the Share to Classroom Chrome extension, which launched in September and gets students onto the same webpage, instantly. Meanwhile, companies such as Netflix, Sanmina, Starbucks and of course Google, are using Chromebooks given the ease of deployment, the ability to easily integrate with existing technologies, and a security model that protects users at all levels, from hardware to user data. (Chromebooks are so secure you don’t need antivirus software!) IT administrators can manage tens of thousands of Chromebooks through a single web console, making them ideal for both classrooms and the workplace.

For everyday use, we’re proud that Chromebooks are continually listed as a best-selling laptop computer on Amazon.com. In an effort to make computing even more accessible, earlier this year we introduced the first $149 Chromebook—a fast, affordable laptop. And in the next couple weeks the Asus Chromebit will be available—an $85 device that turns any display into a computer so you can replace your old desktop with an affordable computer the size of a candy bar, or let businesses transform a billboard into a smart digital sign.
This year we've also worked to redefine the different forms Chrome OS can take, introduced the first designated Chromebook for Work, and brought more of your favorite Android apps to your Chromebook via Apps Runtime on Chrome (a.k.a. ARC). But there’s more to do. We have plans to release even more features for Chrome OS, such as a new media player, a visual refresh based on Material Design, improved performance, and of course, a continued focus on security. With our regular six-week software cycle and guaranteed auto-updates for five years, Chromebooks keep getting better over time. Finally, stay on the lookout for dozens of new Chromebooks in 2016.

Posted by Hiroshi Lockheimer, SVP Android, Chrome OS and Chromecast

Chrome is one of the world's most popular ways to watch video, with around 3,000 hours of video watched every second. Whether you're singing along with Taylor Swift, binge-watching Breaking Bad or learning about NASA’s Pluto mission—no matter what you watch, we make sure that your videos look great and load fast when you’re using Chrome.

Often on the web, we’re doing a ton of things at once -- reading up on an exotic travel location, catching up on social media or booking a hotel. With that in mind, we’re introducing Split View for your iPad (Air 2 or mini 4) to our latest version of Chrome.
We’re also working to make it easier to make purchases on the go. We’re shopping more often than ever on our phones and tablets, but it can be a pain to re-enter credit card information every time you buy something. That’s why we’re bringing Chrome’s Autofill from desktop and Android to iOS. No matter what device you use, you can shop for what you need easily and securely.
To get the latest & greatest for your iPhone / iPad, just update Chrome in the App Store.

Posted by AbdelKarim Mardini, Product Manager and Multitasker