Author: Clinton

Google continues to roll out new features to Google Home and Google Assistant to make them more personalized to your needs.  The latest of these updates is rolling out now and it gives you the ability to schedule your custom routines you have setup on your Google Home.

Routines, for those that are new to Home, came to the devices back in March while custom routines – ones you create yourself – came in May.  At Google I/O, the Mountain View company said that scheduling of your custom routines would be coming too.  This would allow for you to schedule the day and time you want a routine to be available to run.

A new update to the Skype for Android app is rolling out, bringing end-to-end encryption for conversations and other improvements.  The update is version 8.26.0.70 for those keeping score at home and should be available to everyone in the Play Store by now.

The big new feature in this update is what Microsoft is calling Private conversations.  It is end-to-end encryption for your conversations that you have within the message app.  By encrypting it, you don’t have to worry about your text or video conversations being intercepted.  If they are, they are encrypted and protected.  It is a key feature that is important in this day and age for messaging apps.

Back in June I posted on a bug that had been introduced in that month’s Android Security Update.  The bug caused the Pixel 2 XL to be very slow to wake up if you had the ambient display disabled in Settings.  At the time, Google acknowledged the bug and indicated that it would be fixed in the July Android Security Update.  Which they did but had to essentially break another fix in order to make this fix work.

Clear as mud?  Let me explain.

There was a bug that was impacting some users turning off their Pixel 2 XLs that caused a bright flash before the device entered into the ambient display.  That fix, which did fix that issue, broke the wake up process when coming out of ambient mode, thus causing the slow wake ups.  To fix the slow wake ups, they had to revert that first fix back to its original code.

The much anticipated arrival of the sequel to Alto’s Adventure, Alto’s Odyssey, has finally arrived for Android users.  The endless runner style game is similar to the first game but with new challenges and in a completely different setting.  But the beautiful graphics and soundtrack that was enjoyed in the first game is still there in Alto’s Odyssey.

Set in a magical desert, the game brings Alto and friends different challenges and obstacles but has the same feel to the first game.  There are caves, temples and even banner grinding between hot air balloons in the game so there is enough of a difference to keep you entertained.  For hours.

Ja! Google Assistent is nu beschikbaar in Nederland! En het spreekt Nederlands!

The slow but steady global expansion of Google Assistant has taken another step today.  The personal assistant has launched in the Netherlands with Dutch language support.  In the announcement today, Google points out that Assistant not only speaks Dutch, but is Dutch.

The functionality and personality are adapted to our country – the assistant sings Dutch songs, follows Dutch football and understands that the weather is very important to us.

The launch is also supported by a wide range of Dutch companies through Assistant Actions that they have created to provide a native experience.

A new update to the Wear OS by Google app is rolling out in the Play Store today, bringing a handful of improvements to the app and subsequently your Wear OS watch.  The update is version 2.14.0.205078731 for those keeping score at home and it should be available to all Wear users at this point.

The headliner in the update is improvement Google Pay performance.  If you have an NFC watch, you’ve been able to use it to pay for things using Google Pay.  The problem that most users have run into is that it takes too long to open, in some cases up to 15 seconds.  That largely defeats the point as it is faster to get a credit card from your wallet or simply tap your phone to pay.  This update should fix that.