Tag Archives: Android Wear

PTJ 157 News: Come September

September 3, 2015 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

Yes, the Big Apple Fall Media Event was confirmed for September 9^th, and we’re all expecting the fancy 4^th generation Apple TV, the iPhone 6s, iOS 9 — and who knows, maybe even the iPad Maxi. Hardware aside, Hollywood trade mag Variety is reporting this week that Apple is looking into doing its own original programming, just like Amazon and Netflix. Apple, of course, is Not Commenting. The company did comment on — and even put out a press release — about another meeting it had this week, this one with networking giant Cisco to optimize networks for iOS users.

If you’ve jailbroken your iPhone and are running Cydia, listen up: Researchers have discovered malware called KeyRaider that has snagged more 225,000 Apple ID user names and passwords. The malware is getting out there though a third-party repository.

And if you’re got an iPhone but want to skip the Apple Watch in favor of a Android Wear device, you can now pair an Android-powered smartwatch or fitness tracker with an iPhone 5 later, thanks to the Android Wear app for iOS that arrived this week. Also in the department of smartwatches, Samsung announced its latest models, the Gear G2 and the Gear G2 Classic, at a Berlin trade show this week.

Those with Amazon Fire Tablets HD and HDX can now stream video content from the Dish Network’s Sling TV service. A free trial period is available for new customers and Sling TV is already available on the Roku, Amazon Fire TV and Nexus Player set-top boxes, the Xbox One, IOS and Android tablets and computers running Windows and Mac OS X. Also in Amazon Land, Prime Instant Video users with Android and iOS devices can now download selected titles for offline viewing. Very handy for planes, trains and automobiles — or anyplace without Wi-Fi.

PayPal is making it easier for friends who lend and borrow money to get squared away. With its new PayPal.Me service, the peer-to-peer payments platform lets users set up their own personalized URL that can be shared with others to request money.

Nintendo also has new stuff on the way for gamers on the go. The company is releasing smaller version of the Nintendo 3DS handheld console for those with more petite paws to play with.

Google’s tussle with the European Union continues, and could expand now to a number of civil lawsuits over antitrust allegations. The E.U. has had an investigation into Google for the past four years, trying to discern if the company was favoring its own services in search results. If Google is found guilty there, the ruling can be used as evidence in civil cases from other companies. A Google lawyer
posted a statement online last week that argues against the European Commission’s Statement of Objections with the headline “Improving quality isn’t anti-competitive.” In other Google news, the company changed its logo this week.

Facebook, which probably already knows a lot about you anyway, is getting into the virtual personal assistant game. Last week, the company announced its new M software, which hopes to muscle into Cortana and Siri’s territory. Facebook’s Instagram also got an update this week to add threaded messages and the ability to send photos from your feed as a direct message.

Speaking of virtual personalities, the hacked and sacked Ashley Madison trysting website has been accused of creating fake female profiles and powering them by chatbots to up boost the impression than that the site had more female users than it actually did. According the Guardian of London, a former employee sued the site in 2013 saying in a complaint that the site had required the creation of so many fake profiles, she had sustained repetitive stress injuries. Spokespeople for Ashley Madison have said that despite the epic data security fail and public resignation of its CEO, “hundreds of thousands” of new users signed up for the site, including 87, 596 (allegedly real) women and everything.

And finally, up in space, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft isn’t basking around doing nothing after its slam-dunk flyby of Pluto in July. NASA scientists are directing the probe toward a 30-mile wide object in the Kuiper Belt called 2014 MU69. While NASA doesn’t quite have everything in place yet for this bonus trip, it does have to do a little prep work ahead of time. New Horizons needs to fire up its steering engines in October to get situated for the flyby, which would actually take place in January of 2019. Start planning your 2014 MU69 flyby parties now!

Episode Links

PTJ 140 News: Cable Ties and Record Highs

April 30, 2015 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

After we recorded last week’s episode (of course), news broke that the Comcast deal to acquire Time Warner Cable was kaput. While those worried about cable monopolies were happy the Comcast deal was scuttled, not everyone was thrilled about it — namely Time Warner Cable customers who say their quality of service is so miserable, that a Comcast takeover surely would have been an improvement. The New York Times had a story this week that talked to a few of those desperate souls trying to watch Game of Thrones from the Tenth Circle.

