First of all Be was purchased by Palm several years before webOS ever came out. WebOS didn't even exist in the same company. After Palm split into palmSource(software) and palmOne(hardware), the BeOs stuff(along side the old PalmOS stuff) went with palmSource. Later palmOne bought the rights to the full Palm name from palmSource and became Palm again and that Palm came out with webOS.
I spent a few years as a DoD contractor, and both companies I worked for were the bigger company on the contract, but the lead contractor what some small company that fit a specific category. I'll admit that I considered starting my own company,being a compensated disabled veteran, to get in the same action, but it didn't seem right and I wanted to get away from government contracting anyway.
I'm in the process of trying to move to Jellyfin from Plex, especially as Plex tries to shove in more "features". Right now the only thing that's holding me back is the state of the Roku and iOS apps, which are still pretty rough around the edges(and neither officially available yet).
I loved my Pre, but I didn't keep it, like you said the hardware wasn't very good. Also at release, while the software was good and showed a lot or promise, it did feel a little beta quality, and that would have been easier to overlook on better hardware. In the end I ended up returning the phone right at the end of my 30 day window and got my first Android phone the Samsung moment. The software was a step down, but at least the hardware was decent and the keyboard wasn't a nightmare to type on. I guess I was used to that paradigm since the phone I had immediately previous was a Nokia E71 and I had blackberrys before that.
Not terribly surprised to see Microsoft win given the Trump administration's feelings toward Amazon and the DoD coziness towards Microsoft. I'm just happy those poor bastards in the DoD don't have to deal with Oracle. I know if I were still working in the DoD sphere, I'd be looking for somewhere new to go if Oracle won.
Don't know about the regular Kindle, but on even ad support Fire tablets, the ads are disabled while a kids profile is active, though that wasn't always the case.
I disagree, there's often no "full version" of these free to play games to buy. There are a few developers that do the in app purchases to unlock the full version, and it seemed to a more popular business model in the early days of mobile app stores, but now they seem to be drowned in a sea of games that rely on an unending stream of in app purchases that incrementally move you forward.
Judging from all the comments, the Sansa Clip+ was a popular option. I used to have one to and loved it, but eventually my use of a standalone mp3 players faded when I had a phone on me at all times and the last time I pulled it out of a drawer, I couldn't get the thing to hold a charge and it didn't seem worth the trouble to see if replacement batteries for it were even a thing.
Not just taxes, but being "beer" allows it to be sold in grocery stores and corner stores where a drink made from distilled spirits(even if watered down to the 5% alcohol) would have to be sold in a liquor stores in many states.
I've not cancelled Netflix yet, but I'm looking to pare down my streaming services, and Netflix is the top of the list to go. Amazon and Hulu seem to be getting better for non-original content than Netflix. Rising prices and and a shrinking library aren't a good combo for me and while some shows are okay, the original content isn't worth it at older prices, but less the recent price hikes.
The biggest thing about all these content owners making their own me too streaming service is that I'm more likely to subscribe to a few services and I'll go back to torrents for the rest.
While I try to buy non-DRM books when I can, I'm still willing to buy DRM'd books as long as the DRM is pretty breakable(and I back them up immediately most of the time). If the books on Amazon, Google, B&N, etc were to suddenly have unbroken DRM, I'd stop buying DRM'd ebooks until that issue was "fixed". Every ebook DRM format(except maybe Apple) is already trivially removable, so I wish they'd drop the farce and go DRM free already.
> If you need to travel into a major city, that can easily be 45 mins each way. 5 days a week, it pretty much adds up to an extra day each week.
Doing the math on my commute time and realizing how much time I was giving up was a big push to look in to remote work. Not only the time it wasted(~9 hours for me a week, +/- for traffic), but that time wasted was probably the worst 9 hours of my week and I felt like it just dragged down the quality of my life in general.
I also work remotely and being able to work remote will definitely be a major factor in taking any other jobs in the future. For me it comes do to avoiding a terrible commute and the open office trend has made it more and more difficult actually get work done in the office.
I'm lucky enough to have a hobby where I can interact with people and get that social outlet. So for me there's not really been a downside. In fact it's more of an upside where my social interactions are with people I choose to be around doing something I want to do rather that with people I'm around by default doing something I have to do.
Some how my wife got them to stop doing USPS on her account and she gets either UPS(which I rarely get from Amazon) or Amazon's own delivery. For a while she was getting quoted less next day and Sunday delivery dates since she was UPS only, but now that Amazon is doing a lot more deliveries in my area, she's about to about the same shipping days as me again(mine being split between USPS and Amazon).
