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Microsoft has rolled out another update to Microsoft Cortana, their personal assistant app & service, for Android.  The update is version 2.9.10 for those keeping score at home and should be hitting devices with the Assistant installed over the course of the next few days.

There are several improvements in this update, the most visible of which is and enhanced upcoming view for better calendar and missed reminders management.  Now calendar events are more discretely listed in the Upcoming page which makes it easier to find upcoming events and reminders.  There is also a new “Here’s what I can do” card at the top of the Upcoming tab to help you with some of the commands that you can give to Cortana.

Smart Suggestions for tasks have also been improved in this update.  These include the ability to have a reminder added or an event added.

Good news this morning for those of you with the unlocked variant of the HTC U11 Life here in the United States – Android Oreo is on its way.  HTC has released the promised update to the latest version of Android just a few weeks after the device itself was released.

The update, which is just over 1GB in size, is coming only to the unlocked variants of the phone and, for now, is US only. But, keep in mind, that the rest of the world version of the U11 Life was an Android One device which already had Oreo.  That means those of us in the US are more-or-less catching up.  Either way, it is good to see HTC keep to their promise to get this update out quickly.

Google Lens, the visual search tool that the company announced this summer at Google I/O is starting to generally roll out to Pixel owners.  The new tool is embedded in Google Assistant and allows you to tap the Lens icon and then by using your phone’s camera, view an object, tap it and identify it.

The good news is that the new feature is rolling out to Google Pixel and Pixel 2 owners globally in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, India, and Singapore but the device’s language must be set to English for the feature to enable and work.  You will also be prompted when Lens comes to your device to give it permission to access your camera.

Microsoft continues to polish their Microsoft Edge browser for Android in the latest preview update.  This new update, version 1.0.0.1267 for those keeping score at home, is rolling out now to those who have installed it and brings a host of bug fixes and performance improvements to the browser.

Along with those bug fixes, there are a couple of new features that are noteworthy in the update.  First, there is now an option for a dark theme.  This is designed to make viewing in low light situations easier by turning the background dark.  It is similar to what the Twitter app does in low light or at night.  Unfortunately, this new feature right now requires a manual intervention.  You have to set it to the dark theme in settings.  Hopefully this will change to an auto-sensing or time-based setting before release.