Episode 179 – A Tribute to John Pintard

By | December 23, 2013

220px-John_Pintard_(1759-1844)Guru raises tribute to John Pintard…the New Yorker who invented Christmas, learns about watch bands and Jere talks about his new Nexus 5.

Show Notes

  • In Other News
    • Presidential Committee delivers 300 page document of recommendations to revamp U.S. surveillance. Suggestions include: Stop blanket collection of American phone call logs, orders for the NSA/CIA to monitor an individual should not come from either organization, a promise to no longer subvert commercial encryption, stop collection of zero-day vulnerabilities, etc.
    • IEC looking to offer a single standard for notebook/laptop chargers, as they attempted to do with microUSB as a mobile charging standard.
    • In China, people are paying $13 to be locked in a room and forced to solve puzzles to get out.
  • Jere and the Nexus 5
  • Guru learns about watchbands.
  • Guru gets 4.3 on his Galaxy S3s.
  • Platform News
  • App News
    • Hulu Plus app updated with better TV season management and more. If you like to pay for streaming ads, try it out. (Play Link)
    • Apex Launcher updated with KitKat enhancements. (Play Link)
    • Fitbit for Android now works with Motorola and Nexus devices, requires support for Bluetooth LE. (Play Link)
    • Rom Manager pulled due developer agreement violations as it used third-party in app purchases. While Rom Manager predated the requirement to use Google’s in app purchase tools, it never adapted to this until now.
    • Ingress has been formally launched and is now available without an invite. (Play Link)
    • Translate.com releases new mobile apps to translate text, voice, and images of text between 75 different languages. (Play Link)
    • AP Mobile app gets redesign. (Play Link)
    • IMDB app updated, adds Oscar Coverage, Editorial Lists, and Trivia. (Play Link)
    • Press gets large update. Supports Feedly, Feed Wrangler, Feedbin, and Fever. (Play Link)
    • Dropbox update adds support for creating and managing shared folders.
    • Amazon Kindle app adds collection support, font options, and book rating suggestions.
    • Floating IM app Lilypad updated with Holo UI, still buggy, (Play Link)
    • Netflix App adds profile support.