Author: Clinton

Google has acknowledged that they are working on a reasonably significant bug between Google Home and Google Play Music.  The issue varies from user-to-user but most are experiencing one of two issues.  First, purchased music is not showing up in their libraries and is not playable.  Second, entire libraries for some artists are not searchable or playable.  What makes it interesting is that if you open up the Google Play Music app and Cast the songs in question to Google Home, they will play.

The issue was discussed in detail in a post in the Google Product Forums for Google Home.  There, users were encouraged to use the Send Feedback feature within the Home app to send detailed information to Google so they can continue to investigate.  Right now, there isn’t a fix available.

Microsoft Cortana, the company’s personal assistant, has a major update rolling out for the Android version of the app.  Version 2.9 brings a major revamp of the user experience of the app, improved controls and settings and, frankly, is nearly an entirely new look and feel.

Microsoft has aimed the app to be much more streamlined with an emphasis on users being able to get to content more quickly.  Microsoft is referring to this as being more “hands-on” for things like reminders.  You can now, for example, pin your reminder to the top right corner of the page to make it easier to get to later.  You can also adjust contents, time, date and delete them from your reminders list.

Microsoft continues to tweak and incrementally improve their Android launcher app, Arrow Launcher.  The latest beta of the launcher has hit testers this week and with it comes a handful of refinements.  None of the new features in the version 3.8 build are major changes but collectively, there are a lot of small touches & improvements to the launcher to make it a more personalized experience and visually, more satisfying experience.

On the personalization front, your Microsoft account avatar is now shown in the settings of the launcher.  Linking your Microsoft account to Arrow Launcher has been there for some time but now you will see your avatar and can quickly launch into your account settings from Arrow.

Today’s Deal is a great option for those looking for more storage for their MacBook, Chromebook or PC.  The WD 1TB external hard disk is down to $54.99 today on Amazon.  That’s a savings of 35% off the regular $84 price.  The drive supports USB 3.0 so transfers of data to and from it will be up to 5GB/sec (assuming your hardware supports it).

The drive is also compact.  It measures 3.2 x 4.4 x 0.6 in and weighs just over 4 ounces.  This compact design truly makes this drive portable and easily fits in your backpack or case for carrying with you as you travel.

The WB 1TB drive will come formatted in NTFS and will have WD’s Smartware Pro backup software.  That software will come with a free trial but if you don’t want it or if you want to format the drive for use with MacOS or Chrome OS, it’s not a problem to do.  Do note though that you will lose the Smartware Pro software should you decide to reformat the drive – but it can be downloaded again from the WD site.

If you are looking for local storage or simply want to have a local copy of what you have stored in your cloud storage service, this drive is an excellent option to consider.  It comes with the USB 3.0 cable and a 2-year warranty.

For more details, head over to Amazon.

Google has been working on the the Google app for Android a lot in recent weeks, with the most notable change coming last week with the introduction of Google Feed.  If you aren’t up on it, basically the Feed is similar to the features are found in the Google Now Launcher and Pixel Launcher, but it gives you more relevant information based on your searches and location.  It is more dependent on Artificial Intelligence to give you information that is more important to you.

There is now a new feature in the Google Feed feature:  Recents.  Now you have a third tab that shows you your recent search history on your device.  You can simply swipe left and right to see the history and tap on a result to go back to that site to continue reading it.

Microsoft continues to develop their suite of apps for Android and the latest update to Microsoft Teams reflects that development.  The Slack-like app for enterprise Office 365 customers has been updated to version 1416/1.0.0.2017071901 for those keeping score at home and with it comes several key new features and improvements.

The big news is HD audio & video joining of meetings.  Audio meetings has been in Teams for sometime now but the audio was not HD quality and the option to join via video was not available.  Now when you join a meeting, you have the option to do so via video from your phone.