Author: Clinton

Owners of the Nokia 8 will want to start checking for an update on the device today.  HMD Global, the parent company of Nokia, has released a new update that bringing the recently released February Android Security Update patch to the device.  The update is 86.9MB in size, so it is quite small and indicates that essentially it is the security patch a little else for the Nokia 8.

If you have a Nokia 8, you can check for the update by going to Settings>Other>Software Update on the phone.  It has just been released so it may take a day or two before it hits all devices.

The Huawei Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro have a significant bug fixing update rolling out in the manufacture’s home country, China.  The update brings a number of bug fixes and stability improvements to both devices.  The update to EMUI, the company’s Android Oreo build, is version 8.0.0.127 (SP1C00) and it is the same for both devices.

From an optimization perspective, there are seven improvements noted in the release notes for the build.

• Optimizes Camera and the Navigation dock.
• Optimizes the Beauty feature by adding special touches based on the genders of the photographed subjects.
• Optimizes the accessibility of the Navigation dock, which can now be used in Ultra power saving mode and the notification panel.
• Optimizes the system power consumption by controlling the consumption of third-party apps
• Simplifies the operation of the status bar (tapping on it to return to the call screen is supported).
• Increases the speed of grabbing WeChat lucky money.
• Enjoy being faster than the rest even when in the same network environment.

Following the release of App Preview Messaging for Google Allo and Google Duo, support for the feature has now been added to Google Photos.  If you don’t recall what App Preview Messaging is exactly, it is a function that allows those who don’t have the app installed to get a notification on their Android phone.  In this case, they can then action that notification by viewing the photo or, optionally, installing the Google Photos app.

The feature works when someone shares a photo with you from Photos and sends that share notification to your mobile number.  This will trigger the notification which will have the name of the sender.  If you don’t know the sender, you can block them or you can open the notification to see the content.  From there, you are taken to the Photos website where you can install the app on your phone.

Microsoft OneNote, the company’s note taking app, has a new update rolling out that brings a number of improvements for users.  The new build is version 16.0.9001.2134 for those keeping score at home and has been released to the Play Store.  This update likely brings something for everyone as it is pretty comprehensive.

First, there is a new lasso tool, which allows for you to select ink drawings and other content on your page in a much easier and more controllable way.  The lasso tool on the desktop version of Microsoft OneNote always worked well but it hasn’t been in the mobile version up to this point.  Now you have feature parity, on the lasso at least, across all devices.

A new feature to Google Drive is currently in the process of rolling out to all G Suite versions that will allow for commenting – and to be able to see those comments – on Microsoft Office files, PDFs and image files.  The new feature means that users of G Suite will be able to collaborate with colleagues or others outside of their organization who use Microsoft Office.  More importantly, this can be done without having to convert the files.

The new feature appears in Google Drive online and when you open up the preview pane on a Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint file, you will be able to see the comments on that file and be able to add comments.  They will be saved and will stay attached to the file.  This should significantly lower the friction on collaborating on projects within organizations and with customers of an organization.

Four years after being acquired by Google, Nest has now become merged into the Google hardware team.  The announcement came today from Nest CEO Marwan Fawaz and it made it clear that the goal of merging the teams was to accelerate smart home technologies with Google AI at the heart of that innovation.

By working together, we’ll continue to combine hardware, software and services to create a home that’s safer, friendlier to the environment, smarter and even helps you save money—built with Google’s artificial intelligence and the Assistant at the core.

While details on when the full merging of teams would be complete, the announcement highlighted that the teams already work very closely together, indicating it would be in short order.