An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Google: Google is rolling out ChromeOS 115 as a bigger-than-usual update with a number of user-facing additions over the coming days. Amidst I/O 2023, Google announced the beta availability of Android App Streaming from your Pixel (4a+) or Xiaomi (12T, 12T Pro, 13, 13 Pro) phone running Android 13 and newer with Cross-Device Services installed. It’s now entering stable with ChromeOS 115 so that you can stream apps from your mobile device to your Chromebook. This is framed as letting you “complete quick tasks like replying to a conversation, checking on the status of a rideshare or delivery, and editing your shopping list.”

Android apps, which open in a phone-sized window, can be launched via the Phone Hub where you get a row of Recent apps at the bottom of the panel with the ability to browse all compatible “Apps from your phone.” Applications can also open when you tap through a messaging notification. When opening PDFs in the Gallery app, ChromeOS 115 adds a signature tool. Appearing next to Draw in the top toolbar, you can add a signature, which is much easier with a touchscreen than a trackpad and save it for future use. You can place it in any document and resize the signature to ensure line fit. Lastly, Google has updated the keyboard Shortcuts app with “new navigation and taxonomy,” improved search, and a “refreshed shortcut visualization” that better shows what to press.

Meanwhile, this is unmentioned in the stable release notes, but ChromeOS 115 is testing better windowing options in the beta channel. Hovering over the expand/minimize button in the top-right corner control group will show you a new layout menu. There’s Split (half), Partial, Full and Float. That last option is new and makes it so that the window is always on top, just like Picture-in-Picture (PiP) for video. The other options were previously accessed by dragging a window and moving to the left/right side of the screen until an overlay appears. This approach is much more accessible and hopefully sees a wide launch soon. The announcement can be read here.

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Source: Slashdot – ChromeOS 115 Rolling Out: Android App Streaming, PDF Signatures

In an effort to discover new 2D materials, a team of scientists from Ames National Laboratory determined the structure of boron monoxide. Phys.Org reports: This compound was first discovered in the 1940s and maintained research interest throughout the years. Scientists were, however, unable to determine the structure of the material due to technological limitations of the time. Using new NMR methods and previously unavailable analytical tools, the team from Ames Lab finally solved the structure of this deceptively simple material. “We initially weren’t really looking into studying this particular material,” said Frederic Perras, a scientist from Ames Lab and member of the research team. “We were actually trying to make a carbon-free covalent organic framework.” A covalent organic framework is a low-density and porous material with a periodically ordered crystal structure. It is composed of organic molecules that are linked together through covalent bonds. […]

Perras explained that boron monoxide is made using a precursor molecule that acts like building blocks. These molecules stick together through dehydration reactions. The key to understating the structure is to figure out how the blocks are physically arranged. “So we developed some NMR methods that allow us to study the orientation of these building blocks relative to each other. Basically, we found that adjacent precursor molecules were getting organized parallel to each other, which matched one of the previously proposed models,” Perras said. “We also applied a lot of other techniques, including powder X-ray diffraction, which showed that these nanosheets organized themselves into what’s called a turbostratic arrangement,” said Perras. He explained that these stacked nanosheets are like a stack of paper thrown onto a desk. Once they land, they are not perfectly aligned, but they remain in a stack. The findings have been published in the journal American Chemical Society.

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Source: Slashdot – Structure of Elusive Boron Monoxide Finally Determined After 83 Years

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: The month of June and the first few days of July were hotter than any in recorded history, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Residents in the south of the US and southern Europe have been enduring sweltering temperatures, bringing excessive heat warnings, wildfires and plummeting air quality. However, records are not just being broken on land — but in the water. Global ocean sea surface temperatures were higher than any previous June on record, according to a report by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, with satellite readings in the North Atlantic in particular “off the charts.” Last month also set a record at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for the biggest difference between expected and actual sea surface temperatures. Water temperatures around Florida, in particular, have been particularly warm. Scientists have also been tracking a large ongoing marine heatwave off the west coast of the US and Canada since it formed in May.

While the heatwave has since lessened in the north-east Atlantic, according to non-profit science organization Mercator Ocean International, another in the western Mediterranean now appears to be intensifying, particularly around the Strait of Gibraltar. This week, sea surface temperatures along the coasts of Southern Spain and North Africa were 2-4C (3.6-7.2F) higher than they would normally be at this time of year, with some spots 5C (9F) above the long-term average. Extreme marine temperatures have also recently been observed around Ireland, the UK and in the Baltic Sea, as well as areas near New Zealand and Australia. More recently, scientists suspect a possible heatwave south of Greenland in the Labrador Sea. “We are having these huge marine heatwaves in different areas of the ocean unexpectedly evolve very early in the year, very strong and over large areas,” says Karina von Schuckmann, an oceanographer at Mercator Ocean.

Carlo Buontempo, director of the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, says scientists expect big temperature variations in the Pacific Ocean associated with the El Nino weather pattern, a phase of planet-warming weather which is just beginning, although NOAA is monitoring a large heatwave in the Gulf of Alaska that has been sitting offshore since late 2022. But what we’re currently seeing in the North Atlantic is “truly unprecedented”, says Buontempo. Scientists are still trying to unravel its full causes. […] More broadly, experts say the persistence of recent marine heatwaves is a worrying sign about how climate change is unfolding, alongside heatwaves on land, unusual melting of snow cover in the Himalayas and a loss of sea ice. Von Schuckmann notes that, even if humans stopped pumping CO2 into the air tomorrow, the oceans would continue to warm up for many years yet. “I am concerned as a climate scientist that we are further than we thought we are.”

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Source: Slashdot – There’s a Heatwave In the Sea and Scientists Are Worried