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Today’s Deal is on an excellent flash drive for USB-C.  The SanDisk Ultra USB-C flash drive allows you to have external storage with super fast transfer speeds and storage up to 128GB.  Right now you can pick up the 64GB model for $21.39 on Amazon.  As the name suggests, this flash drive has the new USB-C connector, not the older USB-A connector you see on most flash drives.  This allows this to work with the latest lineup of Macs and Chromebooks easily.

Because this drive is leveraging USB-C, transfer speeds are impressive.  You get up to 150mb/s using this drive so moving files to and from this drive is fast and efficient.  That USB-C port is also protected by a sliding cover that is built into the chassis of the drive.

The SanDisk Ultra USB-C drive is offered in four different sizes to meet your needs.  Here are the prices and savings on this deal today.

• 16GB – $11.85
• 32GB – $13.78
• 64GB – $21.39
• 128GB – $39.00

At the time of this post, all sizes were in stock although quantities were limited on the 64GB model.  If you are an Amazon Prime customer, you get free shipping on these too.

Microsoft Cortana, the company’s digital assistant, has been available on Android for some time now and its latest update brings an exponential improvement in usability to the app.  The new build, version 2.8.0 for those keeping score, allows you to configure Cortana so that it is your default assistant app instead of Google Assistant.  It means that you can now long press the Home button on your phone and it will pop-up Cortana so you can ask questions directly to it.

The new feature in Cortana is not enabled by default so if you want to use it as your Assistant, you will have to configure you phone to do so.  Just go into Settings and use the search feature to find Assist.  This will open up your defaults page on your phone (where you set your home launcher, browser, etc) and you will see a section Assist & voice input.  Tap it then tap on Assist app.  Now you can change it from Google to Cortana.

Canadians are waking up to good news this morning.  The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has ruled that starting December 1, 2017, all phones sold in the country are to be unlocked and carriers are banned from locking them to their network.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) today announced that as of December 1, 2017, all individual and small business wireless service customers will have the right to have their cellphones and other mobile devices unlocked free of charge upon request. In addition, all newly purchased devices must be provided unlocked from that day forward.

Canada mobile users pay some of the highest tariffs when it comes to mobile data usage and the ruling is aimed at creating competition between the carriers and to allow customers to more easily move from carrier-to-carrier to get the best deal.  This should, hopefully, have the knock-on effect of driving costs down for consumers.

The Sony Xperia XA Ultra update to Android Nougat is in full motion now with the update rolling out to users.  The update is version 36.1.A.0.179 and is based on Nougat 7.0.  The update follows the release of the June Android Security Update for several other Xperia phones on Tuesday.

Right now the update to Android Nougat is happening in European variants of the XA Ultra but the expectation is that other country variants will see the update soon.  If you have the XA Ultra, you can check for the update manually in the settings of the phone.