There’s a flag in the latest Chrome for Android release, spotted by OMG! Chrome, that let’s you view quick results beneath the search bar before you’ve finished typing. It can give celebrity facts, capital cities, sunset times and more in record time, and help you cheat more effectively at the next pub quiz.
Enter chrome://flags in the Chrome for Android address bar and scroll down to Answers in Suggest. Change the setting to Enable and you’ll be prompted to restart the app. Once you come back, the browser will be smarter than ever before, putting answer cards directly below many of your queries.
Many of the searches that bring up results match the ‘knowledge cards’ that Google shows in the desktop Web interface: weather conditions, celebrity ages (and heights), capital cities, current times and so on. There isn’t always a match however — this would seem to be still an experimental feature that requires some work (and which may not ever roll out fully).
The feature works best when you need a quick nugget of information — like the language spoken in Brazil or the capital of France. Keep your queries brief as well for the best results, because “capital France” works just as well as “what is the capital city of France?”
We certainly wouldn’t condone trying to cheat on the next pub quiz you go along to but you should at least be able to settle arguments and look up facts quicker than ever. Wondering just how tall Tom Cruise really is while watching Oblivion? Chrome for Android will tell you before you’ve pressed Go.