Technology catch-all thread

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

There are a ton of models nowadays, its gotten very confusing. They even have a floor washer one that is cool.

 

My mom has the pet one. I think she is on her 3rd one because the first two kept scratching our wood floors.

[Y2HH]

Does Safari crash all the damn time on iOS7 for anyone else? My God it's frustrating.

 

Nope. I actually went back to Safari because of how slow Chrome has become on iOS. Haven't had any issues since (iPhone 5 and Mini Retina).

 

Is there a specific website you go to that crashes? Maybe it's the website, I can try it and see if it crashes other iOS devices.

[TaylorStSox]

Nope. I actually went back to Safari because of how slow Chrome has become on iOS. Haven't had any issues since (iPhone 5 and Mini Retina).

 

Is there a specific website you go to that crashes? Maybe it's the website, I can try it and see if it crashes other iOS devices.

It happens on multiple sites. I also have problems with my iPad crashing and shutting down both in Safari and other apps. It happens at least once a day. I would get an occasional crash in 6, but since updating to to 7, it happens all time. After looking around, it seems to really common. Apple is supposed to come out with an update soon that fixes it.

[Jake]

Does iOS still throttle third party browsers?

[Y2HH]

Does iOS still throttle third party browsers?

 

This is one of those kinda/sorta things. iOS uses WebKit2, Chrome uses Blink (a fork of WebKit), so HTML/html5 render at the same speeds across both (browsers HAVE to be WebKit or they're not allowed on iOS). What apple doesn't allow is 3rd parties to use its Nitro JavaScript engine, so the only stuff that runs slower is jvscript, and even that's mostly placebo.

 

My phone is jailbroken and I use Nitrous, which enables the Nitro engine for any/all third party browses and other apps that use jvscript, and to be perfectly honest, I don't see a difference in speeds...and I wish I did since I paid for Nitrous. The only time I can tell it's faster is if I run an artificial benchmark and I see the numbers with nitrous on vs off, but in real world usage, I just don't notice anything. :/

Edited January 25, 2014 by Y2HH

[Y2HH]

It happens on multiple sites. I also have problems with my iPad crashing and shutting down both in Safari and other apps. It happens at least once a day. I would get an occasional crash in 6, but since updating to to 7, it happens all time. After looking around, it seems to really common. Apple is supposed to come out with an update soon that fixes it.

 

If you are talking about the springboard crashes, yes, they're fixing that...I just wonder what's going on with that since it doesn't seem to affect everyone, I don't have this issue on my iPad (not jailbroken) or my iPhone (which is jailbroken), nor does my wife's phone seem affected.

[Balta1701]

It happens on multiple sites. I also have problems with my iPad crashing and shutting down both in Safari and other apps. It happens at least once a day. I would get an occasional crash in 6, but since updating to to 7, it happens all time. After looking around, it seems to really common. Apple is supposed to come out with an update soon that fixes it.

I can't remember the last time Safari crashed on me on a fairly old iphone model.

[kev211]

My iPad air is crashing in safari at least once or twice a day now. It's getting annoying.

[Jake]

I'm surprisingly fond of the Google Experience Launcher

[chw42]

I'm surprisingly fond of the Google Experience Launcher

 

The left swipe for Google Now is nice, but I can't live without the customization on Nova. I get the transparent status bar and navigation bar with Nova, that's enough for me to not use GEL.

[HuskyCaucasian]

UVerse has been having DNS issues all morning. Some sites would load, others would not. I had to switch my computer to GoogleDNS (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4). Searched Twitter, and it appears to be nation wide.

[Jake]

The left swipe for Google Now is nice, but I can't live without the customization on Nova. I get the transparent status bar and navigation bar with Nova, that's enough for me to not use GEL.

 

Yeah, chances are that I will end up returning to Nova after a while. I'd been using a fairly heavily customized setup on Nova, so switching back to something more vanilla is nice. I'll probably get bored of that soon enough and come back to Nova or use one of my custom ROM's Sense themes

[Y2HH]

UVerse has been having DNS issues all morning. Some sites would load, others would not. I had to switch my computer to GoogleDNS (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4). Searched Twitter, and it appears to be nation wide.

 

That's always a good temporary fix for DNS issues, but using global public DNS entries like Google can make Netflix and other streaming services slow to a crawl because of how it works.

 

While what I'm about to explain is not always a problem, it CAN become one at certain times. If you use Google (or other public DNS servers) for DNS, depending on the physical location of those DNS servers, issues can arise due to where they send you. Taking Google for example, because their DNS servers are in California, you will be routed to the local Netflix data store in California, so you'll essentially be streaming all the way from California, whereas using your ISP's local DNS servers would have routed you to a more local Netflix data store.

