Ditching Passwords With Your Phone

Google has finally enabled Passkeys for normal Google accounts (Work/School accounts coming soon TM). Passkeys is a standard Google and many other tech companies came up with in the FIDO Alliance, as an alternative to passwords.

The TLDR as to how it works is, your phone keeps the keys for your account in something like keychain if you use an iPhone, and when you go to log in to say google you will be prompted to authenticate on your phone with either a face scan, fingerprint, or a pin code. However, you normally unlock your phone is how it will know the right person is logging in to Google.

Other sites allow for this type of authentication like Paypal, Shopify, and a few others. More will likely follow now that Google has implemented passkeys.

Now let's go over how to set up passkeys for Google.

1. Go to your Google account settings.

2. Then go to your security settings.

3. Click Add Passkeys.

4. Click the create Passkey button.

5. The click Use another device.

6. Scan the QR code with your phone (you can use the camera app on most smartphones or your QR scanner app of choice).

7. Follow the prompt to authenticate with your phone (Face scan, fingerprint scan, or pin).

8. Add the account keys to your device (iCloud key chain or Google Password Manager).

9. You're done!

You can now use your phone to log in to your Google account. This is something you might see more and more in the coming years.

Made By Google Event

Today was the day of the Made By Google event. We got pretty much everything we thought we would get from Google today. We got the Pixel phone, Google Home, and I think we knew about Google WIFI ahead of time as well. What I dont think we knew ahead of time was Google Daydream. So lets dive into the announcements today.

Pixel:

Lets start with the meat of this announcement, the Pixel phone. As many others have talked about ahead of time the main reason for this event was the Pixel. At first glance it almost looks like an iPhone running android, by which I mean it looks clean and beautiful. It comes in a few different colors Quite Black, Very Silver and Really Blue. The blue one is also vary limited edition.

Now lets talk about software. Being a phone made by google it of course comes with a vanilla Android experience. You will get no bloatware with this phone unlike many other android phones. Bloatware is pretty much what turns me off tordes Android, and the fact that most OEMs don't let you uninstall most of that software. Enough of me lets get back to the Pixel. Like most other phones now a days the Phone had a finger print reader which is found on the back. I cant think of any other phone that has the fingerprint reader on the back of the phone. Form what Google said the sensor is fast than the ones on other phones, so you can get into your phone quicker.

The battery in the Pixel should last all day according to Google. We will see once people get the phone and start using it. I cant see why it wouldn't get all day battery life. The Pixel can also do quick charging, with 15 mins of charging you should get about 7 hours of battery life.

Now for me the most important part of a smart phone is the camera. The Pixel seems to have a grate camera. This is another we will see once people get the phone in their hands and we can compared them with the iPhone 7 and other phones. But from what they showed in the keynote it looks pretty good. 

The Pixel is looking like a grate Android phone and comes in 2 sizes 5" and 5.5". For now you can only get it if you are on Verizon or on Google FI. You can pre order today.

Daydream View:

VR was also talked about today at the keynote. Google announced Daydream View, this is a accessory for the Pixel and other phones that are Daydream ready. The Daydream is a headset that the Pixel can be placed in to turn it into a VR head set. It also comes with a remote that is used when you have the headset on so you can point and click around the apps you will be able to use. You will be able to use it with apps like Hulu (U.S. only), HBO NOW (U.S. only), NBA (U.S. only), Netflix, MLB. Games of course will be apart of this as well the one that seemed fun to me is the Harry Potter Fantastic Beasts game, You can be a Wizard!!!! 

Google Home and Google Assistant:

The pixel and the Daydream View are cool but to me the most interesting things that where talked about today where Google Home and Google Assistant. Google Home is Googles answer to Amazons Eco. It is a small device with a microphone and speakers. Unlike the Eco, Home looks a lot nicer almost like a candle. The google Home can play music, send movies and videos to a Chrome Cast, and will answer and question you ask it.  If you have IOT devices you can have it turn on and off lights and other devices.

Here comes the Google Assistant part. Google Assistant is a Google search for your life. If you don't mind Google have information on everything in your life you can use Google Assistant to tell you things like what appointments you have for that day. You can have Google make you a dinner reservation and call you an über. Google Assistant can do so much and is going to get better overtime when more apps take advantage of the API. They also said that Google Assistant will be open and can be intergraded with just about anything with a mic and speakers. They even mention the Raspberry Pi. 

By long shot this seems to be the most interesting thing that was announced today at the event. You will be able to pre order the Google Home for $129.

Google WIFI and  Chromecast Ultra:

Google announced a WIFI solution for homes that may have issues with WIFI signals, it is a little white puck router that can work with other Google WIFI's to improve your signal. It even works with Google Onhub or alone as its own router. You can get a one pack for $129 and a 3 Pack for $299. 

Last but not least the Chromecast Ultra. Chromecast Ultra is the 4K ready Chromecast. It dose all the things that the last Chromecast did but faster and better. As I stated earlier it will also work with Google Home. So you can tell Google Home to play House of Cards and it will send it to your Chromecast Ultra. At $69 the Chromecast Ultra is the most affordable 4K player out there. 

If you are still reading gratz and grab a cookie. That is everything that was announced to day at the Made By Google event. It was like xmass for everything Google. Everything is ready to preorder today so enjoy and until next time bye!!!

What might Google announce on October 4th

On Sunday October 4th Google is set to have an announcement to unveil something. Based off the page it looks like it will be a new android phone. We also know this cause some images and pre-rendered images of the new phone. It will be the google pixel phone. The name pixel might sound familiar. The released a expensive chrome book a few years ago with the name Pixel.

Speaking of chrome OS Google might also announce a new hybrid OS that they have been working on. This would combined Android and Chrome OS as a single OS to run on mobile devices and desktop and laptop devices. This new OS would have the security of chrome OS and the power of android. This would be far more interesting than a phone announcement.

We will have to see in just a few days what will get announced at the event. We could just see the same old same old phone announcement or we might see a whole new OS from google which I think will be far better.