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Chrome OS stable turns 29 with 'immersive' mode, improved launcher search

The stable channel of Chrome OS has hit version 29, and with that tick comes a few new features we saw in beta just a month ago. Most notable is an "immersive" mode that hides the toolbar and shelf for a truly full-screen browsing experience. And, just like on the standalone browser, you need only hover at the top of the screen to bring those UI elements out of hiding. Pinning apps to the launcher has also been simplified with drag-and-drop -- something so intuitive and obvious that we're surprised it's taken this long to implement. The app launcher's search feature has also received a pretty impressive update, with the ability to pull in results from the web store as well as locally "installed" apps and it will dynamically learn from your searches to deliver the most relevant results. A few more minor tweaks have also been baked in, such as monitor scaling, wallpaper syncing and "two-finger history navigation" (which we're pretty sure is fancy talk for a back and forward browser gestures). The update should be rolling out now to all Chrome OS devices, with the exception of the Thinkpad X131e.