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While Microsoft’s own mobile platform is struggling to survive, the company continues to pump out their apps for Android and iOS.  The latest, exclusive to Android, is Mimicker Alarm.  Aimed at helping those who need a little help getting going in the morning, this beautiful Material Design app requires users to mimic actions given to deactivate the alarm.  Those mimic games can include matching a color by snapping a picture, matching an emotion by taking a selfie or by repeating a tongue twister phrase out loud.

The app is powered by Microsoft’s Project Oxford API which is aimed at improving the understanding and recognition of emotion, computer vision and speech.  You can read more about the project here.

Mimicker Alarm – Free – Download Now

While the news has not come directly from Verizon, multiple sources are reporting that users of the LG G3 on the US-based carrier are starting to see Android Marshmallow come to their devices via an OTA update.  The original source of the news came from Reddit and the original poster included a screen image of the update on their device.  If this is legitimate, this is really good news on a lot of different levels.  First, it is reasonably fast for a carrier to get the update out.  It’s not great but it is certainly better than Verizon has done in the past on updates.

Second, and perhaps equally as important, the update appears to be Android Marshmallow build MRA58K which is the January 2016 update.  That means that this update to the LG G3 is going have the latest security updates from Google.

The Project Fi app for users of the Google’s MVNO has been updated and it brings a great new feature:  Multiple voicemail messages.  Now you can record multiple greeting for your voicemail on the service and select which one you want to use for a particular day or event.  The update comes as version is G.1.7.16 for those keeping score at home and it is in the Google Play Store now.  You likely have already received an OTA update for it but if not, it will be there in a day or two.

You will know that you have the update when you go into the app, scroll down to Voicemail then tap on Manage greeting.  You will see a blue microphone icon at the bottom of the screen which you can tap (and my be prompted for microphone permissions) to record a new greeting.  Once you do, you can name it and it will be saved to your account.

Project Fi – Free – Download Now

Securing your personal information on mobile devices is paramount in today’s world.  With our phones and tablets containing banking information, credit information, work information and other sensitive content, having that information get into a thief’s hands is a borderline nightmare.  While a security PIN or swipe pattern helps, there is one thing you can do that adds another layer of security:  Encrypt your device.

Encryption is pretty straight forward to do in Android Lollipop and Android Marshmallow if your device isn’t already encrypted.  On phones that have Android Marshmallow on them, chances are that it has already been encrypted as that is part of the requirements for manufactures to enable it to deploy Marshmallow.  This is one reason why I think that adoption has continued to creep along – but that’s another story.  If you have a tablet however, it hasn’t been encrypted and on Lollipop it wasn’t required.

How the encrypt process works in Android is pretty straight forward.  It encrypts your entire device – apps, data, accounts, media and basically any other user files – so that a PIN or pattern is required to unlock it.  But here is the added juice:  If someone got your phone or tablet and connected it to a PC via a USB cable, they could hack the device and get to your sensitive content.  If the device is encrypted, they can’t unless they can break a 128-bit AES key.  Is it possible?  Sure.  But we are talking about determent.  If a hacker gets your phone and they see it is encrypted, chances are they will simply reset the device (which erases everything) and use it or sell it.

In this How To I’ll outline how to encrypt your device for this added level of security.