[chw42]

Google's going to sell Motorola to Lenovo for $2-3 billion.

 

Unfortunately, this probably means Moto will stop producing affordable and functional devices like the Moto X and Moto G.

[Balta1701]

Google's going to sell Motorola to Lenovo for $2-3 billion.

 

Unfortunately, this probably means Moto will stop producing affordable and functional devices like the Moto X and Moto G.

Although it's hard to figure out how the tax setups work outside of the company, the list price on buying Motorola was $12.5 billion.

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

So that HDMI switcher that I bought for $10 is a pretty awesome value. Turns my 3 HDMI'd TV in to a 5 HDMI TV, and it has an "intelligent" feature that automatically switches the input when I turn on my PS3, and then automatically reverts back to the other source when I turn it off. Pretty handy as I may not even have to use the little remote control that came with it to swap inputs.

[chw42]

Although it's hard to figure out how the tax setups work outside of the company, the list price on buying Motorola was $12.5 billion.

 

Yeah, but that included the set top box portion of Motorola, which Google sold for $2.35 billion.

 

Still, it looks like Google's going to take a big loss with the Motorola acquisition.

 

They did make Motorola somewhat respectable again with the phones they've released in the past year. It's a shame.

[Soxbadger]

Anyone have a trick to get a sd micro card recognized again. I think mine died due to cold, got it working 1/2 times but just really want to check that I got all the information off and then buy a new one.

[Jake]

I'm really surprised about them selling it like that.

 

On one hand, I'm not surprised that Google didn't really want to have a fully-fledged hardware company. That's not really their deal. Margins are not high enough.

 

But why take what looks like a loss, even with them keeping some patents and selling the set-top box separately? Most analysts saw Motorola as a company that was really on the rise and I agree. Moto X is a good phone that had a really right-headed development philosophy, focusing on end user-oriented software improvements over benchmarking. The Moto G has to be a contender to completely dominate the low end market. Why sell now?

[chw42]

I'm really surprised about them selling it like that.

 

On one hand, I'm not surprised that Google didn't really want to have a fully-fledged hardware company. That's not really their deal. Margins are not high enough.

 

But why take what looks like a loss, even with them keeping some patents and selling the set-top box separately? Most analysts saw Motorola as a company that was really on the rise and I agree. Moto X is a good phone that had a really right-headed development philosophy, focusing on end user-oriented software improvements over benchmarking. The Moto G has to be a contender to completely dominate the low end market. Why sell now?

 

The Moto X wasn't doing great on sales (why do you think the phone's been discounted to $329 after initially selling at $500?) and Moto's margins are probably pretty bad ATM.

 

Moto does have great potential though. Hopefully Lenovo leaves it alone and lets it develop like it has been for the past year.

[SleepyWhiteSox]

The Moto X wasn't doing great on sales (why do you think the phone's been discounted to $329 after initially selling at $500?) and Moto's margins are probably pretty bad ATM.

 

Moto does have great potential though. Hopefully Lenovo leaves it alone and lets it develop like it has been for the past year.

 

I think that a lot of it has to do with Nexus pricing also. It seemed like plenty of people were expecting similar pricing and were hugely turned off when it was that much more, particularly for lesser specs. Now that people know that it performs well, there seems to be better interest, especially at the nexus-like price point.

 

 

If it gets to $300 including the wood backs, I'd get one even though I have a nexus 5.

 

[chw42]

I think that a lot of it has to do with Nexus pricing also. It seemed like plenty of people were expecting similar pricing and were hugely turned off when it was that much more, particularly for lesser specs. Now that people know that it performs well, there seems to be better interest, especially at the nexus-like price point.

 

 

If it gets to $300 including the wood backs, I'd get one even though I have a nexus 5.

 

I got a coupon code that gets it down to $300 and I seriously thought about buying it (I also have a Nexus 5).

 

The Nexus 5 is easily the best phone I've owned, but I would love to have Touchless Control and Moto Assist that are on the Moto X.

 

Motorola's approach to software works. Add features that are useful, but don't fill the phone with bloat, change the entire look of the Android UI, and throw in a bunch of redundant services Google already provides (*cough* Samsung).

 

The thing with the Moto X is that it wasn't really a $500 phone to begin with. The specs aren't great, but it performs well enough to the point where you barely notice and it has cool and useful features that other phones don't have. But Samsung and Apple have the market right now, so it's hard for anyone to break-in and have their phone sell like hotcakes, even with a $500 million ad campaign pushing it.

