Matthias Clasen has announced the release of GNOME 3.15.90, the GNOME 3.16 Beta, that's coming out slightly delayed but still in time for some weekend testing.

The saturday afternoon release of this first beta in the GNOME 3.15 series brings several more "big features" that have been a priority for the GNOME 3.16 development cycle.

The first beta of the upcoming GNOME Maps 3.16 app of the GNOME desktop environment has been announced as part of the GNOME 3.16 Beta 1 release of the controversial desktop environment. In this beta, GNOME Maps received several improvements and bug fixes that we’ve detailed below for your general information.

I wrote a post last summer about preventing Chrome from stealing the media buttons (like play, pause, previous track and next track) from OS X. Now that I’m using Linux regularly and I fell in love with Google Play Music All Access, I found that GNOME was stealing the media keys from Chrome.

The fix is quite simple. Press the SUPER key (Windows key or Mac Command key), type settings, and press enter. Click on Keyboard and then on the Shortcuts tab. You should now see something like this.

• Files (Nautilus) 3.16 Beta 1 Is Out and Ready For Testing

  The GNOME developers announced that Nautilus (now known as Files) is now at version 3.16 Beta 1 and is ready for download and testing.

• Cheese 3.16 Beta Brings Warning Fixes and Code Cleanup

  David King, the developer of the default webcam viewer of the GNOME desktop environment, Cheese, has announced the immediate availability for testing of the first beta version of the upcoming Cheese 3.16 update, which will be distributed as part of the forthcoming GNOME 3.16 desktop, due for release on March 25, 2015.

• GNOME Boxes 3.16 Will Bring a Cool Welcome Screen and Numerous Improvements

  As we’ve reported earlier today, the GNOME development team is hard at work to bring you the latest GNOME 3.16 desktop environment, due for release on March 25, 2015. GNOME Boxes, the default virtualization software of GNOME based on QEMU, will also be part of the forthcoming release of the graphical environment, bringing a number of enhancements and new features. The first Beta version of GNOME Boxes 3.16 is now available for testing.