Author: Clinton

It looks like Google is once again set to rebrand an Android named product or service to something more Google generic.  In the latest beta of Google Play Services, version 12.5, references to Android Wear have been changed to Wear OS, complete with a new “W” icon and everything.

New Wear OS References in the Google Play Services Beta

The change was first spotted in name only in the version of Play Services that came in the Android P Developer Preview.  But a new beta rolled out to those in the beta channel for the app and you get the above changes when using the Nearby feature of Android.

A new top navigation slider is making its way out to the Google Play Store app this weekend.  The change is a cloud-side change so there isn’t anything new to download.  It will just be pushed to your app so long as you are running the latest version.

The change is a minor one but it is something that Google has been A/B testing for a while now and would appear to be the direction they want to go with it.  At the top of the Google Play Store app you have the tabs for Home, Games, Movies & TV, Music, Books and Newsstand.  But under each one of those, you know have a content specific slider for filtering.

The fourth and final beta of Chrome 65 has been released to testers in the Chrome OS Beta Channel.  The update is build 65.0.3325.148 (Platform version: 10323.52.0) and should be available to everyone who is running a device in the beta channel.

Given that the Chromium team has pegged March 13th as the release date of Chrome 65 for Chrome OS, this could well end up being the Stable Channel build that is released next Tuesday.  For those new to Chrome OS, the beta channel is the last channel a new build comes to prior to being released in the Stable channel.

Verizon has released the Android Oreo update to the LG V30 on its network.  It follows the release of the update for the unlocked variant and is the first amongst carriers here in the United States to release the update.

The new build for the V30 on Verizon is VS99620a and it is a hefty 1.7GB in size.  You will need to download this update over Wi-Fi and will need to have at least 80% battery in order to install it.  You can expect a 10-15 minute install time once it is downloaded to your phone and you will need to reboot complete the install.  Once done, you will have all the goodies that Android Oreo brings.

A new cloud-side update to Microsoft Translator for Android is rolling out that brings support for six new languages.  So long as you have the latest version of the app installed, version 3.2.254, then you will have the new languages available to you.  These new text-to-speech languages include:

• Bulgarian
• Croatian
• Malay
• Slovenian
• Tamil
• Vietnamese

These additions bring the total number of text-to-speech languages supported to 36 in Microsoft Translator.

Microsoft is one of the most consistent at updating their apps for Android with the company’s launcher, Microsoft Launcher being no exception.  The latest beta of the launcher is rolling out to testers and it shows that the Redmond company isn’t just updating their launcher, but listening to what users want in it.

The new beta build is version 4.7 for those keeping score and it brings an expansive change log with it.  First, you can now get a new daily background on your phone.  While you can do this today, it only can come from Bing daily wallpapers.  Now, based on user requests, you can set up your own custom set of wallpapers to be rotated daily on your device.  Oh, and those wallpapers can be set to be scroll-able.