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Review of the Google Pixel XL and accessories

I’ve owned just about every Nexus device since the Nexus One, including the Nexus Q and the tablets. The only devices I’ve missed in my collection are the Nexus 10 tablet, and the Nexus 6P from late 2015. I ordered the Pixel XL the morning of the announcement and have used it as my daily phone since it arrived, and this is a really solid device and definitely worth the upgrade from the 2014 Nexus 6.

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Android Security wakes the sleeping blogger

Can’t believe it’s been so many months since I blogged last. Even quitting Facebook link 1, link 2 wasn’t enough to blog about, but this one deserves a post. Update, April 19, 2012: It seems that Google isn’t showing my user review on the app. At best, they’re holding it for human eyes to review since it was both a 1-star review and contained a URL back to this blog post.

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Your mobile phone has more computing power than all of NASA in 1969

Reshared post from +George Burnett Original post: https://plus.google.com/113763167140406107715/posts/GydaUzMQ6bW Your mobile phone has more computing power than all of NASA in 1969. NASA launched a man to the moon. We launch a bird into pigs. George Bray (@GeorgeBray) Although this is a hilarious post I would have to say that there are interesting things going on in Silicon Valley but it’s pretty hard to compete with space travel

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In retrospect, was Verizon the best carrier to launch the Galaxy Nexus?

Since being introduced to the Nexus One in early 2010, I’ve been an Android advocate, especially when it came to Google’s “flagship” products with a pure Android experience. The simplicity of it was very appealing for those with a minimalist mindset: no carrier bloatware, nothing disabled, good (sometimes great) hardware, and sometimes amazing hardware advancements which pushed other manufacturers to keep up. I dropped AT&T (for a change) after being a customer for nearly a decade and switched to T-Mobile to get the Nexus One, and never looked back.

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Is this another Gingerbread bug?

Tonight, I installed Google Books for the fourth time on my Samsung Nexus S. I've never manually uninstalled it. In fact, whenever I see that there's an update for it available, I go to my app dock and sure enough, I see it listed as an installed app, I can open it and continue to read a free Sherlock Holmes novel where I last left off. Is this another bug in Gingerbread, or is it a fault with Google Books?

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New Froyo features announced at Google IO

Besides giving away an HTC EVO 4G to all attendees, here’s the big news announced about Android 2.2 Froyo at Google IO today: Features Announced At Google IO Just-in-Time compiler confirmed Microsoft Exchange integration including auto-discovery and remote wipe New services just as data backup APIs for carriers to move your data from one device to another Tethering announced for Wifi and USB, shown in demo, pokes fun at iPad; no word on whether carriers can disable it 2x-3x performance boost in the Browser, new Javascript engine is SO much faster Optimizations for using the camera, orientation (accelerometers) within the browser Speech control and recognition is so much smoother, including Mandarin and Japanese, including speech recognition to make phone calls Real-time language translation Announced support for Flash Player 10.

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T-Mobile Seems Unsure of Position on Tethering Fees

TechCrunch Posts about Tethering TechCrunch reports that Android 2.2 (Froyo) will support USB and Wifi tethering, though it remains to be seen whether carriers will have an option to disable this feature. TechCrunch leaked some information about availability of tethering within Froyo, and dozens of other sites picked it up, not to mention countless tweets about it. It made some serious headlines, and has had a lot of feedback from users hoping to get a 2.

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Android 2.2 Froyo Benchmarking

Now With More Speed Over lunch today, I did some benchmarking with Linpack on my own Nexus One, using a stock Android 2.1 build, and the Nexus One provided by Adobe. It was astonishing to see the difference in MFLOPS (Millions of FLOating-Point operations per Second), essentially a high-precision mathematics sequencing instruction set that tests how quickly a CPU can run a known number of calculations. Since Linpack themselves publish a benchmark Top 10 for Android devices, I’m not disclosing anything that hasn’t already been publicly confirmed by others.

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Hacked an iPhone car kit for the Nexus One

Even while I had my iPhone as my primary mobile device, I had been interested in a car dock of some kind that didn’t involve a suction cup to my windshield or dashboard that could power the device and play audio into my car speakers. A coworker at Armor Games had a neat device, the Pixxo PF-C001 All-in-One Hands-Free Car Kit and Charger for iPhone or iPod w/ FM transmitter. It was $15-$25 at mwave.

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