Chrome for Android developing Breaking News push notification

According to a report from Chrome Store (via Android Police), Google is testing a new Chrome feature that would allow it to push breaking news notifications to the Android version of the browser.

The feature was discovered in the Chrome Flags log (found at chrome://flags) on the Canary channel of Chrome for Android. The Flags page contains a list of experimental Chrome functions that can be enabled and disabled by the user, and this is where the new flag, known as Breaking News Push, can be seen.

According to its description, the flag will “listen for breaking news content suggestions,” and deliver them to devices using Google’s Cloud Messaging Service. It’s not clear right now if this would be customizable in some respect — though I presume it would have to be, or else, how would Google determine the most relevant breaking news for the individual user? — and Chrome Story said the flag still seems to be in the “very early stages” of development: the website has yet to receive a pushed breaking news story to see the feature in action.

Breaking news notifications aren’t exactly an uncommon feature if you’re used to Android news apps, so this seems like a bit of an unimportant development. But, as with most of the existing features Google iterates on (and it tends to do this a lot), it may provide a credible improvement that makes it easier/more efficient/better to use in some way.

Would you like to have the option of breaking news notifications in Chrome for Android? Let me know in the comments.