After starting last year, Google Keep is more widely rolling out the Google Tasks migration. This is a server-side update that we’re now seeing on all of our Google Accounts today.

Back in November, we started seeing Google Tasks replace “Google Keep reminders.” Once live on your account, you’ll see the “Reminders are now Google Tasks” prompt. This is a simultaneous rollout on Android, iOS, and the web.

View, edit and complete your reminders from Keep, Calendar, Tasks, Assistant, and Gemini.

Additionally, Google Tasks will create a new “Old Google Keep reminders” list. (Open the three-dot overflow icon in the top-right to delete.)

Tapping the bell icon will show an updated “Remind me later” bottom sheet that gains the Google Tasks icon:

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• Tomorrow morning
• Tomorrow evening
• Next [week]
• Pick a date & time

The option for location reminders is no longer supported, with existing places added to the task description. 

These reminders will appear in the Google Tasks app and Google Calendar grid with a “From Keep” label that conveniently opens the note.

In the Keep navigation drawer, the Reminders list or grid view remains available. The FAB (floating action button) creates a note with a set reminder.

However, Google Keep will no longer send you notifications for reminders. This functionality is now handled by the Google Calendar or Tasks app. 

If you delete from Keep, Google will ask if you want to remove both the reminder and note, or just the latter.

You can change the date/time of reminders from Keep, Tasks, or Calendar, but the title of a reminder must be edited using Tasks or Calendar. Any app can mark them as complete. 

Overall, this migration is pretty straightforward, but there are some edge cases you might encounter:

• Long reminders: If your Keep reminder is too long, its title is shortened after it migrates to Tasks.
• Limits on tasks: You can have up to 100,000 tasks. If the number of Keep reminders is more than the task limit, the oldest reminders don’t migrate to Tasks.
• Pending tasks: You can find a list of all “Pending tasks” from the last 365 days in the “All-day” section of your calendar for the current day.
• Repeating tasks: If you have a task that repeats more than every 1,000 days, weeks, months, or years, we adjust the recurrence schedule to be once every 1,000 days, weeks, months, or years. For example, a task that repeats every 2,000 days is adjusted to every 1,000 days.
  • Reminders that don’t repeat and are older than a year are added to an “Old Google Keep Reminders” list.
• Tasks beyond the year 3000: Any tasks with dates beyond the year 3000 are adjusted to the year 2900.

Now would be a good time to update all your Bluetooth audio devices. On Thursday, Wired reported on a security flaw in 17 headphone and speaker models that could allow hackers to access your devices, including their microphones. The vulnerability stems from a faulty implementation of Google’s one-tap (Fast Pair) protocol.

Security researchers at Belgium’s KU Leuven University Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography group, who discovered the security hole, named the flaw WhisperPair. They say a hacker within Bluetooth range would only require the accessory’s (easily attainable) device model number and a few seconds.

“You’re walking down the street with your headphones on, you’re listening to some music. In less than 15 seconds, we can hijack your device,” KU Leuven researcher Sayon Duttagupta told Wired. “Which means that I can turn on the microphone and listen to your ambient sound. I can inject audio. I can track your location.” The researchers notified Google about WhisperPair in August, and the company has been working with them since then.

Fast Pair is supposed to only allow new connections while the audio device is in pairing mode. (A proper implementation of this would have prevented this flaw.) But a Google spokesperson told Engadget that the vulnerability stemmed from an improper implementation of Fast Pair by some of its hardware partners. This could then allow a hacker’s device to pair with your headphones or speaker after it’s already paired with your device.

“We appreciate collaborating with security researchers through our Vulnerability Rewards Program, which helps keep our users safe,” a Google spokesperson wrote in a statement sent to Engadget. “We worked with these researchers to fix these vulnerabilities, and we have not seen evidence of any exploitation outside of this report’s lab setting. As a best security practice, we recommend users check their headphones for the latest firmware updates. We are constantly evaluating and enhancing Fast Pair and Find Hub security.”

The researchers created the video below to demonstrate how the flaw works

In an email to Engadget, Google said the steps required to access the device’s microphone or audio are complex and involve multiple stages. The attackers would also need to remain within Bluetooth range. The company added that it provided its OEM partners with recommended fixes in September. Google also updated its Validator certification tool and its certification requirements.

The researchers say that, in some cases, the risk applies even to those who don’t use Android phones. For example, if the audio accessory has never been paired with a Google account, a hacker could use WhisperPair to not only pair with the audio device but also link it to their own Google account. They could then use Google’s Find Hub tool to track the device’s (and therefore your) location.

Google said it rolled out a fix to its Find Hub network to address that particular scenario. However, the researchers told Wired that, within hours of the patch’s rollout, they found a workaround.

The 17 affected devices are made by 10 different companies, all of which received Google Fast Pair certification. They include Sony, Jabra, JBL, Marshall, Xiaomi, Nothing, OnePlus, Soundcore, Logitech and Google. (Google says its affected Pixel Buds are already patched and protected.) The researchers posted a search tool that lets you see if your audio accessories are vulnerable.

In a statement sent to Engadget, OnePlus said it’s investigating the issue and “will take appropriate action to protect our users’ security and privacy.” We also contacted the other accessory makers and will update this story if we hear back.

The researchers recommend updating your audio devices regularly. However, one of their concerns is that many people will never install the third-party manufacturer’s app (required for updates), leaving their devices vulnerable.

The full report from Wired has much more detail and is worth a read.

