The Google Chromebook Feature That'll Answer Your Easy Questions

The digital age has made it easier than ever to get answers to our innocuous everyday questions. Search engines like Google will quickly provide you with solutions to your random concerns, from the precise temperature that's considered a fever to how many ounces there are in a gallon. Since information is the name of Google's game, it's not especially surprising that the company would incorporate access to information into all of its products, including Google Chromebook computers.

If you're using a Chromebook, there is an extra feature you can utilize that, working in concert with the Google Assistant, can quickly answer any simple question you have, even faster than performing a typical Google search would be. This feature is aptly named "Quick Answers," and with a simple click of your mouse, you can get all sorts of quick informative tidbits without needing to bother with manually typing into a search field. It's the next step up from easier information access, bringing answers in one move.

The Quick Answers feature in ChromeOS operates as part of the Google Assistant system, quickly pulling information from the Assistant's database to respond to your inquiries. This means that to use the feature, you'll need to be connected to the internet, as well as have Google Assistant's functions fully enabled. You can confirm the activation of both Assistant and Quick Answers via the Personalization tab of your ChromeOS Settings app.

Using Quick Answers is very simple: whenever you see something you want to know more about, whether writing a document or browsing the internet, just right-click on any word or phrase. Doing this will highlight the word or phrase and add some information depending on what you clicked.

Quick Answers can convert measurement units, translate short phrases, and provide word definitions. For example, if you right-clicked on the word "sandwich," the box that appears would give you a brief dictionary definition of a sandwich. If you right-clicked on a measurement of 100 ft, you could quickly convert it to inches, meters, and so on.

Since Google Assistant can only make educated guesses on what you want to know about what you clicked on based on context clues, you might not always get exactly what you wanted to know. If you want to specify your prompt, you can highlight a word or phrase and then right-click on that to get a different result.