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We’ve talked quite a bit about the upcoming device known as ‘Nautilus’ around here recently. We’re inclined to think this device could see a release date later in 2018, so it makes sense that we’ll keep seeing small hints about what ‘Nautilus’ will bring to the table before that time gets here.
We know a few things at this point that may be worth mentioning if you’ve not been keeping up with the development of this new Chromebook.
- Detachable form factor
- Kaby Lake processors
- Sony IMX camera
- Video recording
- Stowable stylus
- Made by Samsung
Honestly, this is enough to give us a broad idea of what ‘Nautilus’ will be. There are quite a few things we’re still looking for, however, and we’ll keep digging until we find those details or the device gets released.
A result of that digging has recently unearthed one new feature we may get to see on ‘Nautilus’ that isn’t currently being used anywhere else in a Chromebook: CABC (Content Adaptive Brightness Control).
I had to look up this feature after seeing it being tested on ‘Nautilus’ in this commit, but after seeing the definition I remember Intel introducing this feature as a battery-saving measure for laptops across the board. Here’s a clear explanation of the feature from Deepak over at Intel:
In CABC (Content Adaptive Brightness Control) content grey level scale can be increased while simultaneously decreasing brightness of the backlight to achieve same perceived brightness.
The CABC is not standardized and panel vendors are free to follow their implementation. The CABC implementation here assumes that the panels use standard SW register for control.
What Intel is doing here is pretty interesting. By manipulating the gray level of the screen while bringing down the actual backlight brightness, they are able to keep the same perceived brightness. I’m unsure how well this works in the real world or if it will make it into the final product, but the idea is interesting and as a battery saver, I’m very keen to see this feature make it into a Chrome OS device.
It is also cool to simply see new features being tested on Chromebooks. Likely, when Intel came up with this solution, it was aimed at Windows PCs. To see this sort of feature getting tested and possibly implemented just continues to affirm the growth, potential, and maturation of the Chrome OS platform. For that reason alone I’m excited to watch this develop.
