You can control your Chromebook with just a glance now

Chromebooks are becoming more accessible than ever, as you'll soon be able to navigate with just a glance.

Google announced a number of education-focused updates today to Google Workspace for Education and Chromebooks, but tucked among them were several accessibility features that are expected to have a wider appeal.

Coming to 'all users'

First up is the ability to control your Chromebook with facial expressions and head movements. Google introduced this feature last December, but it's just now seeing a wider rollout. Face control is AI-powered, Google explains, and will allow people with motor impairments to interact with their computers without traditional keyboard and mouse controls. It works by generating a 3D mesh model of your face and analyzing nearly 500 specific facial points.

The technology is similar to the company's Project Gameface, which was rolled out last year and lets users control Windows-based and Android games with their faces.

Also: 7 reasons why a Chromebook is the best laptop for most people

In a video showing the face control in action, a woman moves her face down, and the cursor follows. She subtly scrunches her mouth to the side to click and holds her mouth open to begin speech-to-text typing. The movements are very subdued, with almost no side-to-side movement needed.

Face control is coming to "all users," Google says, but devices with at least 8GB of RAM will see the best performance.

Additional updates

Google also mentioned several other accessibility features, such as reading mode, a focus mode to help block distractions, and built-in creation tools like the Recorder app, but did not elaborate on what was specifically new with them.

Also: 6 reasons why Google should switch Chromebooks from Android to Linux

Specifically for the education sector, Google also announced streamlined class management tools to keep students on task, the ability for educators to easily group students for differentiated assignments, Gemini in Vids to create videos and generate vocabulary lists with the help of AI, and greater control over third-party apps to help keep students safe.