Author: Clinton

The Skype team over at Microsoft have released a dramatically improved version of the voice and video communications app for Android.  The new 7.0 version of the app is hitting the Google Play Store now and if you already have it installed, you should see the update hit your device via an OTA over the course of the next few days.  The big improvement in this new update is the new Material Design inspired UI on tablets.

We’ve redesigned the tablet UI from the ground up, bringing a number of material design inspired elements.

The app also has a Floating Action Button (FAB) that makes it much faster to start a conversation or call with Skype app.  That FAB is in both the tablet and phone versions of the app.

The Microsoft Android team has been busy.  Earlier this morning I told you about a major update to the Next Lock Screen app for Android.  Now the Office team has rolled out an update to the Android versions of Excel, PowerPoint and Word.  All three of the updates are now in the Google Play Store and you should be seeing them hit your devices at any point.  The big news in these updates is the addition of the Tell Me feature in the apps.  If you aren’t familiar with Tell Me, you probably have it and don’t know it.  If you run Office 2016 on your PC or Mac, at the top of any of the apps there is a search box titled “Tell me what you want to do”.  Type in what you are wanting to do in any of the apps and it will give you instructions on how to do it.  It is far faster than trying to dumpster dive into the menus of the apps.  That same feature is now available in the Android versions of the apps so you can quickly figure out how to do something without having to search around.

Today, ZTE has announced their all new flagship Android phone, the Axon 7.  This new 5.5″ display device has some serious specifications including a whooping 6GB of RAM on the upper end model and a 20MP rear camera.  The company will be launching the phone in China today but it is expected to hit US shores in the coming months and will be available unlocked.  It is expected that once it does get to the US, it will be in the sub-$500 price range.  If that is indeed the case, it will be a great deal for what it has to offer.

If you have been thinking about trying out YouTube Red, the ad-free version of YouTube, now is a good time to give it a go.  Right now you can sign up for three months for just .99 Cents, giving you full access to the service, and as a bonus, to Google Play Music Unlimited as well.  For those who may not remember, Red is the ad-free version of YouTube which gives you an ad-free experience but also allows you to download videos for offline viewing later on your Android devices.  It also gives you access to original YouTube content.

The Chromium team has released Chrome build 51 for Windows and Mac, updating the browser with a significant number of bug fixes and security improvements.  The updated build is version 51.0.2704.63 and it is available now for those of you who have the browser installed.  To force the update, go to Menu>Settings>About and the browser will go and look for the update, download it and after you restart your the browser, will apply it.  Do note Linux users, this update is not available to you just yet.  The release notice from the Chromium team indicates that the Linux build will be coming out shortly.

One of the biggest challenges facing Android as a platform but mobile devices in general is security.  For their part, Google has been working hard to get security updates out to devices on a monthly basis.  The problem, however, is not Nexus devices.  It is the countless other manufactures and carriers out there who are painfully slow or simply refuse to update devices with the latest security updates in a timely manner.  It leaves consumers vulnerable unnecessarily.  It would seem that Google has had enough and may be about to use a tactic to get manufactures and carriers to update devices.

Public shaming.