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After some 17 months of testing in various shapes and forms, Android Things has finally been released.  The 1.0 version of Android for IoT (Internet of Things) devices, brings all the benefits of Android but in a streamlined, power friendly package.  Developers of Android should find Android Things familiar straight away.

The beauty of Things is that you have access to all the APIs, development tools and resources that are already used in Android development and can use them to develop hardware solutions on certified Android Things hardware for use in IoT projects.

Over the course of the past couple of years it has been clear that Microsoft’s mobile strategy is developing apps for Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.  This isn’t a bad strategy overall and it is clear from presentations this week at Build, Microsoft’s developer conference, that they are continuing that strategy.

One of the more exciting announcements on the first day of the conference is Windows 10’s new Timeline feature making it to both Android and iOS.  For Android users, access to Timeline will come via Microsoft Launcher while iOS users will have access to via Microsoft Edge.

After an update to their own app last week, Southwest Airlines will now let you save your boarding passes for flights to Google Pay.  It means that you will have one place to go for your boarding passes, purchasing and money transfers on your Android phone.  Southwest is the first airline to support this feature, which has been rumored to be coming down the pike for weeks.  It follows light rail transit tickets in Las Vegas and Portland being supported in the tap-to-pay app last month.

If you have upcoming flights on Southwest, you can view your boarding pass in their app and you will see the option to add the boarding pass to Google Pay.  Tap that button and your boarding pass will now appear in the Rewards & Gift Cards section of the app.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki announced this past week at BrandCast in New York that the video streaming and sharing service has now reached a staggering 1.8 billion monthly registered users watching content.  It is a jump of some 300 million since the last update of usage figures were announced back in June 2017.

Perhaps even more staggering is the sheer amount of videos being uploaded on the service.  Roughly 400 hours of videos are uploaded to YouTube every minute and the company now has some 10,000 monitors looking through content for sensitivity, criminal or terrorist related videos.  Machine Learning and stricter policies will also help in managing the content on the site too.