No matter what brand of smartphone you prefer, one thing that all smartphone users have in common is the loathing of ads. No one wants to pay hundreds of dollars for a high-end premium smartphone only to have the manufacturer hit them with ads at every turn. Unfortunately, despite what users want, Samsung has been doing that with some of its apps.
Today Microsoft made the pricing and release dates of all new Office apps official. They've revealed that they're bringing "many" of the collaborative features from Microsoft 365 (for subscribers) to Office 2021, and they're ready to roll out both the PC and Mac versions of the core Office apps in a non-subscription format for the year 2021.
Today a set of financial institutions appear to be having issues all at the same time. It's not clear at the moment if the issues are related, but a relative spike this morning seems to have started at around 8:45 AM Central Time for companies like Bank of America, Zelle, and FAFSA. Other financial groups appear to have had less frequent reports of issues - possibly owing to involvement with the aforementioned services.
Today, Mozilla announced several new security features for Firefox on Android. These new features are centered around passwords and keeping your various online identities secure. What's particularly interesting about these features is that they offer some degree of cross-app functionality, allowing you to do things like accessing your stored passwords outside of the Firefox browser itself.
Facebook Messenger has become one of the applications that some people use to keep in touch with friends and family, particularly during the pandemic. Messenger has announced some changes coming to the group messaging feature, making it easier to communicate with groups of people at once. One of the new features is the ability to have cross-app group chats using Messenger and Instagram friends.
Although it develops Android for a wide variety of OEM partners, Google naturally reserves some exclusive features for its own Pixel phones. The Personal Safety app, for example, gives Pixel owners a more powerful tool that will ensure their safety or, in the worst-case scenario, at least let their loved ones know their whereabouts in an emergency. Sometimes, however, simple words or even calls aren't enough to give a clear idea of the situation, so now Google will allow Pixel users to record video that can be automatically sent to emergency contacts as needed.
Almost like a one-hit-wonder, Clubhouse's prestige seems to have started waning now that Facebook and Twitter are also in the running. Of course, there are still many creators and users who prefer to keep their content away from those social media giants, but they are also searching for more features and more control over their live sessions. That's fortunately coming in the latest set of features for Clubhouse, including one that could prove to be quite controversial.
Google has announced that it's using its AI technology and mapping information to help people worldwide access helpful and reliable data to enable progress towards global goals like fighting climate change. Google shared new Maps features intended to help communities be safer and more sustainable while making them discoverable. One of the changes to Google Maps is the addition of a wildfire layer.
Earlier this year Google showed quite a few features that'd be coming to Google Lens in the future - now would appear to be the time these features will start to be available to the public. Google described their future in intelligent information parsing with their Multitask Unified Model, or MUM. The first pair of features for Google Lens are about to be available to the public using MUM to search for answers with Google in new ways.
Word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software isn't exactly sexy, but Apple's latest iWork suite does add an unexpectedly high-tech feature to the productivity package it gives away free. iWork is actually used on mobile devices like iPhone and iPad more than it is on Mac, and the latest upgrade makes that more straightforward too.
App stores are hot topics these days because of how the big boys are allegedly using their position to monopolize the mobile app market. To some extent, Microsoft has the opposite problem. It can't even be accused of having a monopoly because its Microsoft Store app marketplace isn't exactly teeming with exclusives, and developers can always take their apps elsewhere. For Windows 11, Microsoft is working to entice even its rivals to put their wares on its Store, even if it means hosting third-party app stores that it won't be able to tax.
With Windows 11, Microsoft isn't just giving the operating system a visual upgrade. It is also updating almost all of its core first-party apps to match the new design language. Nowhere is this more evident than in the venerable Microsoft Paint app, which has stayed the same for almost a decade. The refreshed version for Windows 11 is finally available to Windows Insiders for testing, along with a much-needed new upgrade to an old feature.