One big trend in Android in recent years has been positioning self-proclaimed “flagship killer” smartphones at a lower price point by dropping down to a last-gen or step-down chipset. With its new Dimensity 9500s and Dimensity 8500 chipsets, MediaTek is looking to power those devices.

Announced today, the new MediaTek Dimensity 9500s chipset is a 3nm chip that offers a minor step down from the full flagship Dimensity 9500 that launched last year. The chip breaks down into “one Cortex-X925 ultra core with a clock speed of up to 3.73GHz, three Cortex-X4 premium cores, and four Cortex-A720 performance cores.” By comparison, the standard Dimensity 9500 is another “All Big Core” setup, using Arm’s C1-Ultra, C1-Premium, and C1-Pro cores.

Dimensity 9500s further uses an Immortalis-G925 GPU and MediaTek touts that the chip is “optimized for generative reasoning and multi-modal models” – or, in other words, that it’s still plenty powerful for on-device AI tasks.

Meanwhile, MediaTek Dimensity 8500 takes things down one more step with a 4nm process and an “All Big Core” build consisting of eight Cortex-A725 cores. That’s paired with a Mali-G720 GPU.

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Both chips should be plenty powerful, just not quite to the same extent as MediaTek’s flagship. MediaTek hasn’t announced any imminent partners for either the Dimensity 9500s nor the Dimensity 8500, but it seems likely they’ll start showing up in Android phones in the months to come.

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Verizon’s network is experiencing technical issues that are impacting calls and wireless data. Verizon customers on X have reported seeing “SOS” rather than the traditional network bars on their smartphones, and even the network provider’s own status page struggled to load, likely due to the number of customers trying to access it.

Based on the experience of Verizon users on Engadget’s staff, the services that are impacted appear to be calls and wireless data. Text messages continue to be delivered normally, at least for some users. On DownDetector, reports of a Verizon outage started growing around 12PM ET and numbered in the hundreds of thousands at their peak.

DownDetector also shows spikes in outage reports on competing networks like AT&T and T-Mobile, but in terms of magnitude, they’re much smaller than the issue Verizon is facing. For example, Verizon peaked at 181,769 reports, while AT&T’s was just 1,769 reports. The difference between the two is great enough that those AT&T reports could be from people trying to contact Verizon customers and thinking that their personal network was the problem.

In a post on the cell provider’s news account on X, Verizon acknowledged the issues with its network. “We are aware of an issue impacting wireless voice and data services for some customers,” Verizon wrote. “Our engineers are engaged and are working to identify and solve the issue quickly. We understand how important reliable connectivity is and apologize for the inconvenience.”

Based on DownDetector’s map of outage reports, issues with Verizon’s network appear to be concentrated in major cities in the eastern United States. The majority of reports appear to be coming out of Boston, New York and Washington DC, though the map also shows growing hot spots in Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

At 2:14PM ET, Verizon shared on X that its engineering teams “remain fully deployed” to work on fixing the outage. The company didn’t share when the issue would resolved or how many of its customers are currently impacted. Reports on DownDetector have dropped since their peak at 12:43PM ET, but thousands of Verizon customers are still noticing issues with the service.

As of 3:09PM ET, Verizon has yet to share more information about the recovery of the company’s cell network. Some Verizon customers on X have noticed their cell service returning, but it’s not clear if this means the network’s technical issues have been fixed.

At 4:06PM ET, nearly two hours since the company’s last statement, at least one member of Engadget’s staff reports their service has been restored. The connectivity issues are still affecting Verizon customers, however. DownDetector received over 55,000 outage reports as recently as 3:47PM ET.

Verizon posted at 4:12PM ET that work continues on addressing the outage, but the issue hasn’t been completely fixed. According to the company, its team is “on the ground actively working to fix today’s service issue that is impacting some customers.”

As of 4:52PM ET, the Verizon’s network has been experiencing issues for around four hours, making today’s outage nearly as long as the last major outage the company had in 2024. Like that 2024 outage, Verizon has yet to share what exactly is causing the issues with its network. Without out an official update, it’s safe to assume the company is still working on a fix.

At 5:41PM ET, DownDetector latest tally still shows over 46,000 people reporting issues with Verizon’s network. Based on the platform’s map, the same cities are filing the bulk of the outage reports, though reporting appears more diffuse than before as news of the outage has spread across the country.

At 6:20PM ET, the situation was much the same. Tens of thousands of users (including Engadget editors) still don’t have proper service, and Verizon had not updated its customers since 4:12PM ET. There are intermittent reports of service coming back and then failing again but seemingly no true fix has been deployed.

At 10:20PM ET, Verizon has announced that the outage has been resolved and has encouraged subscribers still having issues to restart their devices to reconnect to the network. The company also said that it will provide account credits to affected customers.

Both T-Mobile and AT&T have confirmed that their own networks are unaffected by the issues facing their competitor. In a post on X, T-Mobile shared that its network is “operating normally and as expected.” Meanwhile, AT&T says that for any of its customers experiencing issues, “it’s not us…it’s the other guys.”

Update, January 14, 7:25PM ET: This article was published as a developing story and was updated multiple times over a period of around seven hours. These updates were additive, and noted with a timestamp within the article. As of writing, Verizon is still down for tens of thousands of users and the company’s support team has not issued an update on the stituation in over three hours. Happy Wednesday!

Update January 14, 10:39PM ET: This story has been updated to add Verizon’s latest update that the outage has been resolved.