64-bit Chrome finally available to download: Faster, more secure, twice as stable

At long last, Google has released a stable 64-bit version of Chrome for Windows. A download link is available at the bottom of this story. According to Google, 64-bit Chrome for Windows has three major advantages over its 32-bit cousin: It’s faster, more secure, and more stable. Some tasks, such as decoding HD video on YouTube, are 15% faster under the 64-bit version of Chrome. The only major caveat seems to be a lack of support for 32-bit NPAPI plug-ins — but with the exception of a few lesser-known plug-ins, most major plug-ins, including Silverlight, Java, and Flash have all been updated to 64-bit. That’s a small price to pay for increased speed, security, and (according to Google)twice the stability of 32-bit Chrome, though.

You can now stream Photoshop to your Chromebook: A huge win for Google

In a somewhat surprising move, Adobe and Google have announced a streaming version of Photoshop for Chromebooks (Chrome OS) and the Chrome browser. This is potentially massive news for Chromebooks, as the lack of Big Software — those big, killer software suites for Mac and Windows — has always been a thorn in the side of Chrome OS’s attempted takedown of Microsoft and Apple’s domination of the laptop market. If it’s Photoshop today, you can be guaranteed that the rest of the Creative Cloud suite will follow — and then who knows, maybe big-ticket programs like Visual Studio and triple-A PC games will be next?

Nvidia Maxwell and GTX 970 reviewed: Crushing all challengers

The GTX 980 and 970 are the Big Billy Goats Gruff to their smaller budget cousin, the GTX 750 Ti. When the first Maxwell GPU arrived this spring, it was clear that Nvidia had something potent on its hands. Maxwell showed enormous promise, leaping over Kepler’s compute performance in multiple benchmarks. Swift price cuts from AMD took the wind out of the 750 Ti’s launch position, but it was clear that this new core was a warning shot. As of now, Nvidia is firing both barrels.

The new 27-inch iMac is getting ready

After years of anticipation from Macintosh enthusiasts, Apple might finally be ready to release its first desktop with a Retina display. Rumors began surfacing this week that the new 27-inch iMac will be receiving a massive boost in resolution from 2560×1440 (109 PPI) to 5120×2880 (218 PPI) — four times the raw number of pixels on-screen. To help push nearly 15 million pixels at once, a new AMD-based GPU is said to be included as well. This is exciting news, but the inevitably-high asking price is bound to scare away most consumers.