Pokemon Go has taken the world by storm with over 15 million downloads in just a few days. Have you considered what sort of information you have granted to this app? We'll take a look at that and also we will hear from Andrew Byett from Tech Data on how you can use your Windows Phone as a PC.

Your phone as a PC

When travelling or going to a business meeting, many take with them their phones and laptops. Imagine, having a phone that works just like a PC that will eliminate the need to carry a laptop or a tablet around. A year ago Microsoft announced the debut of Continuum for Phones which enables Windows customers to get things done like never before, with just their Windows phone.

This is the vision of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella who said at the launch of Continuum, “This is the beginning of how we are going to change what the form and function of a phone is.” That is exactly what Microsoft has done with their Continuum technology. Now, if you have a windows phone, you really have a smartphone that has the power and ability to work like a PC.

At the recently held Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto, I had the opportunity to get some hands-on experience with Microsoft Lumia 950XL by working with Continuum on a big screen. I must say that I was really impressed with the smoothness of connection and how the screen on the TV scale with great speed to match the size of the screen. It was very easy to work with and updating Microsoft docs like excel and word.

To get a deeper perspective of Continuum and what we can expect in the near future, I spoke with Andrew Byett, at Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto earlier this week. Andy is the Business Development Manager for Windows Phone for Tech Data Ltd out of the UK. Tech Data is one of the world’s largest technology distributors and a partner of Microsoft.

Andy touched on what Continuum is really about and how it works. He also talked about the Microsoft foldable keyboard which is a great accessory to get if you want to work with your Windows Phone as a PC and what we can expect to see in the future about Continuum.

What I really like about continuum is that I can easily project my PowerPoint presentation during a meeting from my phone or even work off a TV screen from my hotel room when travelling. Since its launch, continuum has seen some improvements with more to come in the Windows 10 Anniversary update in a few weeks.

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Pokemon Go privacy issue

The app Pokemon Go, a game that was downloaded over 15 million times, and has sent Nintendo shares soaring in Tokyo, has a serious privacy flaw.

The iOS version of the mobile game apparently had a default setting that required users to grant broad permissions to access their Google accounts.

It appears that during the account creation process on iOS, full access permission for a user's Google account was requested. But according to the developer Niantic, they only needed basic profile information like a user ID and email address.

According to what we know at this time is that Niantic has made a request to fix the permission to only access basic Google profile information and Google has since reduced Pokemon Go's permission to only the basic profile data.

One thing to point out is that this app was developed by some of the same people that built Google Earth and Maps. So it was built by a group of seasoned developers, who should be aware of the data-hacking risk if you allow full permission to a user's Google account. This oversight is something that should not happen from such a high level of app developers.

Most of us I'm sure only try to download apps that are from respected companies, like Apple and Google but as we see with Pokemon Go app, having this mindset does not necessarily protect us. We need to look out for ourselves and ensure that the permissions that we are granting to apps are limited and of a basic nature only.

So if you have Pokemon on your phone, go check the settings and ensure that only your limited information is granted.