Author: Clinton

A new update to Outlook for Android is rolling out in the Play Store that brings a key new feature:  The ability to resize image attachments prior to sending your email.  The update is version 2.2.95 for those keeping score at home and should land on everyone’s Play Store account over the course of the next few days.

After you update, when you attach an image file to an email, you will have the option to keep the image its original size or to reduce its size for faster sending of that email.

The new Huawei Mate 10 Pro is now available for pre-order from several different retailers starting today.  The new flagship phablet device is $799.99 and will start shipping on February 18.

The phone will be sold unlocked and will work with various GSM carriers here in the US like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Cricket Wireless.

For those that don’t recall, the Huawei Mate 10 Pro is powered by Huawei’s own Kirin 970 octa-core processor, comes with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage on the base model.  There is also a 6GB/128GB model.  The display is a 1080 x 2160 pixels, 18:9 ratio AMOLED that gives ~402 ppi density.  It is protected by Gorilla Glass.

The much anticipated update to Chrome 64 has arrived in the Chrome OS Stable channel.  The new version is build 64.0.3282.134 (Platform version: 10176.65.0) and it contains several new features along with the normal bug fixes and security updates that come with every new build of Chrome OS.

Here is the rundown of the new features in this build:

• Take screenshots faster on Chromebooks with a 360-degree hinge by pressing the power and volume down buttons at the same time
• Revamped Intent Picker for Play Applications (Same window by default with override)
• Lockscreen Performance Improvements
• Enable VPN for Google Play Apps
• Enhancements to our protected media pipeline for Android
• Android Container Auto Update Optimizations
• Touchscreen pairing settings

In addition to these new features, there is now a flag you can set to enabled split screen viewing.  This was something that was found in a commit last month.  Android apps can now run in the background too.

Just days after opening the new Netherlands region for Google Cloud Platform, the new Montreal region is now open to customers.  The new data center joins Oregon, Iowa, South Carolina and Northern Virginia in North America as being available for apps, storage and compute needs.

The new Montreal region will offer all of the functionality of Google Cloud Platform with quick access to those in the region.  These areas include security, Big Data, Compute, storage and network.

File this under the “better late than never” category.  Over a year after releasing the ability to manage iOS devices, even those without a Mobile Device Management (MDM) profile, Google has added the same functionality for Android devices in G Suite.  The feature means that admins can set basic security requirements on Android devices without requiring the BOYD owner to install a MDM profile on their phone.

When Basic Mobile Management is enabled, admins can:

• Enforce a device screen lock. (Lollipop or later)
• Wipe a corporate account (but not the entire device).
• View, search, and manage their device inventory.

It is unclear why it took Google so long to add this functionality for Android devices but likely has to do with the shear number of devices that are out on the market with various configurations.

Google is rolling out some cloud-side change to Google Assistant that will be great additions.  The new updates were announced today with the headliner being that you can now set alarms to sound off with music instead of the default beeping.  To do this, just say “Hey Google, set an alarm for 6 tomorrow morning that plays (insert artist name)”.  This is a much more personal experience but also should prove to be far less jarring when you are woken up by your favorite artist instead of a harsh beeping.

Improvements have also been made in Google Assistant to help you find your favorite television shows.  This builds on some of the functionality that Assistant already has, including the ability to start playing a show from your Chromecast enabled television on Netflix or Google Movies & TV.