Weekly output: Android outside phones, Wear OS 4, Covid exposure-notification apps

The case of Covid that I was sure would trash my Mother’s Day agenda faded remarkably swiftly–I had one test come out negative Saturday morning and another barely positive, followed by two negative tests Sunday morning. That freed me to stick to my original plan of going to the Nationals game with my wife, which the Nats then lost to the Mets 8-2. Eh; as this week has reminded me, things could be worse.

Screengrab of story as seen in Chrome for Android,5/10/2023: Google Touts Android Progress Beyond Phones, Teases XR Platform, PCMag

Google PR gave me an advance copy of its Google I/O talking points about how Android is faring in tablets, smartwatches, TVs and cars. This post includes a couple of data points that contradict Google’s narrative.

5/10/2023: Google Unveils Wear OS 4, Featuring Gmail and Calendar Apps, PCMag

My other I/O advance consisted of details about the next version of Google’s Android-based wearables operating system.

5/11/2023: You Can Uninstall Those COVID Exposure Notification Apps Now, PCMag

Writing this felt like putting together an eulogy for the Apple-Google attempt at pandemic defense to which I devoted thousands of words in 2020 and 2021, including a 19-page report for O’Reilly Media that remains (I think) my only post-college work assignment to be budgeted in pages instead of words.

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Weekly output: Sling TV, 4K TV, net neutrality, future of search, i.amPuls, TiVo-to-TiVo migration

I’m back from CES and feeling a little tired–as well as confused to see no work events on my calendar this week that will require me to leave the house.

1/5/2015: Hey, Cord Cutters: Dish Network Wants You, Yahoo Tech

Dish Network’s $20/month Sling TV is the CES 2015 product I am most likely to purchase with my own money. I thought I’d be waiting years longer to get a chance to pay for online viewing of ESPN without a cable or satellite subscription attached.

1/6/2015: 4K TVs Are Coming for You, Even if You Don’t Want Them, Yahoo Tech

4K UHD TVs, meanwhile, remain the CES product I’m least likely to spend my own dollars on. But I’m getting resigned to the fact that the industry is moving this way regardless of what I think.

1/7/2015: FCC Chair: Strong Net-Neutrality Rules Are Coming, and Soon, Yahoo Tech

FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said the commission would vote on “Title II” reclassification of Internet providers as common carriers, the thing I and many others have been suggesting for years as a solid foundation for net-neutrality regulations. This is an amazing comeback story.

1/8/2015: The Future of Search, CES

My hour-long panel with Samsung senior director Ryan Bidan, Yelp product manager Travis Brooks, and Moz CTO Anthony Skinner wasn’t as wide-ranging as that title would suggest: We were trying to focus on how increasingly self-aware mobile devices and “Internet of Things” smart-home gadgets could further chip away at our privacy, provide more useful information or do both.

Yahoo Tech Puls hands-on report1/8/2015: I Tried Will.i.am’s PULS Band, the Most Unusual Smartwatch at CES, Yahoo Tech

Sitting down to talk shop about wearables with will.i.am was not on my calendar that morning. Instead, I saw the Puls logo outside a meeting room, asked if I could take a look at the hardware, and was somewhat confused to be told to stand and wait while inquiries were made. Then they ushered me in, the gentleman in question emerged, and I got a first-hand look at a “smart cuff” that has little in common with smartwatches as we know them. I have an interesting job.

1/11/2015: How to transfer shows to new TiVo, USA Today

This column started with yet another round of holiday tech support for my relatives. When I saw that much of the scant documentation for a migration from one TiVo to another existed on other sites, I thought there might be a story in that. When I saw up close how tedious the process got, I was sure I had something to write about.

If you still somehow haven’t had enough CES coverage, please have a look at my Flickr album from the show.

1/12 update: I can’t believe I forgot to mention my own panel.