Weekly output: old TVs, Mark Zuckerberg, rebooting, deleting old e-mail, wireless charging, Android phones, wireless carriers, smartphone features, smart apartments

Posted on February 28, 2016 by robpegoraro

Another Mobile World Congress went into the books when I flew home from Barcelona Thursday. I’m glad that show and that city have become a regular part of my travel schedule.

2/21/2016: It’s really time to let go of that old tube TV, USA Today

Circling back to a topic I covered in 2013 allowed me to note some good HDTV options for under $200–including the Wirecutter’s $170 pick–and the unfortunate end of Best Buy’s free TV recycling.

2/22/2016: Zuckerberg at MWC: Getting the World (and Someday His Daughter) Online, Yahoo Tech

The Facebook founder’s Q&A session started at 6 p.m. local time, meaning the press room closed while I was still writing my recap. I finished it on a bench in the hall outside–MWC, unlike CES, has free WiFi throughout the facility.

2/22/2016: Tip: Sometimes You Really Do Need to Reboot the Damn Thing, Yahoo Tech

I’d written this tip item weeks before, not knowing that a colleague had just filed a different tip item around the virtues of rebooting. Fortunately, our devices did not get any less buggy over the ensuing month.

2/23/2016: Tip: How to Quickly and Easily Get Rid of Old E-Mails, Yahoo Tech

You read a version this three and a half years ago at USA Today, but that didn’t give enough credit to Microsoft’s Outlook.com for nailing the task of automatically deleting e-mails over a certain age.

2/23/2016: Why Wireless Charging Is Still a Tangled Mess, Yahoo Tech

Once again, the wireless industry seems dead set on balkanizing itself between two ways to do the same thing.

2/24/2016: Your Next Android Phone: Smaller but Expandable, Yahoo Tech

This was my attempt at a State of the Union address for Android phones.

2/24/2016: Best Wireless Carriers, The Wirecutter

Our first major update to this guide since September factored in the end of two-year contracts at AT&T and Sprint… and two days after it went up, I learned that Sprint had restored two-year contracts. We should have yet another update up in a few days.

2/26/2016: Your next smartphone should have these features, USA Today

My last MWC post inventoried six features that I think you’ll want on your next phone–and another that nobody should care about for a few more years.

2/27/2016: Emerging Multifamily Technologies Panel, NWP Energy Summit

The morning after I got home from Spain–professionalism!–I moderated this panel discussion with NWP’s Howard Behr, Greystar’s Pam Darmofalski, Embue’s Robert Cooper and Remotely’s Mike Branam about how smart-home technology is changing apartments.

This digital life: A reset of the TV set

Posted on March 19, 2014 by robpegoraro

The joke people used to share about the coming computerization of consumer electronics was that we could all look forward to rebooting the TV. Well, ha ha, because that’s exactly what I did Saturday night.

And I should have seen that coming. For a few days before, the power LED on our 2009-vintage Sony had been blinking red. I ignored it (we watch so little TV it’s almost un-American), and then we decided to change up our toddler’s post-dinner routine by letting her watch the episode of “Cosmos” we’d recorded earlier. (We’re bringing our kid up right!) But only minutes into the show, the TV clicked, shut off and rebooted.

And then it did the same, again and again, until Daddy gave up after having possibly expanded his daughter’s vocabulary.

Some quick searching determined that a flashing red light indicated that “there may be an issue with the TV.” Unplugging the TV for a minute and then plugging it back in didn’t cure the issue, so it was time to reset the set to its factory defaults.

(Before I look like I’m whining too much about Sony, I should note that this TV got free software updates through April 2012, which is far better support than most smartphones get.)

The procedure was uncommonly like resetting a Mac’s NVRAM or System Management Controller: Hold down the up-arrow button on the remote, press and release the power button on the TV, release the remote’s up-arrow button.

A moment later, the TV asked me to go through the setup routine I had not done since unboxing it in the summer of 2009: Zip code for its no-longer-supported over-the-air program guide, date, time, cable or antenna, and so on. I knew it had finished detecting all 30-odd digital broadcasts when salsa music began blasting out of its speakers–courtesy of the sole remaining analog TV broadcast in the Washington area, WDCN’s low-power, audio-only signal.

And I couldn’t lower the volume: With the TV in its setup mode, the remote’s volume buttons didn’t work, while those on the side of the set only stepped forward or backwards through this configuration routine. With our daughter’s bedtime at hand, I gave up, then resumed the effort the next day, when I had to sit, wait and listen as the TV took an improbably long time to detect its wired Internet connection and conclude its setup.

And now everything seems to be fine. I hope it stays that way. But, really, should I even complain that much? One factory reset in five years makes this Linux-based device one of the most reliable computer-ish things I’ve ever owned.

Fortnightly output: Google and ITA, Android APIs, digital-TV converter boxes, cable-box power use, NFC, Android File Transfer

Posted on June 16, 2013 by robpegoraro

I had originally thought I’d post my usual weekly summary last Sunday, but then I remembered that I was on vacation–and besides, it would have been a short list then. So instead you get a two-for-one special, and I get a chance to use “fortnightly” for the first time on this blog.

6/4/2013: Remember When Google Was Going To Annex The Travel-Search Industry?, Disruptive Competition Project

One of the first ideas I pitched to the DisCo people was a look back at the predictions of doom that we all heard–and that I found somewhat credible–when Google proposed to buy the travel-search firm ITA Software. When I finally got around to writing it, I was surprised to see how little of a dent Google has made in the market for airfare queries.

6/5/2013: Google I/O Android News: Location, Location, Location (Plus Cloud Messaging and Bluetooth), Software Quality Matters

A friend edits this blog, hosted by the software-testing firm SmartBear, and was looking for a report about the new Android application programming interfaces Google had unveiled at I/O. This was a lot more technical than I usually get, but I’m glad I did it. And I’m looking forward to seeing apps built on these new APIs, in particular those involving location services.

6/9/2013: How to get an analog TV set back on the air, USA Today

A friend on Facebook had bought a flat-panel set just before they all started shipping with digital tuners and wanted to know what her options were. And so, once again, I wrote a how-to piece about tuning in digital signals. I didn’t want to leave out cable subscribers, so I added a tip about a new initiative by major cable and satellite providers to ship boxes that use less electricity–which won’t help existing subscribers unless they ask for an upgrade.

6/16/2013: What exactly is ‘NFC’ wireless?, USA Today

My phone includes a Near Field Communication transmitter, and I’m still waiting for a chance to use it outside of specialty environments like tech trade shows. This column explains why, and adds a tip about Google’s Android File Transfer app for Macs that is really a plea for Google to update the thing so it doesn’t fit in so poorly with OS X.

I didn’t post anything on Sulia while I was out (thought about it, decided not having a work obligation outweighed passing up a week’s worth of stipend). But before and after my travel, I summed up a briefing about that cable-box efficiency program, compared the AT&T and Sprint versions of the Galaxy S 4, explained how car2go was more useful to me in Portland and Seattle than back home in D.C., and reviewed an Android app that can get a GPS fix on your position from 32,000 feet up and at 550 miles an hour.