In Tech: Microsoft Office, Foursquare mayors, Amazon Echo

Android phone owners can now use an updated version of Microsoft's Office tools for writing, spreadsheets and slideshows.

Microsoft released them for Android phones this week in another move to make some of its most popular software tools available to people who don't use Microsoft's Windows operating system.

There are still no comparable apps for phones and tablets running Microsoft's own Windows system, though that will change once Windows 10 gets released next month.

The mobile apps are free, although Microsoft is offering more features to users with an Office 365 subscription, which starts at $70 a year.

Microsoft says some phone makers including Samsung, Sony and LG will ship Android phones with Office already installed.

The new apps will work on older phones running the KitKat version of Android from 2013 and Lollipop from last year, but nothing older than that.

Foursquare became the place for people to discover businesses and venues around them, while the social features migrated to a new app called Swarm.

The biggest feature in Amazon's Echo speaker is a voice-recognition system called Alexa that is designed to control Pandora, Amazon Music and Prime Music services as well as give information on news, weather and traffic.