Author: Clinton

The fifth and likely the last Chrome 66 build for the Chrome OS Dev Channel has arrived.  The new build is version 66.0.3359.31 (Platform version: 10452.11.0) and contains a number of bug fixes and other stability improvements as the Chromium team prepares to move it up to the Beta Channel.

With the release of this build, the Chromium team has released a Dev build for the last five consecutive weeks and based on past history, there is very rarely a sixth update in this channel.

As always, those who have devices in the Dev Channel can type chrome://help in the omnibar of the browser to force their devices to download the update.  As a gentle reminder, the Dev Channel is not recommended to be run on production Chromebooks as it is unstable and you will likely run into bugs or issues.

A new commit in the Chrome OS code review may give the first indicator of what will be replacing the now defunct Supervised Account feature of the platform.  The commit points to a new Chrome OS Account Manager.  The details are pretty thin on it and the comments are still private so there is very little to go on to be fair.

However, this is the first commit to point to anything remotely resembling Supervised Accounts.  That feature, most often used for child accounts on Chromebooks, was deprecated earlier this year.  Google at the time indicated a new solution would be coming forward but didn’t give a timeline.  It may be coming sooner rather than later.

After finding indicators in the latest beta of Google Play Services, it looks like the branding of Android Wear has officially moved to Wear OS.  Google launched a new site this morning for the platform, removing the Android Wear name in favor of the new one.

Wear OS by Google Site

As indicated before, this rebranding makes a lot of sense.  Google has been slowly separating things from the Android name, instead making them Google branded or generic.  The best example of this is the recent change from Android Pay to Google Pay.  For Android Wear, this makes sense because Wear devices have long been compatible with iPhones thanks to the Wear app.

For those of you who are starting to receive your pre-ordered Samsung Galaxy S9 or S9+ from T-Mobile, you already have a new update rolling out to your shiny new toy.  The update, which is just over 250MB in size, brings stability improvements to the camera as well as the face unlock feature of the phones.

Users are reporting that they are getting the update within a couple of hours of activating their phone on T-Mobile so it appears that the US carrier had the update ready to roll out as soon as the phones started getting into customer’s hands.

This is a feature that a lot of Google Home users have been wanting.  Location aware reminders has now rolled out to Google Home, meaning that if you set a reminder on your Home device, a reminder will be sent to you on your phone when you arrive at that location.  It is pretty slick and most certainly handy.

Yup, we’ve all been there. Try saying, “Hey Google, set a reminder to pick up more coffee at the grocery store” and your Google Assistant will remind you on your phone. pic.twitter.com/IkLjV4I2zd

— Made by Google (@madebygoogle) March 14, 2018

How it works is straightforward.  If you are at home and say, “Hey Google, remind me to buy milk when I’m at the grocery store”, the reminder will be set as any other reminder on Google Home.  But, when you leave the house and you arrive at the grocery store, you will get a notification on your phone with the reminder.

A new cloud-side change is rolling out to the Google+ app for Android that brings the same “Delete, Report, and Block” feature that is found on the web site to your mobile.  So long as you have the latest G+ app installed on your phone, you should see this new feature roll out over the course of the next few days.

Google+ has had a spam problem for a long time and the company has continued to try to give administrators of communities and collections the tools needed to deal with it.  The ability to delete a comment, report it and block the user is something that admins have had for a while but with this update, everyone gets it.