Google has announced a version of its Recorder app for Chromebook Plus laptops that looks, feels, and works like its Android version.
Chromebook Plus owners can use Google Recorder to capture lectures, presentations, their thoughts and notes, and so on. Your recordings sync across devices, and you can share them with others. Unlike regular audio-recording apps, Google Recorder automatically transcribes your audio recordings and creates an easily scannable summary of recorded content.
Recorder can recap any audio transcript no matter how long into three bullets. The underlying Gemini model detects who’s speaking and labels speaker names in the transcription—tremendously useful for long lectures where multiple educators may be presenting. Your transcript summary includes key takeaways and additional information.
The underlying Gemini AI model is the chief reason Google Recorder is unavailable on regular Chromebooks. Only Chromebook Plus laptops have the kind of oomph required to run such AI-powered features locally without using the cloud. The on-device approach is faster because there’s no latency when uploading recordings to the cloud, and is much better from a privacy standpoint. Google hasn’t specified whether Recorder for Chromebook Plus is an Android app or a Progressive Web App (PWA), but it looks quite similar to the Recorder app on Pixel phones.
The Recorder app proved quite popular with Android owners. Already, it’s one of the best voice recording apps for your phone, and future iterations will only make it better. Google claims that Android fans use AI summarization two to five times daily, causing the number of saved recordings to spike by almost 25%. On Android, Recorder uses the Gemini Nano, a large language model (LLM) that runs on-device without internet connectivity.
Google also unveiled two new Chromebook models today, along with new software features for existing Chromebooks. The company said all Chromebooks will come with the Gemini chatbot preinstalled starting this month. Meanwhile, Chromebook Plus laptops will gain more advanced Google AI features, including Live Translate. The Chrome browser has automatic captions for calls and media, but they don’t translate on the fly. In contrast, Live Translate works systemwide across any app and supports over 100 languages.
Source: Google
