Author: Clinton

Through the use of Machine Learning to detect apps that impersonate, have inappropriate content or malware, Google removed over 700,000 rogue apps from the Google Play Store, taking 100,000 repeat offender developers along with them.  The injection of ML can find patterns that detect bad behaving apps quicker than human inspectors, resulting in a 70% increase in removing of apps from the Play Store over the previous year.

Not only did we remove more bad apps, we were able to identify and action against them earlier. In fact, 99% of apps with abusive contents were identified and rejected before anyone could install them.

The end result is that the Play Store, while still not perfect, is a far safer place than it was this time last year and it will only get better as the Machine Learning models get smarter.

Facing political pressure to scrap the deal, Verizon is dropping their plans to sell Huawei phones to their customers here in the United States.  The plan is a blow to the Chinese manufacture who suffered a similar blow from AT&T earlier this month.

The news comes from sources at Bloomberg who state the main thrust behind the decision was political pressure due to concerns about the company potentially spying for the Chinese government, something Huawei has long denied and there being no evidence from the other countries where their devices are sold as this being an issue.

Owners of the Nokia 5 and Nokia 6, today is a good day.  Your Android Oreo update has been released and is on its way.  The new came from HMD Global’s Chief Product Officer, Juho Sarvikas, on Twitter.

Sweeter and Smoother. The #Nokia5 and #Nokia6 are officially joining the #AndroidOreo family. pic.twitter.com/7bbW3j7SOF

— Juho Sarvikas (@sarvikas) January 30, 2018

Both devices began beta testing their respective Oreo builds back in December and clearly the feedback from testers and the rate of development from Nokia was quick to have the official build out within a month.

Verizon has released an update to the Samsung Galaxy Note8 on their network, bringing some bug fixes to the device as well as the January 2018 Android Security Update patch.  The new firmware build is version NMF26X.N950USQU3BRA5 for those keeping score at home.

With the January Android Security Update included in this update, it means that the Verizon variant of the Note8 is protected against the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities which, if for no other reason, is why owners of the phablet should get this update as soon as possible.  The update also fixes a bug where the screen would freeze during incoming calls, fixes a force closed bug when unlocking the device, and another force closed issue when the method of unlocking for the device was attempted to be changed.

Earlier this month, Razer announced at CES that the Razer Phone would be the first mobile device to support Netflix HDR as well as Dolby 5.1 audio.  The update to make that happen is now rolling out.

The update brings support for Netflix HDR but there are a lot of other things in this 249MB update that owners of the phone will want to get.  First, it comes with the January Android Security Update which has fixes against the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities.  Second, the update includes updates to the rear cameras on the device.

Back in October at the Pixel event, Google announced the self contained, AI-driven stand alone camera, the Google Clips.  With a 130° viewing angle, and 16GB of storage, the idea behind the camera was to set it up and let it capture random events with children, pets and in home events.  The device has Google’s AI built into it so it can recognize faces and and does all of the thinking for you on when to capture and what.

Clips is very centric on protection of your data and privacy.  Everything is on the device, including the AI, so nothing goes out until you share it.

Last week Google Clips passed through the FCC approval process, which was an early indicator that it would be available soon.  That happened on Friday, with pre-orders available up until mid-day on Saturday.  Then it moved to the current waitlist state where it is likely going to remain for a while.