Author: Clinton

Spotify has announced that starting this year they will be moving their back end cloud platform to Google Cloud Platform globally.  The move comes as the streaming service has continued to grow rapidly and the data center requirements and hardware have become painful to manage.  The post from Vice President of Engineering and Infrastructure, Nicholas Harteau, was candid in their reasons for the move.

But in a business growing quickly in users, markets and features, keeping pace with scaling demands requires ever increasing amounts of focus and effort. Like good, lazy engineers, we occasionally asked ourselves: do we really need to do all this stuff?

For a long time the answer was “yes.” Operating our own data-centers may be a pain, but the core cloud services were not at a level of quality, performance and cost that would make cloud a significantly better option for Spotify in the long run. As they say: better the devil you know…

Recently that balance has shifted. The storage, compute and network services available from cloud providers are as high quality, high performance and low cost as what the traditional approach provides.

Wireless charging is one of those technologies that seems to have a love-hate relationship.  Some people, me included, love it and find it handy to not have to plus in my devices to charge them.  Others find the slower charging and sometimes positioning your device Just. Exactly. Right. on the pad to be too much of a pain.  I won’t be spending this review trying to convince anyone to use wireless charging but for those who do, or want to try it, and have a Qi (pronounced “Chee”) compatible device, the Anker Wireless Charger is an excellent option for your charging needs.  At only $12.99 on Amazon (regularly $59.99), it is an excellent value and performs exceptionally well.

While Microsoft’s own mobile platform may be struggling to survive, the company continues to develop apps to satisfy their “mobile first” mantra.  The latest app from the company, Hub Keyboard, is designed for Android with the purpose of making your life easier when it comes to moving content around on your device.  With a built in clipboard and the ability to quickly send information to Office 365 apps, the keyboard is aptly names as a hub for all of your Microsoft app needs on Android.

At the end of last year, HP announced they were updating the majority of their Chromebook lineup with improved processors and overall improvements.  Of those, the Chromebook 11 G3 was one that was upgraded and the new Chromebook 11 G4 was released in November 2015.  The smallest of the HP lineup of Chromebooks, the 11 G4 starts at a budget friendly $199 which puts it in the middle of stiff competition from the likes of Acer, Asus and others.

I have been using the Chromebook 11 G4 as my primary computer over the course of the last 10 days and in this price range, it is one of the best built Chromebooks I have used.  It feels like a proper laptop, not a plastic toy, and it has the performance overall to meet almost anyone’s needs.  While it isn’t perfect – the display and battery life are areas of concern – it is a solid enough performer for me to recommend it if you are looking for a 11″ Chromebook.

Here is my review.

I will admit that these are the kinds of Press Release that make me a little crazy.  Sony at MWC today announced the new Xperia X series, a lineup of new Android phones that includes three new devices, the Xperia X, Xperia X Performance and Xperia XA, but there were scarcely any details given about the devices.  While the Xperia X Peformance will run a Snapdragon 802 processor and has a 5″ display, there is virtually nothing else known about these devices.  I’m sure as the day progresses we will get more details but to not have the basics in the Presser is… aye.

At MWC today, Alcatel made another device announcement this morning.  Yesterday they announced the new IDOL 4 and IDOL 4S while today they announced the even more budget friendly POP series.  In all, there are three devices in the POP series:  The POP 4, POP 4+ and the POP 4S.  The 4S is the premium version of the devices with a 13 MP rear camera and 5MP front while the 4 and 4+ have a 8 MP rear shooter. Likewise, you will find that the 4S has an octa-core processor while the 4 and 4+ have a quad-core.