Another year, another road test for my work gear. The Consumer Electronics Show officially kicks off on Tuesday, but I’m currently on my way to Las Vegas because pre-show craziness kicks off on Sunday. As usual, I’m trying to keep my reporting kit pretty light-weight, since I’ll be lugging it around in a backpack all […]
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Amazon Fire HD 10 (2017) can be rooted (running Fire OS 5.6 or earlier)
There are a lot of things you can do to modify Amazon’s 2017 line of Fire tablets without rooting them. You can install the Google Play Store, try alternate launchers, and more. But there are even more things you can do with root access… it’s just that up until recently there was no good way to […]
Upgrading my home and work network: an epic saga
A rather complicated chain of events has led me to completely overhaul some of the technology in my house, which also happens to be Liliputing headquarters. This summer Crashplan announced it would be discontinuing its consumer-oriented cloud backup service. So I started looking for an alternative… and ultimately decided that it was time not only […]
Apparently Black Friday starts Nov 1st now (Dell and Amazon kick things off)
Over the past few years we’ve seen a growing number of retailers starting their “Black Friday” sales on Thanksgiving Day instead of the Friday after Thanksgiving. Now Dell is just throwing tradition to the wind and offering up some so-called Black Friday deals today. On November 1st. Go figure. Under other circumstances, I’d probably just call […]
Amazon’s new $70 Fire TV is tiny and 4K-ready
As expected, Amazon is updating is Fire TV lineup with a new 4K-ready model that’s small enough to hang off the HDMI port of your TV from a small cable, much like Google’s Chromecast Ultra. And like the Chromecast Ultra, the new Amazon Fire TV is priced at $70. But while Google’s media streamer is […]
Amazon 2nd-gen Echo speaker launches today for $99
The Amazon Echo was the first voice-activated speaker to ship with support for Amazon’s Alexa voice service. But since the original Echo launched in 2014, Amazon has introduced two generations of Echo Dot speakers, the Amazon Tap portable speaker, Alexa support for third-party hardware and odd new devices like the Echo Show and Echo Look. […]
Intel’s Kaby Lake NUC mini PCs now available with Optane memory
Intel Optane memory is a new type of speedy, non-volatile solid state storage that can be used like an SSD… except that for now it’s way more expensive. So Intel’s first consumer versions of Optane memory are small modules meant to offer speedy cache performance when used alongside a larger hard drive or SSD. And […]
Amazon (sort of) suspends sales of BLU smartphones due to security/privacy concerns
It’s been a little over half a year since security researchers at Kryptowire discovered software running on some budget smartphones that sends sensitive data to a server in China without notifying the the user of the phone. One of the phones in question was the popular (and dirt cheap) BLU R1 HD. BLU released a […]
Moto Z phones get 4 new Moto Mods, including a Moto GamePad
Motorola added a new Moto Z phone to its lineup today, and while the Moto Z2 Play is an interesting update to last year’s model, the thing that makes all Moto Z phones special is their support for modular accessories called Moto Mods. And Motorola just unveiled 4 new Moto Mods, including a new speaker […]
Report card: Brad’s mobile reporting kit for CES 2017
Over the past few days I’ve published nearly 100 articles, 29 videos, and more photos than I care to count while covering the latest tech on display at the Consumer Electronics Show. As in previous years, I did most of this with the help of just a few tools: a laptop, a smartphone, and a […]