Author: Clinton

Google Home, in many ways, is the physical realization of the machine learning that Google has been doing for years.  Equipped with Google Assistant, this small, unassuming device that sits in your home is a gateway to Google and all of your personal information at a voice command away.  It is powerful and handy… but not perfect.  Like many first generation products, Google Home has room for growth in what it can do, the apps it can interact with and, of course, how it interacts with you.  I’ll borrow a phrase from my Google OnHub review earlier this year:  If you are an early adopter, Google Home is a great product for you to consider.  If not, you may want to give it a few months and software updates to improve.  And it will improve.  Unlike OnHub, which Google hasn’t fully abandoned but equally isn’t doing much more investing in thanks to Google Wi-Fi, Home is a central and key part of what Google considers the next technical transition we are to see.  That transition is from mobile to machines and Google Home will be at the center of this transition.

I’ve had my Google Home for about a week now and I have to say that it is very much a part of my daily routine and work flow.  It saves me from having to pick up my Nexus 6P or Nexus 9 to use the “OK Google” voice commands (if my phone is locked, I have to unlock it to get the results) and gives me a wealth of information all a voice command away.  But I can already see things I’d like to improve, particularly around app integration and more natural language discussions.  But that will come in time.  One thing is for sure:  The speakers in Google Home are impressive and have excellent sound.  For this, you won’t be disappointed.

Google has announced that support for the six year old Google Gingerbread and 5 year old Google Honeycomb builds will be ending early in 2017.  The news came via an announcement about Google Play Service on the Android developer blog.  In the announcement, Google said that in the next release of Google Play Services, version 10.2.0, the minimum API supported will be API 14 which is Ice Cream Sandwich.  Previously API 9 was supported.

The Gingerbread platform is almost six years old. Many Android developers have already discontinued support for Gingerbread in their apps. This helps them build better apps that make use of the newer capabilities of the Android platform. For us, the situation is the same. By making this change, we will be able to provide a more robust collection of tools for Android developers with greater speed.

For end users, what this means is that any device running Gingerbread or Honeycomb will no longer be supported which means that they will likely not have access to the Google Play Store or very limited access.

If you have been wanting to pick up a Google Home, tomorrow is the day to do it.  Tomorrow, November 23rd, you will be able to pick the Google Assistant powered smart speaker for just $99 at Google’s Store as well as Best Buy.  The sale is going to be limited to tomorrow and Google is indicating there will be limited quantities.  If you are wanting to get one, you need to jump on it quickly as at that price, they will sell pretty fast.

Home has been doing well by all indicates and while it certainly has some limitation on what it can do currently, you can see where Google wants to go with it as a centerpiece of the “AI first” movement.  Having had a Home in my office for a few weeks now (review coming later this week), I’ve found it be very handy and helpful with things but equally, I’ve bumped into some limitations that I hope are addressed soon.

After being announced a couple of weeks ago, the new OnePlus 3T is now available for you to order.  The flagship device brings some nice improvements and updates from the OnePlus 3 including a 128GB storage option.  Powered by the Snapdragon 821 processor quad-core processor, the 5.5″ phone comes with 6GB of RAM and starts with 64GB of onboard storage.  The 64GB model starts at $439 and is available in Gunmetal Grey and Soft Gold (currently not in stock).  If you want the 128GB model, that is $479 and is only available in the Gunmetal grey color.  Both storage sizes are in stock and orders today are shipping and arriving by November 29th according to my order.

Microsoft has begun rolling out a nice update to OneNote, bringing several fixes along with some key updates for those with accessibilities needs.  In the update, users can now have alternative text on images and embedded files in a page.  That means for those who cannot see images, they can have alternative text which can be read to them by recognition software.  This has been a common practice in web design for many years (in fact, every image on ClintonFitch.com has alternative text) and it is good to see it come to a productivity app like OneNote for those who need it.

That’s not the only change of course.  There is now the ability to view images outside of OneNote itself.  Now when you tap on an image in a note, you can choose to open that in another app to view that image.  To this point, once you embedded an image, you had to view it within OneNote.  Also, related to this, you can view embedded files outside of OneNote too.

With the Chromecast Ultra starting to ship out, Google is starting to ramp up support for Ultra HD (4K) videos in the Google Play Movies & TV app.  A check of the store this morning shows that several movies are now available in UHD as well as the already offered HD and SD versions.  The number of movies will only increase as Google licenses out the UHD versions from the production studios and makes them available to end users.

But, if you have the Chromecast Ultra and a 4K television, be prepared to pay for these UHD versions.  In my research this morning, nearly every movie in UHD was twice the price of the HD version.  For example, one of my all time favorite movies, The Fifth Element, is $12.99 in HD but it is $24.99 in UHD.  Also, if you already own the HD version of the movie, there is no option for now to upgrade to UHD – at least for now.