Google One will now automatically backup your phone data.

Google One cloud storage went live last year offering a paid storage for backing up phone data to the cloud. Starting at $1.99 per month, users are offered storage options ranging from 100GB to 30TB to save messages, photos, videos, and contacts online in case disaster strikes. 

Yesterday Google announced in a blog post they're improving the service. Besides the standard features mentioned above, Google One will now automatically backup your phone. In addition, the service will backup original quality photos, videos, and multimedia messages (MMS). And users will be able to manage all that on their Android devices from the Google One app.

Google said, "With Google One, you already get more storage for your photos, videos, and documents—giving you the peace of mind that your memories and important files are stored in the cloud. Now with automatic phone backup, we're taking another step in helping you keep the stuff you care about safe." 

Source: Google

New Adobe Photoshop Express for Android lets you seamlessly share photos to Instagram.

Adobe Photoshop Express for Android just got better today thanks to an update that will make users happy, especially those with an Instagram account. Instagram is a very popular photo sharing platform, more popular than Snapchat and gradually gaining more and more users. A popularity that parent company Facebook is now trying to monetize and I'm not sure that move will play well with users. Only the future will tell. but I digress.

In this update, Adobe is adding the square aspect ratio for Instagram. Users will be able to share photos to Instagram "without worrying about the 1:1 aspect ratio. PhotoShop Express will handle that automatically. This is a great addition.

PhotoShop Express now supports "Split Tone". This new feature will let users "add different colors to the shadows and the highlights of an image to create a surreal effect."

That's it for this update. Head over to Google Play Store to download or update Adobe PhotoShop Express and enjoy hassle-free image editing to share on Instagram.

LocalCast for Chromecast Pro is free provided you're willing to watch short video ads.

On my list of most useful gadgets, Chromecast is deeply entrenched in the second place behind, obviously, my phone. It's amazing how a $35 casting gadget make such an impact on how I consume and share digital content. But like all things, Chromecast also has its limitations and one of them being the lack of support for local files casting. There have been some minor improvements over the years, but nothing compared to apps like LocalCast for Chromecast.

Basically, LocalCast is capable of casting every file formats available from mp4, mkv, 3gp, m4v. And it does that from a variety of sources, not just limited to your devices. LocalCast will happily cast from NAS, Google Drive, Google+, Dropbox and even a webpage.

LocalCast is available in two versions in the Store: The free and pro version. The latter contains no ads; lets you search your device for contents; displays a video preview in certain areas of the app. While I don't mind paying to support an independent developer, it's nice to see that in the latest app update, the developer is making the pro version "free". Well, you have to watch a short video ad to unlock the app's pro features and they remain available until the app is restarted. Not a big price to pay to take full advantage of LocalCast.

The update also reduces the app download size from 10.31MB to "around 9MB".

Check out LocalCast in Google Play Store. Happy Casting! 

Instagram introduces Music in Stories.

Have you ever watched a movie without sound or music? And did you like it? It probably sounded weird as a soundtrack is essential to any movie and as of today, will most likely become key to your Instagram Stories.

Instagram announced the 400 million people who use Stories every day will now be able to add music to their Stories from a library of thousands of songs. Instagram added a new music icon and when you tap on it, you get access to a music library from which to browse by mood, genre or what's popular. Of course, songs can be previewed. 

Once you've found the song you like and that fits your Story, you can go even further and rewind or forward to the part of the song that best fits your Story. Instagram recognizes "that music can play an important role in how you share your moments and express yourself with friends and we're working hard to bring it to the global community in the future."

Music is available on Instagram version 51 in "select countries". However, the ability to choose a song before capturing a video is only available in iOS only, but the company says this feature is coming to Android soon. If you live in one of those "select countries", look for version 51 in Google Play Store.

Instagram now lets you share stories you're mentioned in.

"Starting today, when someone mentions you in their story, you'll be able to share that photo or video into your own story." Instagram is bringing this new feature to its app today on Android and iOS. They announced this in a blog post yesterday. Users that get mentioned will receive a notification in their Direct messages thread and will see an option to add that content to their own story. In addition, the user will be able to "rotate and position it and add creative tools like text or stickers on to it as well." Followers who see the story will also see the original poster's username and get the possibility to follow them. Instagram says this feature only works for public accounts.

This seems to be a server-side update. However, make sure you grab the latest version of the app in Google Play Store.

Instagram for Android now lets users share Feed Posts to Stories.

Today Instagram is making sharing feed posts to story publicly available to Android users. This feature differs from Regram in that users can quickly share a post of interest to their story for their friends and followers to see.

Instagram says that "to share a feed to your story, just tap the paper airplane button below the post, just as you would to send it via Direct. At the top, you'll now see the option to create a story. Tap it to see the feed post as a sticker with a customized background ready to share to your story. You can rotate, scale and move the sticker - and tap it to explore other styles."

Shared posts will appear with the original poster's username, which is clickable so you can check the original post and even see more post. Obviously, it is only possible to share posts from public accounts and should you not want your posts to be shared, Instagram lets you opt out in the app settings.

Get Instagram for Android in Google Play Store.

Instagram now lets you take portrait mode style photos/videos with new 'Focus' feature.

Today, Instagram announced a new feature called 'Focus' "that can instantly take portraits of yourself or friends that you'll want to share". 'Focus' is the portrait mode available on more and more phones these days. In case you've never heard about portrait mode, it lets you take pictures that keep your subject sharp with a blurred background.

Instagram 'Focus' feature will appear next to 'Superzoom' in the app. Tap once to take a selfie or press and hold to capture a video. Focus also works with the back-facing camera. I've tested 'Focus' on my OnePlus 5T and my first impression is that it looks weird. I took a selfie and my ears were also blurred. This thing needs some more work. The portrait mode on my OnePlus is way better - at least it doesn't treat my ears as being part of the background.

'Focus' is available in Instagram version 39.0 for Android, but on select Android devices. Instagram did not say which one. If you do not see Focus mode yet, make sure you download the latest version of the app in Google Play Store.

Source: Instagram

Adobe Photoshop Express supports 9 new languages, image cropping in the original image's aspect ratio.

If you pull up the Play Store on your device and make a search for photo editing apps, the search will bring up thousands and thousands of matching apps. So much that you end up scrolling endlessly through the results, making choosing one difficult, especially since the store search engine does not necessarily sort the list with the most popular app at the top. So, if you’re a developer and unless your app has a well-known brand name, good luck with making your app visible to the billions of Android users. Adobe Photoshop Express does not have this recognition problem if 50 million downloads are any indication.

Adobe Photoshop Express is a brand that inspires trust. The app supports the basics like photo cropping, straightening, rotating, etc. It also allows for quick and easy editing of photos on the go. But it also includes features like blemish removal, corrections, filters, image rendering engine, noise reduction among a lot more. And the app is regularly updated.

In the latest update, Adobe added support for 9 new languages: Filipino, Greek, Hindi, Indonesian, Malay, Romanian, Thai, Ukrainian and Vietnamese. The update also lets you “crop your images in the original image’s aspect ratio.”

Check out the ret of the change log below and head into the Play Store to update/download Adobe Photoshop Express.

·       Enhancements in image picker gallery for a smoother experience.

·       Bug fixes and feature enhancements.