Author: Clinton

Twitter has begun rolling out a handy new feature to their mobile apps and site:  Bookmarks.  The bookmarks feature allows you to save a Tweet in your feed to read later or to share later.  There appears to be no expiration of the bookmarks either so you can, in theory, save them for as long as you want.

The new feature is rolling out as a cloud-side update to the Twitter apps for both Android and iOS and is also live on the mobile site, mobile.twitter.com.  It does not appear to be on the main Twitter site, at least not yet.

Google has announced that the Quick Access feature will be rolling out to Google Docs for G Suite business and enterprise customers.  Functionally, it is very similar to the Quick Access feature that is found in all versions of Google Drive.  For Google Docs however, it is more AI driven based on Drive activity as well as the content of the files themselves.

Quick Access for Docs uses artificial intelligence to suggest relevant files based on signals like Drive activity and information in your documents, so you can work with the most up-to-date information and create new material quickly.

Google points out that for this feature to work, customers must have Google Cloud Search enabled on their domain.

Nearly a year after it was announced and almost all of that time in early adopter programs, Google’s Hangouts Chat is now generally available as a core service to G Suite customers.  It provides deep integration with the entire G Suite of apps for easy collaboration and sharing of files along with group and direct messaging capabilities.  There are also some 25 bots available starting today to further integrate with other solutions your organization may have in their portfolio.

The most direct comparison of Hangouts Chat in the market today is Slack and in many ways, the two messaging & collaboration solutions are equal.  But for G Suite customers, the advantage of Chat is that everything stays inter-domain which provides another layer of security.

The Microsoft OneDrive for Android app has a new update rolling out that brings several improvements in photo editing and storage.  The new build is version 4.5 for those keeping score at home and is in the Play Store now.

Within the OneDrive app, this update allows you to crop, rotate and chose filters of photos with the improved Scan feature.  There is also improvements to to the navigation of the Photos view in the app which will make it quicker to search through your photos.  This will be particularly handy for those who have a lot of photos stored in OneDrive.

Dark mode (or theme) is something that a lot of people love but sadly, to this point, it is not something that has been available in Chrome OS.  That appears to be set to change.  The team over at Chrome Unboxed discovered a new flag in the platforms Dev Channel that allows you to enable a Dark mode on your system tray.

As a reminder, the Chrome OS Dev Channel is currently on Chrome 66 so if this flag stays in place, we should see it hit the Stable channel April.  As a further reminder, the Dev Channel is essentially the Alpha channel for the platform.  That means it will be unstable and you will likely run into bugs.  But, if you are brave or have a spare Chromebook you can run in the Dev Channel, here is how you enable Dark Mode.

Earlier this week at Mobile World Congress, we got our first glimpse at the completely redesigned Sony Xperia XZ2 and XZ2 Compact.  Generally speaking, the reception for both phones has been great with Sony finally ditching their massive bezel design.  A key question remained however:  How much will they cost?

Thanks to Sony Mobile’s German site, we now have an idea.  The Xperia XZ2 will be €799 which roughly breaks down to $977 US.  The European price is a full €100 more than last year’s Xperia XZ1.