Author: Clinton

Google One, the Mountain View company’s new all-in-one storage, support and benefits program, is now starting to go live.  Paid subscribers to Google Drive are now getting notifications via email that their account has been converted to a One account and for them, the One app has now lit up too.

One is a central repository of sorts for your Google Drive storage and gives you the ability to share that storage with other members of your family.  It also provides you access to Google support via chat, phone or email and that support is available 24/7.    You can also adjust your drive storage account in the app, change payment methods, manage family members and even shut down your subscription.

The third and likely last Chrome 68 build has arrived in the Chrome OS Dev Channel.  The new build is 68.0.3440.4 (Platform version: 10718.4.0) and is available for most devices.  If you have a device in what is considered the alpha channel for the platform, you should have the update available to you.  This build follows the update from last week to the channel.

With the promotion of Chrome 67 to the stable happening this week and next, it means that 68 should be promoted to the Chrome OS Beta Channel, likely next week.  Remember that Chrome 67 is expected to be released for Chrome OS on June 5th.

Following Verizon’s lead from last week, Sprint has become the second US-based carrier to release the Android Oreo 8.0 update for the LG G6 on its network.  The 1.8GB update brings all the normal improvements that come with Oreo along with some other performance optimizations.

As with all of these big version updates, it is recommended that you download the update to your LG G6 via WiFi and have at least 80% battery power when you install it if you are not connected to AC.  The update will take about 15 minutes to install once it is downloaded and will require a reboot.

A new and handy new feature is rolling out to Google Calendar on the web that allows you to add messages to updated calendar invites.  Currently, when you updated an invite in Calendar, it sends the updated information (date, time, etc) but it does not include the ability to add a message for why the meeting was moved or the updated content of the meeting.

This new feature will be rolling out to all G Suite customers as well as consumers and while the focus is on the web portion, the ability to add notes to an updated invite is also available in the Android version of Google Calendar.

A new set of content security features have begun to roll out to a wide range of G Suite domains today, allowing for greater control of what content within Google Team Drive are shared with others both inside and outside their domain.  The features, which were previewed back in March, are now rolling out to G Suite Business, Enterprise, Education, and Nonprofit domains today for Admins while users will get controls starting on June 4th.

The features are aimed at keeping confidential and sensitive intercompany data from being leaked or accidentally shared with those who should not have access to it.  Now admins can set domain level restrictions on what can be shared while individual Google Team Drive owners can select specifics for specific files – but the domain controls will override everything.

For those that don’t recall, Google Team Drive is the G Suite equivalent (with a lot more features) of the consumer oriented Google Drive.

After a trickle rollout last week, Google appears to be more broadly rolling out a new Purchases and Reservations section within Google Assistant on Android.  This, like many changes with Assistant, is a cloud-side update so as long as you have the latest version of the Google app and/or Assistant app, you should be good-to-go.

The new sections are accessed by long pressing your Home button to activate Google Assistant.  Now tap on the blue Explore button in the upper right corner.  Finally, tap on the overflow menu (three vertical dots) and go to Settings.  If it has rolled out to your account, you will see the new Purchases and Reservations sections.