Chrome OS v62 Fixes KRACK Vulnerabilities, Revamps Notification Design

Chrome OS is Google's platform for computers and laptops to act as an in-between of a full-blown OS and a light, productivity-based OS. With the whole Google suite of applications, Chrome OS is generally for people who don't need a full computer experience but rather a lighter one. You can run Android applications, play some games and go on the internet on them, but they are not really intended for heavy usage. Google have just released version 62 Chrome OS, and with it come a number of fixes, most notably for the KRACK exploit. There are also a few new features listed below, which are taken from the Google Chrome OS stable channel update announcement.

• Kerberos SSO integration for Active Directory managed Chrome OS devices
• Ability to zoom legacy apps in tablet mode
• Randomized Alternate Hosts for Captive Portal Detection
• Chrome notification style & interactions refresh
• Enhanced touch experience in Files app
• Support for full-screen apps in Enterprise Public Session mode
• ARC++ inbound network connections

As can be seen above, there are a few other small changes and performance optimisations. There's not much else to be seen here in terms of the update, with the main focus being to fix the KRACK exploit. Of course there are some file manager enhancements and notification changes too. Taking a screenshot allows you to see the screenshot preview just like on Android, and also each notification has the application icon visible to the user so you know what application made it. It's noteworthy that these are another set of changes which seem to indicate a push towards increasing the amount of shared features between Android and Chrome OS.

Overall, the main focus of this update is certainly security related. Devices should receive the update soon if they haven't already, so upgrading as soon as possible is advised.

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Source: Google Chrome OS Blog

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Chrome OS v62 Fixes KRACK Vulnerabilities, Revamps Notification Design

Chrome OS is Google’s platform for computers and laptops to act as an in-between of a full-blown OS and a light, productivity-based OS. With the whole Google suite of applications, Chrome OS is generally for people who don’t need a full computer experience but rather a lighter one. You can run Android applications, play some games and go on the internet on them, but they are not really intended for heavy usage. Google have just released version 62 Chrome OS, and with it come a number of fixes, most notably for the KRACK exploit. There are also a few new features listed below, which are taken from the Google Chrome OS stable channel update announcement.

• Kerberos SSO integration for Active Directory managed Chrome OS devices
• Ability to zoom legacy apps in tablet mode
• Randomized Alternate Hosts for Captive Portal Detection
• Chrome notification style & interactions refresh
• Enhanced touch experience in Files app
• Support for full-screen apps in Enterprise Public Session mode
• ARC++ inbound network connections

As can be seen above, there are a few other small changes and performance optimisations. There’s not much else to be seen here in terms of the update, with the main focus being to fix the KRACK exploit. Of course there are some file manager enhancements and notification changes too. Taking a screenshot allows you to see the screenshot preview just like on Android, and also each notification has the application icon visible to the user so you know what application made it. It’s noteworthy that these are another set of changes which seem to indicate a push towards increasing the amount of shared features between Android and Chrome OS.

Overall, the main focus of this update is certainly security related. Devices should receive the update soon if they haven’t already, so upgrading as soon as possible is advised.

---

Source: Google Chrome OS Blog

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Google Firebase Dev Summit 2017 Brings Crashalytics, a UI Redsign, Machine Learning, and Much More!

Today in Amsterdam, Google held their yearly Firebase Dev Summit, where they showed off all the new tools and features for developers who are building on the Firebase platform.

While Google’s Firebase Predictions and Native A/B Testing support stole the show at the Firebase Dev Summit, they weren’t the only things announced.

First up is Crashlytics. When Google purchased Fabric from Twitter, one of the key pieces they acquired was the Crashlytics crash reporting system. Unfortunately, as with any acquisition, not everything was instantly integrated, despite what we may have wished. Google today is taking a step towards remedying this by fully integrating Crashlytics into the Firebase Console.

This mean that you will have easy access to information about where your app is crashing and how it is affecting performance, all in realtime. With Crashlytics integration, you will have an accessible overview of all known ongoing stability issues in your app, which will make it easy to figure out which bugs are the highest priorities and focus your efforts where they are needed, and potentially catch problems before they become major issues. While it will be a couple more weeks before Crashlytics integration is rolled out across Firebase as a whole, you can test it today at this link if you’re eager to get started.

Crashlytics will also be integrated into the rest of Firebase, bringing the ability to trigger Cloud Functions with Crashlytics events, allowing you to better handle the entire process of responding to crashes, from how your app responds to your users following the crash, to who in your organization the crash gets reported and escalated to. This can potentially be used to directly supply users who encounter particularly egregious ongoing bugs with a more targeted response, either explaining the situation with that bug, or potentially providing a call to action of what they can do to can help fix it going forward.

With the integrated of the Firebase and Fabric teams, Google is also launching a redesigned development console for Firebase, with the goal of making it easier to find the information you care about. Google has broken Firebase’s UI into four main categories in the left-hand navigation bar that they feel represent the app lifecycle: Develop, Stability, Analytics, and Grow. Google also announced at the Firebase Dev Summit that the main page in the Firebase Console, the Project Overview screen, will see a redesign, bringing your most important app statistics to the front and centre. Google will be displaying daily active users, monthly active users, crash-free user rate, and total crashes right on the Project Overview page, with sparklines to show how each of them are trending.

