Better sync lined up in Chrome for Android

An update to Chrome for Android delivers some features it's been lacking, including password and autofill sync.
 Chrome on desktops has been able to sync personal data like passwords and online form fields for ages, but the features just landed in the Android version of the browser today.

Chrome 26 for Android (download) brings automatic form filling and password synchonrization to the mobile browser, as well as unnamed performance and stability fixes. The new version of the browser also repairs a problem where a blank page would be shown instead of loading the correct URL.

Some features that made it into the beta version of Chrome 26 for Android don't appear to be in today's stable release. These include server-accelerated browsing using a proxy, Google's SPDY technology, and rudimentary support for Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC).

Unlike many other browsers for Android, including Firefox, Dolphin, and Opera, Chrome is limited to running on Android 4.0 and above. If you've got Ice Cream Sandwich or Jelly Bean, you can install it.

In other related Chrome news, Google has released a Canary version of Chrome OS, which has existed for Chrome-the-browser for some time. Canary is analogous to Firefox's Nightly build -- it's highly experimental and unstable, and subject to near-daily changes.

Microsoft Outlook ready to run on Windows RT?

The RT version of Windows 8 lacks the popular Outlook e-mail client, but that may change in the coming months.

A fresh rumor out today holds that Microsoft Outlook is coming to Windows RT.

The popular e-mail application is conspicuously absent on Windows RT devices. That is, RT devices -- which run a limited version of Wind

Today there's word that Outlook has been seen running on Surface RT tablets.

And that's not all. SuperSite for Windows claims that an ARM-related firmware issue was causing Outlook to crash. Possibly offering at least one reason for its exclusion until now. 

ows 8 on the ARM chip platform -- come with Microsoft Office sans Outlook.

Adding Outlook certainly wouldn't hurt, said Craig Stice, an analyst at IHS iSuppli. "Consumers can find this frustrating. They think they're getting a Windows 8 system but there's no Outlook," he said. 

 "They don't know what they're getting into when they buy an RT device," he said. Consumers buy an RT device because it's less expensive than a full-blown Windows 8 system but miss the fact that it's incompatible with older "legacy" Windows software, Stice explained.

Nvidia's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, whose ARM chip powers the Microsoft Surface RT tablet, said in no uncertain terms last month that Outlook is necessary for RT's success. "Outlook god, please," Huang said at that time, pleading for Microsoft to add Outlook.

(Note that RT products come preloaded with Word 2013 RT, Excel 2013 RT, PowerPoint 2013 RT and OneNote 2013 RT.)