Chromebook Trash

One interesting part of the 2020 COVID lockdowns was the frenzy of school districts to procure computers to facilitate remote learning for all students. There were months-long waits for Chromebooks specifically because these low-cost machines worked with a school’s budget and integrate well with Google Classroom. But due to a literal Expiration Date, hundreds of thousands of Chromebooks will become e-waste. How is this possible? Monica Chin at The Verge explains. Chromebook Churn also discusses the Chromebook’s auto-update expiration date — something users have been complaining about for years.  While Google currently guarantees eight years of automatic updates to Chromebooks, that period…

Chrome Flex

Anyone who works in education or has kids in public school, it’s a sure bet that you’ve seen how pervasive Chromebooks are. Lightweight and inexpensive laptops, these durable devices are everywhere in schools. ChromeOS is a basic operating system, but because it ties into Google’s services at its core, it is quite powerful. Google announced Chrome OS Flex, a new version of their operating system that works on Windows and Intel Mac PCs. Scharon Harding at Ars Technica has more. Chrome OS Flex is basically the official Google version of CloudReady, which Google acquired when it bought Neverware in 2020. Flex allows individuals,…