Author: Clinton

It has taken a long time – longer than most wanted frankly – but multiple calendar support has finally arrived on Google Home.  A cloud-side update is currently rolling out to the app that will allow you to have multiple calendars associated with Google Home and thus, you will be able to create events or get calendar information from Google Assistant.

The new feature is found in More Settings>Calendar in the Home app and you will have the ability to add or remove your calendars that you have associated with Home.  Further, you have the ability to set which calendar is your default calendar.  This is important as when you create an event through Google Assistant on Home, it will go to your default (unless you specify the calendar in the command).

A new update to Microsoft Lens for Android is rolling out today that brings improved offline support to the content capturing app.  The update, version 16.0.8730.2076 for those keeping score at home and who like version numbering BINGO! allows users to safe content as PDFs while offline.

Previously, in order to capture content using Lens and converting it to a PDF, you had to be online.  Now, if you are offline and capture something with lens, it is save as a PDF locally and when you are back online, it will upload it to your OneDrive account as usual.

For those who aren’t familiar with Office Lens, the app trims and enhances images of documents, business cards, whiteboards and other content and allows you to convert those images to PDF, Word or PowerPoint files.  You an also save the captures to your OneNote account or your OneDrive account.

For those of you who use WordPress to manage your blogs and sites, there is a new update to the Android app rolling out.  Version 8.8 of the app brings several new fixes and features, including the ability to link and login with your Google account.

If you have configured your WordPress account to work with your Google account, you have been able to log into your blogs with your Google account for a while now but not on the mobile app.  That’s changed now.  If you have your WordPress & Google accounts linked, you can log in with your Google credentials from the app.

Also in this update, the Media Browser in the app has been repurposed in the app as a media picker.  This should make finding an image for your posts a bit quicker and easier.  You can also choose your Feature image for a post from your device’s media picker.

The OneDrive app for Windows 10 has a new update rolling out to users that brings new video playback controls.  The update build, version 17.27 for those keeping score at home, allows you to skip forward or backwards in a video that you are viewing within the cloud storage app.  You can skip backwards in a video in 10 second intervals while skipping ahead is done in 30 second intervals.

Microsoft has also built in keyboard shortcuts in support of the video playback skipping.  By pressing Ctrl+B, you can skip backwards.  Pressing Ctrl+F skips you forward.

Right, so pay attention on this one because this is going to get interesting.

Firefox, the Internet browser from Mozilla, has a new branding and messaging.  The new name:  Firefox Quantum and the company reports that it is up to 30% faster than Google Chrome.  Great, competition is good and Firefox is a solid browser.

The interesting part is the default browser in this latest update.  It is now Google Search, not Yahoo has it has been since 2015.  That’s when Yahoo agreed to pay some $375 million to Mozilla to have Yahoo as the default search engine in Firefox.  The deal was reportedly through 2019.  Deals like this are not new.  But there appears to have been a kicker in the deal for Mozilla.

To be clear, we are talking about the default search engine here in the United States.  In other parts of the world, Google has been the default, not Yahoo.

It has come to light that a clause in the agreement that, if Yahoo were purchased, Mozilla could change the default search engine and still get the payments through 2019.  That means, assuming payments for 2017 were paid, Yahoo would still have to pay Mozilla some $750 million – and not be the default browser.

For those that don’t remember, Verizon purchased Yahoo earlier this year.  Anyone want to make bets at the number of Verizon lawyers looking this over?

If you have a Samsung Galaxy Note8 on the AT&T network, there is an important update rolling out to you starting today.  The new update brings a wide range of fixes, most notably for the KRACK WiFi exploit as well as the BlueBorne Bluetooth exploit.  The new update is build N950USQU2BQJA for those keeping score at home.

The update will range 377MB to 386MB so it is recommend that Note8 owners download the update via WiFi.  Once downloaded, the install will take about 10 minutes and will require a reboot of your phone.  The update, in addition to the exploit fixes mentioned above, also brings the October Android Security Update to the device.