The Analytics section of the Firebase Console will be getting an overhaul as well, with an updated dashboard, and a focus on the information relevant to the latest version of your app, from stability to adoption rate, all updated in realtime. As with the Crashlytics integration, it will be a couple more weeks before the Firebase Console updates are rolled out across Firebase as a whole, but you can test it today at this link if you’re eager to get started.

Of course, the 2017 Firebase Dev Summit wouldn’t be complete without updates to the Cloud Messaging APIs. Google has announced that Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) will be improving its ability to send cross-platform messages. Instead of having to create seperate messages for each platform, Google is launching a new RESTful API for FCM that will allow you to create the message once, and include the platform specific fields in that single notification. This will allow developers to take full advantage of platform specific notification features, like click_action support on Android, without having to segment your notification and users based on OS platform and send multiple API calls. Documentation of FCM and this feature is available at this link.

As with many Google events, there was simply too much to announce all the new products at the Firebase Dev Summit itself however, with Cloud Firestore’s announcement coming earlier this month instead.

Looking towards the future, Google also talked about how they are preparing support for the European Union’s upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), ensuring that both Firebase itself and any organization using Firebase will be ready to easily support it, with documentation, tools, and data processing agreements where appropriate. You can read more about what Google is doing to prepare for GDPR in their FAQ.

Which new feature announced today are you most looking forward to? Are there any particular problems you would still like to see solved in the future? Are you planning on using these new tools? Let us know in the comments!

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Google Firebase Dev Summit 2017 Brings Crashalytics, a UI Redsign, Machine Learning, and Much More!

Today in Amsterdam, Google held their yearly Firebase Dev Summit, where they showed off all the new tools and features for developers who are building on the Firebase platform.

While Google's Firebase Predictions and Native A/B Testing support stole the show at the Firebase Dev Summit, they weren't the only things announced.

First up is Crashlytics. When Google purchased Fabric from Twitter, one of the key pieces they acquired was the Crashlytics crash reporting system. Unfortunately, as with any acquisition, not everything was instantly integrated, despite what we may have wished. Google today is taking a step towards remedying this by fully integrating Crashlytics into the Firebase Console.

This mean that you will have easy access to information about where your app is crashing and how it is affecting performance, all in realtime. With Crashlytics integration, you will have an accessible overview of all known ongoing stability issues in your app, which will make it easy to figure out which bugs are the highest priorities and focus your efforts where they are needed, and potentially catch problems before they become major issues. While it will be a couple more weeks before Crashlytics integration is rolled out across Firebase as a whole, you can test it today at this link if you're eager to get started.

Crashlytics will also be integrated into the rest of Firebase, bringing the ability to trigger Cloud Functions with Crashlytics events, allowing you to better handle the entire process of responding to crashes, from how your app responds to your users following the crash, to who in your organization the crash gets reported and escalated to. This can potentially be used to directly supply users who encounter particularly egregious ongoing bugs with a more targeted response, either explaining the situation with that bug, or potentially providing a call to action of what they can do to can help fix it going forward.

With the integrated of the Firebase and Fabric teams, Google is also launching a redesigned development console for Firebase, with the goal of making it easier to find the information you care about. Google has broken Firebase's UI into four main categories in the left-hand navigation bar that they feel represent the app lifecycle: Develop, Stability, Analytics, and Grow. Google also announced at the Firebase Dev Summit that the main page in the Firebase Console, the Project Overview screen, will see a redesign, bringing your most important app statistics to the front and centre. Google will be displaying daily active users, monthly active users, crash-free user rate, and total crashes right on the Project Overview page, with sparklines to show how each of them are trending.

The Analytics section of the Firebase Console will be getting an overhaul as well, with an updated dashboard, and a focus on the information relevant to the latest version of your app, from stability to adoption rate, all updated in realtime. As with the Crashlytics integration, it will be a couple more weeks before the Firebase Console updates are rolled out across Firebase as a whole, but you can test it today at this link if you're eager to get started.

Of course, the 2017 Firebase Dev Summit wouldn't be complete without updates to the Cloud Messaging APIs. Google has announced that Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) will be improving its ability to send cross-platform messages. Instead of having to create seperate messages for each platform, Google is launching a new RESTful API for FCM that will allow you to create the message once, and include the platform specific fields in that single notification. This will allow developers to take full advantage of platform specific notification features, like click_action support on Android, without having to segment your notification and users based on OS platform and send multiple API calls. Documentation of FCM and this feature is available at this link.

As with many Google events, there was simply too much to announce all the new products at the Firebase Dev Summit itself however, with Cloud Firestore's announcement coming earlier this month instead.

Looking towards the future, Google also talked about how they are preparing support for the European Union's upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), ensuring that both Firebase itself and any organization using Firebase will be ready to easily support it, with documentation, tools, and data processing agreements where appropriate. You can read more about what Google is doing to prepare for GDPR in their FAQ.

