NYC

Kogan, the Aussie company behind such gadgets as the fist-sized Bluetooth GPS watch and gesture-controlled IPTV, is adding a Chromium OS laptop to its family of Google-powered Agora products. The 11.6-inch computer has a spec list rivaling the midrange notebooks of 2006, including a 1.3 GHz Celeron processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 30GB SSD. That's not a lot of oomph, but with cloud-based storage and Google's open source Chromium running the show, this thin client laptop should be in decent shape. There's also a 3.5-hour battery, SD card reader, webcam, Bluetooth, and an HDMI output. Like all Kogan products, the Agora is only available in Australia (AUD 349, about $372) and the UK (£269, about $440), so if you live down under or across the pond and don't want to install the open-source (free) OS yourself, look for the laptop to hit Kogan's online stores tomorrow. Kogan

Generally, shouting commands at the internet isn't going to get you very far but, if you're just yelling a few destinations and search terms, Chrome extension Chaufr can take you where you need to go. A previous add-on, Speechify, let you speak to fill input fields, but couldn't help you actually navigate the web. Chaufr, on the other hand, lets you simply say the magic word -- "Engadget" -- and it drops you right at our online doorstep. You can also use it to perform searches by saying Wikipedia, Google, Amazon, YouTube, or Yahoo followed by whatever it is you're looking for. It worked well enough in our brief hands-on, but we do have one nit to pick -- activating voice input requires you click on an icon in the tool bar  then  click on a microphone in the drop down menu. (Can't a brother get a keyboard shortcut?) You can try it out for yourself by clicking on the source link. Chaufr

Until now, Mac users who like to live their digital lives on the edge have had to make do with Chrome's dev channel while their Windows counterparts were flying by the seat of their pants with the Canary build. Well, be jealous so more OS X fans -- you can now run your own untested, pre-developer build of Google's web browser. The Canary release is updated at an almost alarming rate and frequently adds and drops features without warning. Sure, you could opt for the open-source Chromium, but then you'd miss out on niceties like built-in Flash and PDF support. Don't get too freaked out though: Canary can run alongside your existing (and more stable) Chrome install. So, throw caution to the wind, embrace the crashes, report those bugs, and hit up the source link to download. TUAW Chrome Early Access Release Channels