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Update: This feature has been cancelled and removed from the code.

The latest version of Google Chrome for Android Canary build has an interesting “flag”. Flags are experimental features that you can enable from chrome://flags page. The latest experiment that I found says this:

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Listen for breaking news content suggestions (e.g. for New Tab Page) through Google Cloud Messaging. – Android #enable-breaking-news-push

I enabled this and restarted Chrome. However, I am yet to see any “breaking news” notification. It might take a while before I get to see one. I will update this post as soon as I get my first breaking news alert from Chrome.

Google Cloud Messaging

The description for this flag says that it will use Google Cloud Messaging. According to WikiPedia:

Google Cloud Messaging (commonly referred to as GCM) is a mobile notification service developed by Google that enables third-party application developers to send notification data or information from developer-run servers to applications that target the Google Android Operating System, as well as applications or extensions developed for the Google Chrome internet browser.

Google is simply using one of their Android tools for developers to send breaking news notifications on Chrome. Looks like this feature is in a very early stage of development. I do not see any option to personalize the breaking news alerts. Hopefully, we will see more details in the coming weeks and months.

Stay tuned for more!