Also in cable news, ESPN is suing Verizon for breach of contract over those slimmed-down channel bundles. Fox and NBC seem poised to board the USS Lawsuit as well.

Apple announced its quarterly earnings reports this week and announced a $13.6 billion dollar profit thanks to record-breaking sales of iPhones, Macs and apps from the App Store. But while iPhone sales were up 40 percent from later, iPad sales were down 23 percent. Trouble in Tablet Town? (That iPhone 6 Plus does have a pretty big screen, come to think of it…)

The iPhone 6 line and the Apple Watch are boosting the use of Apple Pay, and Discover is the latest credit-card company to join up with Apple for mobile payments. Best Buy has also added Apple Pay to its mobile app and said its retail stores will be accepting those phone-tap payments at the cash register later this year. And speaking of those Apple Watches that started shipping last week, the Slice Intelligence research firm estimates that only 22 percent of the 1.7 million pre-ordered Apple Watched actually shipped to customers last week.

But as we all know, the Apple Watch is just one of many smartwatch platforms out there an the rest of them aren’t exactly sitting still. Last week, before Apple’s pricey timepiece began rolling out on FedEx trucks, Google announced an update to its Android Wear software that’s used by several hardware makers. The company outlined the new features, like support for WiFi-enabled watches, scrolling through news and notifications with the flick of a wrist, and the ability to launch apps with a tap on the watch face. Google said the new version of Android Wear would be arriving in the next few weeks to all seven watches that support it, and the fancy LG Watch Urbane (shown here) was first in line for the update. Stylish smartwatches aren’t the only devices LG Electronics is releasing this spring, as the company just revealed its new authentic leather-backed Android smartphone, the LG G4.

Google just added 70 cards to Google Now from its partner apps, so you can get more creepy helpfulness than ever before. Even more!

T-Mobile had some good earnings news of its own this week. Thanks to its inventive campaign of promotional offers and price cuts, the company added 1.1 million new monthly subscribers, which was more than analysts had predicted. Not everyone had good earninsg to report, though. Twitter’s stock price took a hit after a research company leaked the bird-themed microblogging service’s less-than-desirable quarterly earnings report.

SwiftKey, the popular alternative mobile keyboard app, is experimenting with a new variation that can correct multiple words or even whole sentences you’ve tapped out. The new edition is called the Clarity Keyboard and you can download the beta from the Google Play store now.

Microsoft got just smacked down by a judge at the US International Trade Commission who found that Microsoft was guilty of infringements on two wireless cellular patents held by another company called InterDigital Inc. As a result of the ruling, Microsoft could see an import ban that would stop its devices from coming into the country and hinder Windows Phone sales even more. The judgement needs to be reviewed, however, and Microsoft is vowing to press onward.

In robot news, those clever folks at Stanford University have developed tiny robots that can pull objects up to 2,000 times their own body weight. The little wonders are called “MicroTugs” and in addition to physics and engineering, the Stanford scientists took some cues from the natural world and incorporated techniques used by hardy ants — as well as geckos with their conveniently sticky feet for traction and climbing. You can see videos of the wee robots dragging cups of coffee and climbing with a payload are on the department’s YouTube channel.

Facebook announced this week that Messenger makes the video calls from one mobile phone number to another phone number regardless of smartphone platform. And Facebook-owned Instagram has added three new filters and the ability to use emoji characters in hashtags. (Also, we have heard reports of Instagram having some crashing issues even when updating to the new app, so it’s probably them, not you. Or a bug.)

