Episode 172 – To Da Moon

By | November 4, 2013

KitKat is Released.

Kit Kat

Show Notes

  • Feedback
    • “Hey, guys. Just a note to say three quick things… I have been enjoying your podcast. Keep up the good work. Jere, I wanted to clarify the word “tortilla” for you… In Spain, a tortilla is exactly what your wife is making… eggs, potatoes, and onions. Sometimes with thinly-sliced ham added… maybe cheese. Tortillas in Spain are served for breakfast, and they are also available in Tapas Bars everywhere. They can be enjoyed hot or cold. They are no relation to Mexican tortillas. There are a LOT of words that mean quite different things, depending on which country you are talking about. Another example is “torta”. In Spain, it means cake. In Mexico, it means a sandwich with a thick, hard-crusted bun, like a Cuban. Guru, I agree with you 100% on the replaceable battery issue. I hope that the choice of a phone with replaceable batteries is NEVER taken from me. My Blackberry had that feature, my Droid 2 Global, and now, my Galaxy Nexus. I still use my Droid as an mp3 player (without a SIM card), and keep all 5 batteries charged and ready to go for it. I use the SD card to hold my downloaded Spotify music, and some CDs that aren’t available on Spotify, since my Nexus has limited storage and I’m not a fan of the Cloud. I have SIX batteries for my Nexus… 3 regular and 3 extended. When I take a group of students on an all-day field trip, and have to use my Nexus for navigating, keeping in touch with my students when I let them split up and take off in groups, calling ahead to our next destination to let them know we are almost there, etc., it’s such a relief to know that I have plenty of juice to keep my phone alive the WHOLE DAY. I hope that I’m never one of those people you see looking around for public outlets. I HATE that. Thanks again for the great podcast, and have a great day. 🙂 PS: Jere, you sound like a no-nonsense kind of guy, and you remind me so much of Jerry Hildenbrand on Android Central. The first episode that I heard of Android Buffet, for a few minutes I thought maybe you WERE Jerry. lol I bet that if you two were to meet, you’d be like two peas in a pod. :-)”
    • “Hey Guru! I heard you say on one of your podcasts that you will give away the Logitech Revue to anyone willing to pay shipping. If you still have it, I would like to acquire it. I have and use a Logitech Revue and it’s on it’s last legs. I have to reboot it every other day. Please let me know how to get the money and shipping information to you. I’ve been listening to the podcast for a few months now and love it. I enjoy the witty banter between you and Jere. Keep up the good work.”
    • I just wanted to comment on a good and cheap cell phone plan I found for my son who only rarely needs to make a phone call. We needed Verizon network quality up here in NH without the Verizon price. I found a “pay as you go” voice plan that can be as low as $2.50 per month. You pay $10 for 100 minutes that can last up to 4 months. I reactivated a Droid Incredible on a voice only plan (I disabled the text and data, my son can still use wifi, where available, for the data). The MVNO reselling Verizon service is Page Pus Cellular https://www.pagepluscellular.com/plans/ A tip if you choose to try this, the web site says they charge $10 if you need a new phone number, but if you do a live chat with them, they will give you the new phone number for free. Another handy link if you have another carrier preference is below: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_mobile_virtual_network_operators Thanks for doing the podcast, I appreciate the android tips and news, and may I also say that Guru’s kazoo skill has reached a zenith from where you have no peer, and please no need for more practice??? 🙂 Thanks! Karl
  • In Other News
    • Abolish Daylight Savings Time!!!
    • FAA loosens restrictions on in flight electronics, Delta and JetBlue immediately get certified to allow select devices from gate to gate.
    • Silent Circle and Lavabit launch Darkmail Alliance to thwart spying on e-mail. The companies are looking to get rid of SMTP in favor of a more secure transport protocol for email. It will be an open standard that any company can support based on the XMPP standard.
    • The fines for texting and driving vary wildly from state to state. In California, the maximum penalty for a first time offense is $20, while Alaska is $10,000 and a year in prison. For New York, $243, Florida, $30.
    • Motorola’s Project Ara will prototype a modular phone.
  • Jelly Bean now on more than half of active devices. 52.1% of devices are now on Jellybean, 19.8% on ICS, and 26.3% on Gingerbread.
  • Google Releases Kitkat 4.4