Which new feature announced today are you most looking forward to? Are there any particular problems you would still like to see solved in the future? Are you planning on using these new tools? Let us know in the comments!

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Google Adds A/B Testing to Firebase as a First Class Feature

For a long time, A/B testing has been a bit of a pain to perform in Firebase, requiring manual segmentation of user groups in order to decide who to send each version of the app to, and requiring manual parsing of the data you received to find out which version was prefered.

Today at the 2017 Firebase Dev Summit in Amsterdam, Google announced that they will be integrating native support for A/B testing into Firebase itself. Google hopes that by making A/B testing easier, it will become more accessible for new developers, and more useful for experienced developers.

As part of this integration, if you use the native A/B testing support Google will automatically split the two versions of the app or notification to subsets of the group that you select to send it to, and will collect the major data points, and report back once it has statistically significant results. All you need to do is create an experiment with Remote Config or FCM, define what variant values and population sizes you are looking to test on, and set what goal you’re looking to accomplish with your test.

If you want to start using Google Firebase’s new A/B testing support right away, you’ll be able to give it a try at this link very shortly.

Have you attempted to set up an A/B test through Firebase before? Are you excited to try it now that it is easier to do? Have you found a good workaround in the past that may still work even better? Let us know in the comments!

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Google Launches Firebase Predictions for User Segmentation Using Machine Learning

Today in Amsterdam at the 2017 Firebase Dev Summit, Google launched Firebase Predictions, their attempt at helping you predict what your users are going to do, before your users actually do it.

Trying to figure out how to target promotions within your app has historically been an absolute pain, up until now requiring manual segmentation of your userbase in Firebase in order to decide who to send each promotion to. It required you to attempt to figure out what your users were likely to do with the limited information that you had available to you. With Firebase Predictions, Google is aiming to permanently change the way this works on all platforms that Firebase is with.

As with many of Google’s products that have been integrated with machine learning recently, Firebase Predictions uses Google’s custom built hardware and cutting edge software to attempt to take the raw data that we receive, and turn it into something useful and useable. Firebase Predictions currently works by looking at all the small things that users do to attempt to sort them into one of four categories:

• Users who are predicted to churn in the next 7 days
• Users who are predicted to stay engaged with your app
• Users who are predicted to spend money
• Users who are predicted to not spend money in the next 7 days

Using that segmentation, you can use Remote Config to target promotions or ads to specific subsets of your userbase that you are interested in. This will reduce the number of people who see your promotions that you are not interested in showing the promotions to (avoiding any annoyance that might come with showing an ad to the wrong person), and help ensure that the promotions get to the right users.

Firebase Predictions will also allow you to target for any custom Analytics conversion event you want, allowing you to segment based on users that seem likely or unlikely to hit that target, and send different in-app promotions with Remote Config to each group. One example that Google gave for a game would be to target it based on reaching a specific level in your app if you find that people who reach that level are likely to stay with your game long term. Once you define that custom Analytics conversion event, Google will use machine learning to try to predict which users are likely to hit that target, and which ones are likely to fall short, and allow you to aim your in-app promotions accordingly.

This can have a major impact on user retention, as a well timed promotion to the users that are likely to churn in the next 7 days can help turn them into users who are likely to stay engaged with your app. One of Google’s launch partners for this feature, Halfbrick Studios, found that by targeting their promotions, they saw a 20% increase in their 7 day retention rate. 20% may not sound like much out of context, but that is a substantial uptick in long term users, and is great to see. It should be interesting to see the affect it will have in the future as more developers get their hands on this tool, and have a chance to test it out for themselves.

For more information about Firebase Predictions, check out the Firebase Predictions webpage later today when it goes live, or check out the Youtube Video down below which talks a bit more about it.

Will you be using Firebase Predictions in your app? What do you think of the application of machine learning to user segmentation? Have you been successful with user segmentation in the past? Let us know in the comments!

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Google Adds A/B Testing to Firebase as a First Class Feature

For a long time, A/B testing has been a bit of a pain to perform in Firebase, requiring manual segmentation of user groups in order to decide who to send each version of the app to, and requiring manual parsing of the data you received to find out which version was prefered.

Today at the 2017 Firebase Dev Summit in Amsterdam, Google announced that they will be integrating native support for A/B testing into Firebase itself. Google hopes that by making A/B testing easier, it will become more accessible for new developers, and more useful for experienced developers.

As part of this integration, if you use the native A/B testing support Google will automatically split the two versions of the app or notification to subsets of the group that you select to send it to, and will collect the major data points, and report back once it has statistically significant results. All you need to do is create an experiment with Remote Config or FCM, define what variant values and population sizes you are looking to test on, and set what goal you're looking to accomplish with your test.

If you want to start using Google Firebase's new A/B testing support right away, you'll be able to give it a try at this link very shortly.

Have you attempted to set up an A/B test through Firebase before? Are you excited to try it now that it is easier to do? Have you found a good workaround in the past that may still work even better? Let us know in the comments!

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