Author: Clinton

Google Pay, the rebranded merging of Google Wallet and Android Pay, is going live today.  With a new app rolling out and a rebranding of another… wait, I thought there was only going to be one app?  Yeah… we’ll get there.

First, Google Pay is the rebranding of Android Pay and that app is going live in the Play Store today according to the company’s blog.  If you have Android Pay installed on your phone, you will get an OTA update to the new app over the course of the next few days.  Regardless of which one you have installed right now, you can still go and use it.  This, to an extent, is a rebranding exercise at this point.

Having been in the Google Play Store for the past four-plus years, the Nuance developed Swype Keyboard is no longer being developed.  The news came via XDA Developers who confirmed the news with Nuance.

Nuance will no longer be updating the Swype+Dragon keyboard for Android. We’re sorry to leave the direct-to-consumer keyboard business, but this change is necessary to allow us to concentrate on developing our AI solutions for sale directly to businesses.

It means that one of the original swipe-to-type keyboard solution for both Android and iOS is essentially dead.  The app is still available in the Play Store but it is likely a question of how much longer.

Right now, over at Amazon, you can pick up the entry level Google Pixelbook for $899, a savings of $100 off the regular price.  In fact, you can pick up the Pixelbook and the Pixelbook Pen together for $997, which is less than the normal price of the Chromebook itself.

The price is for the Intel i5 powered unit with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.  It is certainly powerful enough to do anything you would need, be it in Chrome OS or Android apps running on the device.

There is a new, optional security update for Chrome OS that fixes a vulnerability with the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) in the majority of Chromebooks.  To apply the update however, you will need to Powerwash your device.

The vulnerability has to do with hackers potentially being able to brute force the RSA keys generated by your TPM.  This, in theory, could give the the opportunity to plant malicious code on your device or take it over.  For those not familiar, a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is a specialized chip on an endpoint device that stores RSA encryption keys specific to the host system for hardware authentication. It essentially makes sure that the hardware and software on your device are secure and encrypted and what has access to the keys generated by it.  Thus, you see the problem.  If the TPM gets compromised, it can lead to a lot of issues for end users.

The beta version of the Google app for Android has a new update rolling out that brings a handy screenshot editing feature – but it only works within the Google app itself.  The new feature has arrived in version 7.21 for those keeping score at home and, given it is in beta, it will likely hit the stable channel for everyone over the course of the next couple of weeks.

The new screenshot editor allows you to take a screenshot of something in your Google app feed, search results, or pages viewed within Chrome custom tabs in the app.  Once you snap the screenshot, by pressing the Power+Volume Down button on virtually all Android phones, you will get a lower notification for you to edit or share the screenshot.

Today’s Deal is on the Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact, the company’s 4.6″ Android phone that was launched in September of last year.  The XZ1 Compact is the follow up to the popular Xperia X Compact from 2016 and has some mighty impressive specs for its small size.  Right now on Amazon you can pick up the phone in any color for $449, a savings of $150 off the normal price.

The  Xperia XZ1 Compact has a 4.6″ full HD display (1920 x 1080) and is powered by the Snapdragon 835 SoC and coupled with the Adreno 540 GPU.  It has 4GB of RAM and has 32GB of storage.  That storage can be expanded up to an additional 256GB thanks to the MicroSD slot.