Author: Clinton

If there is one app outside of Google Photos that shows the power of Artificial Intelligence in Googleville, it is Google Lens.  The AI-driven camera feature allows you to quickly identify objects simply by pointing your camera at them and tapping that object.  At Google I/O yesterday, Google announced some of the next steps for Lens and they are going to be impressive when the land over the next few months.

First, and perhaps the biggest news, is that Lens will be available in the native camera app for several manufactures.  That means the feature will be available a lot more people right out-of-the-box.  If you have a device from LGE, Motorola, Xiaomi, Sony Mobile, HMD/Nokia, Transsion, TCL, OnePlus, BQ, or Asus, you can expect an update to the native camera app on your phone to support Google Lens.

Confirming a rumor from last week prior to Google I/O, the Mountain View company pulled back the curtains on the all new Google News app and service yesterday at the event.  The new look site and app brings an significantly updated, more Material Design look to the apps while also bringing more visual and video content along with it.

Along with the updated look, there is now a Newsstand tab in the app which brings in magazine and online content subscriptions to the app.  With that, it spells the end of the Google Play Newsstand app.

It appears that once again Apple is upping device security with the upcoming release of iOS 11.4.  In a new report on Elcomsoft indicates that when the new build of iOS rolls out, it will come with a Lightening Connection lockdown that requires the device to unlocked or the password/fingerprint to be entered every seven days.  The feature is meant to prevent tethering a device to a PC or Mac and brute force cracking the device to gain access.

The feature first appeared in iOS 11.3 but was dropped during the beta testing.  It reappeared in 11.4 and, to this point, has pretty much gone unnoticed until now.  What this means is after 7 days, if the device hasn’t been unlocked either with biometrics or a password, the Lightening connector becomes a charging port only.  No data is transmitted to or from the device by the connected laptop.

As expected, Google has announced that Developer Preview 2 and the first public beta of Android P, the next major version of the mobile platform, is now available.  The announcement came at Google I/O today along with a slew of new features that will be coming to Android P.  Perhaps more exciting is that for the first time, Google will be opening up the public beta to non-Google devices.  Those devices, beyond the Google Pixel lineup, include the Sony Xperia XZ2, Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S, Nokia 7 Plus, Oppo R15 Pro, Vivo X21, OnePlus 6, and Essential PH‑1.

As for Android P itself, there are a lot of new features.  First, the UI has moved to a more gesture driven experience with the ability to enable swipes around the UI to open up the app tray and a new app system navigation view.

Today at Google I/O, the company announced some big new features are coming to Google Assistant.  In the coming months, Assistant will be able to handle multiple actions at once while also being able to continue a conversation with you as you interact with it.  This will be available on Google Home and on your Android and iOS phones.

Continuing conversations is a huge step forward as it will allow you to link various conversation elements together into one interaction without having to say “Hey Google” between each command.  It will make Assistant – which will also have six new voices – more conversational and natural to interact with in your day.

With Mother’s Day coming up this weekend, Huawei has a great promotion running for those Mums who need a new phone.  Right now at Amazon you can pick up the powerful Huawei Mate 10 Pro in an exclusive Mocha Brown color, for $649.  That’s $150 off the regular price.  There is no coupon code required – just visit this link and the special pricing is already applied.  That pricing will be good now through May 19th.

I reviewed the Huawei Mate 10 Pro a few months ago and as I put in that review, it is one of the best phones out there right now.  Huawei has done a fantastic job with the overall design of the phone and the Android Oreo built EMUI 8 user experience is excellent.