And finally, the death toll is in the now thousands from the horrific earthquake that rocked the country of Nepal this weekend. Countless people have been displaced and the country is reeling, but tech companies are pitching in to help:

Microsoft’s Skype and a few other services have temporarily waived fees for calls to and from Nepal, as have T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless and Time Warner Cable.
Google has rolled out a few services including its People Finder, updated satellite imagery of the affected area, and Google Voice calls to the country for a penny a minute. (The minor charge is to dissuade spammers from overloading the network.)
Facebook quickly put up a Safety Check feature that let its users in the quake zone let their friends know they were okay.
Twitter’s official India account has been posting updates for those around the world wanting the latest news on the recovery efforts.
Apple has added a page to iTunes that lets users easily donate to the Red Cross through their iTunes accounts.

Other new organizations have posted links to relief agencies and other organizations that are taking donations to help the people of Nepal. If you can, send help because we’re all in this world together.

Podcast

PTJ 86: The Big Bang And That XP Thang

March 20, 2014 Pedro Rafael Rosado Leave a comment

Newsweek magazine makes a splashy return on paper with a cover story claiming to have found the father of Bitcoin. In his Tech Term of the Week, El Kaiser explains doxxing and why Internet denizens are so ticked off at the weekly news magazine. The computer mouse has been with us for half a century and J.D. explains why it may stick around for awhile longer. In the news Google dives into wearable computing; Apple releases an 8-gigabyte version of the iPhone 5C — but not in the United States; the Windows XP Death Watch continues; The Big Bang Theory may have been proven; and say hello to robot fish.

Episode Links

PTJ 86 News: Robot Fish & Chips with Guinness

March 20, 2014 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

Your eyes are not enough for Google. This week, the Big G announced Android Wear, a version of the mobile operating system for smartwatches and other gadgets strapped to other parts of the body. The first Android Wear watches and monitors will arrive later this year but there’s a developer’s preview out now for anybody who want to sling some wearable code. (Speaking of potential gym gear, the 9to5Mac site has an update on what it says is Apple’s new Healthbook software for fitness tracking.) Oh, and Google and Viacom have finally settled a seven-year marathon of litigation.

Apple, perhaps in a move to get some of the international smartphone market back from Google and Android, released at 8-gigabyte version of its colorful iPhone 5C model this week in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia and China. Oh, if anybody cares, Mac rumor sites are reporting that Microsoft is preparing the official Office for the iPad for its public debut next week at a media event on March 27^th. And in other Apple news, the company has finally retired the iPad 2 from March 2011 as the entry-level option for its full-size iPad line; the iPad 2 is succeeded by the fourth-generation iPad with Retina display that was first released in October 2012.

Speaking of old things, the Windows XP Death Watch continues to spiral downward to the April 8^th deadline, when Microsoft says it’s seriously, totes mcgoats for real pulling the support plug this time. The Washington Post reports that hundreds of thousands of US government computers are running behind on their upgrades from Windows XP to a safer, secure and actually still supported operating system. Also missing some upgrade deadlines? Banks around the world, many of which didn’t make their deadlines for upgrading their ATMs.
Way to go, banks!

Some people are cutting the cord and ditching those pricy cable packages. According to the Leichtman Research Group, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and other providers lost 1.1 million customers in 2013. Broadband subscriptions, however, are up for many cable providers.

The Big Bang Theory (no, not the TV show), that the scientific notion about the expansion of the universe, may have been proven. New research suggests that astronomers have found the first direct evidence of the cosmic inflation. An experiment at the South Pole led by John Kovac of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announced it had detected ripples from gravitational waves created in a violent inflationary event at the dawn of time. And while we’re out in space, it you haven’t caught the first few episodes of Cosmos: A Spacetime Adventure hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, you can check ’em out online with the Fox Now app or Fox on Demand service. (Also in your favorite app store: the official NCAA Basketball Tournament app. Yes, it’s March Madness once again.

And finally: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently announced advances in soft robotics. The school has released a video and details on its new robot fish that’s capable of rapid body motion and can quickly change direction when needed, just like a real fish. And the Cubestormer 3, a Lego robot powered by a Samsung Galaxy S4, solved the Rubik’s Cube in 3.253 seconds, which scored it a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. We look forward to the eventual Guinness record for fastest Rubik’s Cube solution by a robot fish. Any day now.

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