Soo, Google's at fault for a phishing attack because people trust open software. Huh? Sounds like +The Verge needs to get that wisdom patch that they've been meaning to install...Google a) mailed this thing within an hour, b) was immediately public about the problem, c) the problem had no-thing to do with Google Drive itself, and d) should be immediately detectable as a scam, since it involves clicking on a supposed "Open in Drive" icon and then being prompted by a third party app to allow access to Drive.

Think, folks - if you have a Drive account, you don't need to allow access to Drive! Now for those who don't log in to Google Drive regularly, maybe that's news. But I'd rather use OAuth as a third party gateway to a proprietary platform like Drive than some proprietary kit.

Are Google's Waymo self-driving cars aimed at the suburban market?

Well, it takes a while to figure out Google's strategies, sometimes. They are very data-driven - and what it seems that Alphabet's Waymo self-driving car division is figuring out is that suburban families have problems that self-driving cars can solve.

The minivans from their Fiat Chrysler partnership look really klunky compared to many of the sleek, small, urban drivers from its self-driving competitors. But in a world of "soccer moms" and dads trying to be everything to everyone, self-drivng cars can offer them flexibility and more time for themselves.

Now, this is their pitch, and so it's far from a given that this will represent the fastest growing segment for self-driving autos initially, but transportation is most problematic for suburban workers. The hub-and-spoke design of most city-suburban layouts in the U.S. makes it very hard to get from home to job without a car if you're not working in a hub location. Self-driving autos can make spoke-to-spoke drives as easy as public transportation - and, hopefully, with ride sharing, economical. Working parents can also order up shuttles for their kids, and not worry about who's going to pick them up.

So think of Waymo as the "un-scary Uber" for suburbanites. That I can "get" - and I think that a lot of other people might, also. We'll see.

Android One Phones Could But Project Fi Subscriptions Wide Open

The good news about Google's Project FI MVNO mobile network is that it works great virtually everywhere (except in Durham, CT at least - go figure), you pay exactly for what you need, customer service is generally excellent, and it uses only pure Google phones. The bad news up to now is that pure Google phones with the right chipsets to support Project Fi have been pret-ty expensive until recently. Android One phones would change that in a big way. Can't wait, will make it far more cost-effective to get the whole family on Fi.

Google and Partnerships: Not so perfect together?

Look, I am not saying that Google doesn't do partnerships well, but it seems as if a significant number of their partnership fails allow competitors to open up markets that should be theirs for the asking. For example:

- Logitech and major TV makers for Google TV/Android TV: Fail. Winners: Roku and Amazon Fire (Honorable mention: Chromecast for mobile integration).

- Various partners for Nexus phones: awesome, but a market fail, ultimately - Android gained dominant market share, but security, upgrade, and media strategies suffered in the process except for an elite few.

- Google Play - love it, but from a market share perspective, kind of a fail for media licensing, especially since Netflix and Amazon Prime dominate in subscription content, an area that Google never really touched.

- Android Auto - jury is out, with a hopeful sign being Chevy's Bolt EV going it without an in-auto entertainment sytem in favor of Android Auto and Apple's CarPlay.

- Google Home - could have stolen the march with OnHub if it had been equipped with voice commands, but instead dilly-dallied with router partners in what wound up being a "Nexus Q" product dead-end, giving Amazon Echo time to establish market share ahead of Google Home and Google Wifi's introduction.

- Self-driving cars/WayMo - wow, it seems more and more that Google's slow-to-market efforts with Fiat Chrysler in this pioneering area are starting to make Google look like the Osborne of self-driving cars, with GM coming up fast along with others such sa BMW. The WayMo FCA test best are super-klunky looking.

None of these are complete partnership failures, but Google is a Googleverse all its own, and it seems that it's extraordinarily hard for them at times to keep in touch with the real universe around it. Nothing unusual for big companies, Like many companies entering middle age, agility can come hard at times - and that's not to say that they cannot focus on bug things well. But I wonder if the move to create Project X was a move that is actually out of step with how new breakthrough products come to market rapidly these days. We'll see.

My guess: Android O on the Moto Nexus 6 will enable a broader pool.of users on Project Fi to experience messaging and voice services improvement, since Fi still supports the big ol' Shamu.

OK, Here's my dilemma - I use Hangouts heavily via my desktop and laptop OC for messaging, it saves so much hassle. So, no Hangouts for messaging, and without a version of Chrome OS that supports Android apps, what do I do for mobile messaging on my PCs? I get the reasons why Google is doing this, but I guess that my profile has been deemed statistical roadkill in the transition to Hangouts being a more Google Wave-like app. I like that last part, mind you...

OK, gotta say it - in this particular ranking of social media Web sites, +Google+ is tied at #8 with Yelp for overall ranking and ahead of the much-vaunted Snapchat, which is trying to push itself to an IPO stock launch, in spite of near-zero growth. Rankings are as measured by Brand Keys' annual Customer Loyalty Engagement Index. IN other words, regardless of overall audience size, G+ has a large and loyal following, one that is largely overlooked by media pundits. But hey, we knew that.

Visited my 89 year-old dad and helped him though an upgrade to Android 7.1.1 on his Nexus 5X phone on Project Fi. Took three shots to get all of the patches etc. installed, but seems OK now. My Nexus 6 seems fine on 7.0 now, though it gets a bit glitchy at times. Hopefully the promised 7.1.1 upgrade comes soon, I'd like the app shortcuts from the home screen...

Android 7.0 Comes to the Nexus 6

Sometimes the Motorola Nexus 6 seems like a forgotten phone, in spite of its awesome power and its support for Google's Project Fi network. Finally, after a 6.0.1 system-security upgrade last night and some apps updates immediately afterwards, this morning was the time to see the upgrade alert pop on to my phone. Showtime!

The upgrade itself was no different than any other upgrade I've had on the phone, same procedures, same sequence, just a touch longer, perhaps, but not by much. Then a reboot, and...voila, a like-new phone! I am used to earlier major releases bringing older Nexus phones to a crawl, but, true to their promise, this is the first Android upgrade where I can see a marked *improvement" in performance. Very fast and smooth, and the animations of the UI are no longer as clunky when the phone apps get heavy usage.

Loving the alers, and the split-screen feature is more useful-looking than i thought that it would me. Will be handy for keeping podcast controls accessible when looking at the news, taking notes on documents, etc. Looking forward to this!

I am liking the updated system icons, with the multi-tile paging. I was able to rearrange them a bit, so that the Chromecast icon is more accessible, since I use that often. Also nice having the flashlight icon handier in the combined alerts UI.

Alerts rock. So pretty, basically, micro-content. Well done.

Only very teeny-tiny complaint: for some reason my default saving of screenshots to Google Photos got klonged in the UI, and I had to go back to set this option. Small price to pay for a great upgrade. Pretty much set for another year, or at least until the Pixel 2 comes along, depending on what it offers. W00t!