 

If the Moto X was selling like it was supposed to, there'd be no reason for Motorola to offer it for $200 less than it's initial MSRP just 4 months after its release.

Edited January 30, 2014 by chw42

[Y2HH]

I'm really surprised about them selling it like that.

 

On one hand, I'm not surprised that Google didn't really want to have a fully-fledged hardware company. That's not really their deal. Margins are not high enough.

 

But why take what looks like a loss, even with them keeping some patents and selling the set-top box separately? Most analysts saw Motorola as a company that was really on the rise and I agree. Moto X is a good phone that had a really right-headed development philosophy, focusing on end user-oriented software improvements over benchmarking. The Moto G has to be a contender to completely dominate the low end market. Why sell now?

 

If what you said about not wanting a fully-fledged hardware company, they wouldn't have just bought Nest for 3+billion, who are a hardware company, as they sell no software other than the software packaged with their hardware, not to mention the robotics companies.

 

If you ask me, Google should have kept Schmidt in charge longer, as since he's left, Brin/Page have acted like kids in a candy store with unlimited amounts of money to spend. In addition to buying Nest, they've bought a plethora of other businesses they have zero knowledge or experience in, including militarized robotics companies. They did buy things that make sense, like Waze, but after incorporating Waze's tech into Google Maps ... they kept Waze running/updating/making their own app, which is confusing. The idea should have been to get Waze users to use Google Maps, instead of operating two independent applications, which costs money for no reason. IMO Google is expanding by acquisition faster than they can keep up with. Everything I've seen them acquire so far is run half-assed, and very slow to change/adapt, and Motorola was no different. They've also shown a penchant for massively overpaying for companies nobody else is seriously bidding on. Motorola was only on the rise in peoples minds, as their phones were making strides, but in reality, it was losing money at an accelerated pace, to the tune of almost 300M per quarter/1+billion per year (double what it was losing when they acquired it).

 

Oh, let's not forget their failed offers to buy Groupon for 6 billion and Snapchat for 4 billion. They should be thankful neither of those were accepted.

 

I think the Motorola acquisition was a knee-jerk reaction to the Rockstar purchase of Nortel patents, only Motorola's patents are largely useless, and they've had no luck enforcing them, as case after case has been tossed in favor of Microsoft/Apple because almost everything Motorola patented, they did so under standards essentials.

 

Getting rid of Motorola was a smart idea since they weren't serious about Motorola anyway, as Motorola had no technological or software advantages over any other Android maker...making it a race to the bottom.

[RockRaines]

The reason Motorola sucks isnt the products, its the management chain and a great deal of the employee base. Its not a very innovative company and its completely saturated with horrible politics and inept management.

[RockRaines]

If what you said about not wanting a fully-fledged hardware company, they wouldn't have just bought Nest for 3+billion, who are a hardware company, as they sell no software other than the software packaged with their hardware, not to mention the robotics companies.

 

If you ask me, Google should have kept Schmidt in charge longer, as since he's left, Brin/Page have acted like kids in a candy store with unlimited amounts of money to spend. In addition to buying Nest, they've bought a plethora of other businesses they have zero knowledge or experience in, including militarized robotics companies. They did buy things that make sense, like Waze, but after incorporating Waze's tech into Google Maps ... they kept Waze running/updating/making their own app, which is confusing. The idea should have been to get Waze users to use Google Maps, instead of operating two independent applications, which costs money for no reason. IMO Google is expanding by acquisition faster than they can keep up with. Everything I've seen them acquire so far is run half-assed, and very slow to change/adapt, and Motorola was no different. They've also shown a penchant for massively overpaying for companies nobody else is seriously bidding on. Motorola was only on the rise in peoples minds, as their phones were making strides, but in reality, it was losing money at an accelerated pace, to the tune of almost 300M per quarter/1+billion per year (double what it was losing when they acquired it).

 

Oh, let's not forget their failed offers to buy Groupon for 6 billion and Snapchat for 4 billion. They should be thankful neither of those were accepted.

 

I think the Motorola acquisition was a knee-jerk reaction to the Rockstar purchase of Nortel patents, only Motorola's patents are largely useless, and they've had no luck enforcing them, as case after case has been tossed in favor of Microsoft/Apple because almost everything Motorola patented, they did so under standards essentials.

 

Getting rid of Motorola was a smart idea since they weren't serious about Motorola anyway, as Motorola had no technological or software advantages over any other Android maker...making it a race to the bottom.

Google bought Nest because its getting into the home automation market and Nest is one of the most forward thinking companies out there on that topic. Integrating your identity (google) with your home preferences etc is where they would like to go. I bet they buy doorbot or something of that nature next.