Author: Clinton

In an unexpected move, Essential has quietly released an exclusive version of their Essential Phone on Amazon.  The new Halo Gray variant comes with Amazon Alexa built-in but is identical to any other variant of the phone as far as specs and features.  The Amazon exclusive is $449, the same price as other colors.

The addition of the Halo Gray color comes on the heels of three color variants being released by Essential themselves.  Those colors – Ocean Depths, Stellar Gray and Copper Black – are price $100 more than the standard color models.

A federal court ruled yesterday in New York that sites, like ClintonFitch.com, could be held liable for copyright law violation for embedding a Tweet or other content.  The ruling involved a photographer and several news organizations who embedded a Tweet.  The photographer filed a copyright infringement case against the companies for embedding the Tweet and won.

The ruling upends a decade old ruling which protected sites like mine when it came to embedding Tweets.  In the case Perfect 10 v. Amazon in 2007, it was ruled that the hosting company was liable for copyright infringements, not the company or individual who embeds or links to it.  Thursday’s ruling is in direct contrast to this case and now throws a lot of questions and concerns for anyone, especially site owners.

Details about the case and the rule can be found at the Electronic Frontier Foundation site… and no, I’m not going to embed their Tweet.

Right now, over at Amazon, you can pick up the entry level Google Pixelbook for $975.  While it is not a massive discount, only $24 off the regular price, it falls under the category of “better than nothing”.

And “entry level” is a bit misleading because we are talking about one of the most powerful Chromebooks out there.  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.

Progressive Web Apps, or PWAs, are the next big trend in browsing tech.  Designed to give an app-like experience on the web, PWAs are something that Google has been pushing hard as well as Apple and Microsoft.  All three companies, as well as Firefox are all planning to roll out support for the technology this year but Google appears to have the jump.

With Chrome 64, you have the ability to change flags within the browser to enable Progress Web Apps.  While technically not support – generally most flag settings are officially supported – it does work and you can give it a try to see what all the hubbub is about before it gets here in full swing later this year.  In this How To, I’ll show you which flags to enable to try out a PWA experience.

It is no secret that Google has big plans for Google Assistant across devices and into new countries.  But the scope of that growth wasn’t very clear until now.  Thanks to Dutch tech writer Elgar van der Wel, we now have a glimpse of what is to come for Assistant in 2018.

Elgar tweeted a shot of a slide from a DNI Summit event in Amsterdam that shows the growth plans and it is impressive.

Voor het eerst officieel uitgesproken door Google: Google Assistent komt dit jaar naar Nederland (we zijn blauw op de kaart!) #dnisummit #dni2018 pic.twitter.com/fYyU12FWpD

— Elger van der Wel (@elger) February 15, 2018

The slide is a bit hard to read but the plan is for Google Assistant to be available in 17 new language and 38 new countries.

Essential teased on Tuesday via Twitter than a new color for the Essential Phone was going to be available starting today.  That color, Ocean Depths, has arrived.  The teal blue with gold highlights version of the PH-1 has the exact same internals as the current Black Moon and Pure White versions but you get what is a pretty stunning looking color combo to set you, and your phone apart.

The new Ocean Depths color is available starting today.  It is exclusively available through the Essentials site and costs $599, $100 more than the standard color models.  In addition to this new color, two more were announced today and will be available starting next week.