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The Project Fi app for Android and Fi members has an update rolling out that allows some management features of Group Plans.  Referred to as the “M” update, users who upgrade and have group plans enabled will be able to manage some elements of that plan including being able to limit a users data allocation.  However, in order to create a group plan, add or delete a member of the plan, you will still need to go through the Fi website.

Group Plans have been in Fi for a few months now and had been one of the most requested features of the MVNO service from Google.  Like other carriers, group plans allow you to share a pool of data with up to 5 members.  It is great for families or even small businesses.

Users of Google Docs, Sheets and Slides on Android will find minor updates rolling out for each of the productivity apps.  For the most part, these updates are bug fixes and performance improvements but in the case of Google Docs and Google Slides, there are new features in each.  For Docs, you now have the ability to add page numbers to a document from the app.  You have been able to do this in Docs on the web for a long time but it has finally made its way to the Android app for the sake of feature parity.

For Google Slides, the ability to import and export OpenDocument formatted files (.odp) has been added to the presentation app.

If you haven’t figured it out, the Samsung Galaxy Note7 is dangerous, it has been recalled and basically every mobile carrier has thrown a Samsung-built kill switch update that renders the phone useless.  Verizon rolled out an update a couple of weeks ago that prevented the phablet from charging but some Note7 owners never updated to it as they figured out how to get around it.  So, meet Verizon Note7 kill switch 2.

Verizon has begun re-routing calls made from the Note7 to customer service.  This is on every call you make with the exception of 911.  They are serious about you getting that phone back to them.  Oh, and if that isn’t enough to get you to turn in the phone at your local Verizon store, don’t be surprised if you see an $800 charge on an upcoming bill for the phone.  Now to be fair I question how they could get away with this but the point here is that Verizon is making a statement: Turn in your Note7.  Now.

A great new feature is rolling out to Google Search for Android that will help you be more productive when you are offline.  Now when you do a search and you do not have a data connection (LTE or Wi-Fi), Google Search will queue your search queries and will provide the results back to you when a connection is established.  The idea is that you don’t have to remember to do that search later.  You can do it at the moment, it will queue, and you will get the results once you are back online.

Here is a scenario for you.  Let’s say you are on a flight with no Wi-Fi (I know, animalistic but go with me on this) and you are working on a research project.  You can do a search while you are in airplane mode and Search will queue it up.  You land, take your phone out of airplane mode and you get a notification that your search query has been answer.  It saves you time and you don’t have to try to remember to do the search later.  Do it at the moment and get the results back when you are back online.