This is the price point I've been missing and I've go one ordered already. Sure Nokia has been pretty good in this range, even with updates I think, but Verizon is the better carrier option in my area, so they're a no go. I like the Motorola stuff in theory, but they've got that same 3rd party manufacturer updates problem. I've got a Moto G5 Plus, which is a fine phone, but it's likely stuck at Android 8.1 for the rest of its life, and even that update from 7 took a very long time(after 9 launched).
The Google News recommendations algorithm seems to have lots in common with the equally terrible YouTube recommendations algorithm. God forbid I watch one movie trailer in six months, now my recommendations are filled with terrible movie theory videos, and the awful bottom of the content barrel scraping some movie trailer explanined videos.
That’s what use and consider to be the best reddit mobile experience. The regular reddit mobile site doesn’t seem to render on iOS Safari properly most of the time, probably by design.
Recently I've found myself at Best Buy a few times after not having been in years. There's a few reasons.
For big ticket items like TVs, Amazon usually isn't much cheaper if they are at all like it seemed to be a few years ago. Being able to see them in person and take them home same day is also nice.
Amazon's listings are mess. Sometimes the listing are just skeevy looking and have missing or wrong information. Even when the listing looks good, I'm not always sure I'll get quite what I ordered. I've already started to basically not use 3rd party sellers, but even when Amazon is listed as the seller, I've gotten items that were clearly used(when they were supposed to be new) or just not the right item, once being a counterfeit of what I was ordering.
I also noticed that for "gravy" items like cables and stuff, where Amazon was often 3 or 4 times cheaper, Best Buy is at least not as bad as they were in the past. They've still got some very overpriced options, but they also have some more reasonably priced options. So now its a decision to spend $3 or $4 more on that HDMI cable at Best Buy when I get the TV rather than $15 more. The decision to to spend the couple more dollars at Best Buy for the cable isn't just convenience, but is bolstered by cheaper items on Amazon being even more of a crapshoot than they were in the past.
>4) Users who are tech savvy take to social media or use personal networks to get special dispensations (see: every time someone posts on HN about a problem with their Google account and gets special intervention).
The only reason I maintain a Twitter account is that it seem to be the only way to engage the "good" customer support at so many companies these days.
When I was having trouble with my U-verse TV box, AT&T sent me a new one and then scheduled a tech to come out a few days later to "install" it. I plugged it up and called AT&T to have them activate the box, but they refused to let me give them the relevant serial number from the box to activate it over the phone and were adamant they had to send a tech to do it. I complained into the void on Twitter and AT&T replied asking me to DM them the relevant information(account number, serial number, etc) and they got it turned on in five minutes. They still couldn't/wouldn't cancel the tech visit so he showed up and we told him he wasn't needed.
Google buys GitHub. 6 months later it launches a new different code hosting site that is tightly tied with Google services. 3 years later new site and GitHub both shut down.
That was my impression as well. While hurricane prone areas are highlighted well, once you move out of those areas, the map seems to start correlating to population to a large degree. Granted there are some cities missing and and some rural areas as red spots.
They specifically mention that Google Play Music subscribers will be getting access to YouTube Music, so I would take that to mean not YouTube Premium(i.e. renamed Red).
>If you are a subscriber to Google Play Music, good news, you get a YouTube Music Premium membership as part of your subscription each month. And if you use Google Play Music, nothing will change
Right now I get YouTube Red with my Google Play Music subscription, so it sounds like I'm losing that, that's actually a very big change. Instead of a nice little add on, I now get a subscription to a completely redundant service instead.
I have this, but recently "local" spam callers have been getting through a lot more. I don't know if they're spoofing or buying up blocks of numbers but most of them have "valid" caller ids in Hiya.
Google's problem is launching products to to compete with something that's just there. I would guess there's a very large chunk of iPhone users, perhaps a majority, that are completely unaware they're using an Apple messaging service. Messages is just their SMS app that happens to behave slightly differently when talking to other iPhone users.
Uh, yes that was indeed the point of my comment, thank you for restating that. If video was the only important thing, 16:9 across the board would be important. But going the other way to 4:3 is a vast over correction as it would make the screen nearly useless for video.
I find 4:3 too square for both tablets and laptops as it seriously detracts from watching widescreen video content such as nearly all newer movies and TV shows, but 16:9 does have seem a bit too wide compared to height, especially on tablets when you try to use it in portrait mode and it seems ridiculously tall. I've found 16:10 to be a better than 16:9, and while I haven't had a 3:2 laptop, the 3:2 Nook HD+ from a few years back is probably my favorite table screen(shame about the rest of the tablet) in that it didn't compromise movies too much, but wasn't awkward in portrait.