    • KitKat optimized to run on entry-level devices with as little as 512mb of RAM. Changes across the system to improve memory management and reduce the memory footprint. When several services start at once, Android now launches them serially in groups to avoid peak memory demands. New API allows for large memory features to be disabled by the developer depending on use cases.
    • Platform support for secure NFC through Host Card Emulation, meaning any app can emulate an NFC smart card without a provisioned secure element in the device. Android HCE emulates ISO/IEC 7816 based smart cards that use the contactless ISO/IEC 14443-4 (ISO-DEP) protocol for transmission
    • Native support for printing, with APIs for managing printing and adding new types of printer support. For compatibility purposes, Android based printing uses the PDF format. Google Cloud Print will now be installed by default.
    • A new storage access framework that allows third-parties to register document providers. Document providers can give users access to any remote or local data that can be represented as files.
    • Sensors – support for hardware sensor batching to reduce power consumed by ongoing sensor activities. Sensor batching is ideal for low-power, long-running use-cases such as fitness, location tracking, monitoring, and more. Support for new sensors, step detector and counter.
    • SMS Provider – a shared SMS provider and new APIs to manage message storage and retrieval.
    • Full Screen Immersive Mode
    • Transitions Framework for animating Scenes
    • Enhanced Notification access
    • Chromium Webview
    • Screen Recording
    • Resolution switching through adaptive playback
    • Common Encryption for DASH
    • HTTP Live Streaming updated to a superset of version 7 of the specification.
    • Audio tunneling to DSP –  platform support for audio tunneling to a digital signal processor (DSP) in the device chipset. With tunneling, audio decoding and output effects are off-loaded to the DSP, waking the application processor less often and using less battery.
    • Audio monitoring for third-party apps to get update on levels of currently playing audio
    • Loudness enhancement
    • Audio timestamps for improved audio-video synchronization
    • Wi-fi certified miracast
    • New Bluetooth profiles. HID over GATT(HOGP) for low-latency/low-power devices such as mice,joysticks, and keyboards. Bluetooth MAP for the exchanging of messages with other devices. Also, an update of AVRCP to set absolute volume from a bluetooth device.
    • IR Blaster Support
    • Wi-FI TLDS support
    • System-wide settings for closed captioning
    • Enhanced Accessibility APIs
    • SELinux is now in enforcing, instead of permissive mode.
    • dm-verify kernel used on boot. dm-verify verifies modifications to the system at a block level. This could prevent circumventing of locked bootloaders in future.
    • Support for Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm(ECDSA) and Scrypt Key derivation
    • SSL CA Certificate warnings when a certificate authority has been added that might permit monitoring of secure connections.
    • Automated buffer overflow detection
    • Protection against certificate substitution for Google Certificates.
    • VPNs are now applied per user on multi-user devices.
    • A new tool called procstats to analyze memory resources.
  • Platform News
    • Swipe to Left on Homescreen now displays Google Now in KitKat launcher.
    • Play Services 4.0 requires developers to use an Advertising ID to identify the device, with enforcement to begin in August 2014. This will replace the IMEI, which is potentially personally identifiable ID. Developers will not be able to link the advertising ID to any persistent device identifier and will respect Google’s opt out options.
    • As of May 15, Google will discontinue XMPP based calling through Google Voice. This will cause apps like GrooveIP to cease operation, which is referred to as a ToS violation. Google’s products manager for Hangouts attributes these apps to the delay in Hangouts integration with Google Voice.
    • Nike won’t develop Fuelband support for Android due to no Bluetooth LE support, despite the fact the most popular current devices do support it. Guess Android users will migrate to Fitbit.
  • App News
    • Box already updated with Android 4.4 support, adds new storage framework.
    • Motorola moves its camera app for the Moto X to the Play Store. Play Store, it’s not just for apps anymore.
    • Comcast to update Xfinity app. The new Xfinity TV Go app will offer 35 live TV channels in addition to existing on-demand shows and movies. The live channels will not be limited to the home.
    • Pandora 5.0 adds tablet UI and Chromecast support. (Play Link)
    • NFC Task Launcher is now Trigger, adds support for multiple triggers per task. Free app supports NFC, Bluetooth, and Wifi as triggers. A $3 upgrade adds Battery Level, Locations, and Time Triggers.  (Play Link)
    • Threema – Encrypted Messaging Service (Play Link)