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Android’s physical navigation buttons are back on Googlebooks, but not the way you think

7 October 2026 at 22:44
A close-up photo of two Googlebook keyboards.
What year is it, and what dessert name of Android are we up to? | Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

A common misconception I've seen with Googlebooks is that the Quick Insert and Google logo keys are new. They're not, as they first debuted a couple of years ago on some Chromebooks. But there is something new for Googlebooks that's ripped straight from Android phones circa 2014.

On every Googlebook keyboard, the F1, F2, and F3 keys are the old triangle, circle, and square navigation icons that first debuted on Android 5.0 Lollipop. These were the back, home, and app switcher buttons long before everything went to gesture-based navigation, and they're still built into phones on Android 17 as an alternative. On Googlebook OS, these keys do w …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The first Nvidia RTX Spark laptops cost up to $7,000

7 October 2026 at 21:05
A Surface Laptop Ultra laptop on a white table.
The 15-inch Surface Laptop Ultra starts at $2,599. | Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge

The first array of laptops powered by Nvidia's new RTX Spark chip are designed to compete with high-end MacBook Pros - and they've got some high-end prices to match.

The flagship Surface Laptop Ultra and RTX Spark laptops from Dell, Lenovo, MSI, HP, and Asus start as low as $2,599 for configurations with an 18-core CPU, 24GB of unified memory, and 512GB of storage. That's close in price to a similarly specced 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro chip, though Apple includes 1TB of storage. But the prices for both RTX Spark and Apple laptops of course go much, much higher.

Of the pricing we've seen so far, a kitted-out Asus ProArt P16 RTX Spark …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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