Author: Clinton

Just a few days after the initial release, a second Chrome 66 based build has arrived in the Chrome OS Beta Channel.  The update is build 66.0.3359.67 (Platform version: 10452.30.0) for those keeping score at home.  This new build is available for the majority of devices according to the announcement and, more importantly, arrives for devices in the beta channel that can run Android apps.

I can confirm that my Acer Chromebook 15, which is in the beta channel, has received this update this morning.  For the first beta build on Monday, it was not available to it.

HMD Global, the company that owns Nokia, has begun slow rolling the Android Oreo 8.1 update out to the Nokia 5 and Nokia 6.  Starting in India and Indonesia, the update to 8.1 is expected to make its way to all global markets in the coming days.

For both devices, the update is just under 1GB in size and brings with it the March Android Security Update to both phones.  If you don’t recall what all comes in Oreo 8.1, you can get a debrief here.

Google has released the first Android P based developer preview of Wear OS today, giving developers a chance to take a sneak peak and giving consumers a preview of what to expect in the next major release for the platform.  The developer preview is aimed squarely at developers and only works on the Huawei Watch 2 Bluetooth or Huawei Watch 2 Classic Bluetooth.  Installing the preview is a manual flashing process and Google has made it clear, this is not ready for consumers to test out.

As for as new features are concerned, there are some exciting ones to look forward to in this build.  A dark theme will now be available and will be set as the default.  This should improve glanceability of notifications and other information on watches.

Red Bull TV has joined the ranks of HBO Now Netflix and CBC All Access as being casted to your Chromecast enabled TV from Google Home.  Now using Google Assistant, you can ask for content from the service without having to manually do so from your phone or tablet.  Even better, no account linking is required.

To try it out, just say, “Hey Google, play How to MTB on my TV” and the show How to MTB from Red Bull TV will be casted to your television.  If you aren’t familiar with RBTV, you can check out all their shows here.

Readers who subscribe to YouTube TV may want to check for a new feature that is rolling out.  A cloud-side change is happening for the app and when it lands on your account, you will have the ability to customize your live channel guide.

The new feature is found under Settings>Live Guide and allows you to move channel orders around to one that works best for you.  This way you can have your favorite channels at the top of the list instead of having to go find it.

Google Maps, one of Google’s apps with over 1 billion users, has been updated to bring nearly four dozen new languages.  The update is a cloud-side change so as long as you are running latest version of the app on your phone, you are good to go.

As for the 39 new languages, here is the full list:  Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bosnian, Burmese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, Georgian, Hebrew, Icelandic, Indonesian, Kazakh, Khmer, Kyrgyz, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Mongolian, Norwegian, Persian, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Swahili, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Vietnamese, and Zulu.