Category: Technology

With an app, of course.

Fascinating to ponder that Google is trying to basically blow up the PC industry with Chrome (the Win 8 Chrome app runs exactly like my Chromebook and I’m betting they take that over to OSX as well) and is doing a similar thing with this decentralized Android strategy to iOS.

Rather than having the big updates come to a device via an operating system update (“yay iOS 7 is coming out with all of these great new features!” etc), with Google Play Services the table has been turned and allows for Android to stay up to date despite the actual version number that a manufacturer might ship with the hardware.

Oh my this is interesting…

This is how you beat software fragmentation. When you can update just about anything without having to push out a new Android version, you have fewer and fewer reasons to bother calling up Samsung and begging them to work on a new update. When the new version of Android brings nothing other than low-level future-proofing, users stop caring about the update.This gets even more interesting when you consider the implications for future versions of Android. What will the next version of Android have? Well, what is left for it to have? Android is now on more of a steady, continual improvement track than an all-at-once opening of the floodgates like we last saw with Android 4.1. It seems like Google has been slowly moving down this path for some time; the last three releases have all kept the name “Jelly Bean.” Huge, monolithic Android OS updates are probably over—”extinct” may be a more appropriate term.

via Balky carriers and slow OEMs step aside: Google is defragging Android | Ars Technica.

My Nexus 4 is the best phone I’ve ever owned (having owned every previous iPhone up to the 5 and a couple of other Android phones like the Galaxy S3). Being a relatively recent convert to the Android world, the ecosystem is such a better fit for me than iOS (though I still respect that platform, of course). And if the next Nexus phone is anything like the new Nexus 7 tablet, I’ll love it even more. Seriously, the new Nexus 7 tablet is just phenomenal.

That said, I’m excited about the potential Nexus 5. I’ve been pondering the Moto X since I do have an upgrade available on Verizon, but I’m going to hold out for an upgrade to my beloved Nexus 4 on its $30 a month T-Mobile plan with no commitments or contracts…

As is often the case with smartphone leaks, the first one opens the floodgates to a wave of others. It looks like Googles next Nexus device, which most are calling the Nexus 5, will be no different. As discovered by S4gru, a smartphone manufactured by LG has appeared on the FCCs site with enough detail to associate it with the device that Google itself leaked in a KitKat promo video earlier in the week.

via The LG Nexus 5 with LTE may have appeared at the FCC | The Verge.

I can neither confirm nor deny that my next book will be based on this sentence…

“In the future, superpowers will be made or broken based on the strength of their cryptanalytic programs,” a 2007 document said. “It is the price of admission for the U.S. to maintain unrestricted access to and use of cyberspace.”

via N.S.A. Foils Much Internet Encryption – NYTimes.com.

Fun read of an insanely expensive yet pretty awesome setup…

So it was decided. New Mac Pro. Will buy.Or so I thought. A couple of months ago a change in circumstances meant my girlfriend’s need for my 11” Air went from “After you buy a new Mac Pro” to “Yesterday”. Since the Mac Pro was still months away I had to make a decision.

via I couldnt wait for the new Mac Pro – Hopefully Useful.</p

I’m watching a great BBC production on YouTube about the Syrian conflict while getting some Labor Day work done (and while Willie chews a bone) via Chromecast.

I didn’t immediately understand what Chromecast meant for my media consumption but it really is revolutionary in bridging the gap between web content and my ‘tv’ which has basically become a dumb screen for content via Roku and Chromecast now.

Posted from WordPress for Android

Ha!

My how time flies…

To my friends: The next time youre about to submit a message to twitter, please think to yourself. “Is this something that all 73 of my friends need to see?” And does what youre writing actually answer the question, “what are you doing?”

via Why I Hate Twitter.

Ran across this tonight while cleaning up the blog. Fun memories.

I’m so excited that my RSS reader of choice on Android (for my Nexus 4 and Nexus 7) has rolled out support for Fever…

What’s New

1.4

– Fever support

via Press – Google Play.

Fever is a fantastic piece of software that does all the duties of something like Feedly or Google Reader (RIP) or FeedWrangler, but on your server.

That does demand that you have some familiarity with what having a server means and how to install PHP programs. It’s not complicated but it is a hurdle that 99% of the “market” isn’t willing to jump.

However, to have an RSS reader that streams me the news on my own terms whether I’m in a browser or on my mobiles gives me satisfaction.

If only more people decided that freedom on the web trumps four minutes of convenience…

My dad always says “you can learn anything on YouTube.”

As a “real” book lover, I’ve always had something of a mental block about using YouTube to solve a problem for some reason. Probably due to the same neurons that prevent me from being able to ask for directions (again, much easier problem to solve in the age of portable computing, LTE connections, and mobile phones).

Nevertheless, I’ve given some of my stubbornness away. Just in the last 24 hours, I’ve used YouTube to learn how to fix a leaky shower faucet, root my Android phone, install an early copy of a mobile software update that’s not been released yet, how to best grow tomatoes in South Carolina, update a few codecs on my non-smart TV, get a lightbulb with a broken bulb out of a socket, and adjust the brightness controls on a laptop that has a new Ubuntu install.

It’s one thing to use Google as a search engine to find info or directions on replacing a lawn mower blade or installing a -curl command on a server or changing a cloth diaper, but it’s a whole different experience in using YouTube for education and instruction purposes.

Brave new world we live in.

Make more videos.