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Amazon already told us that it’s new TV box has a Qualcomm Snapdragon quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, and 8GB of storage along with the ability to stream music and videos, play games, and run other apps. But that’s not good enough for the folks at repair shop iFixit — they want to see all those parts for themselves.
So they opened up the case to peek inside, and this is what they found.
Here’s a roundup of tech news from around the web.
- Amazon Fire TV torn down by @iFixit, few surprises found unless you count the big heat sink
Amazon’s new TV box has the guts of a smartphone… plus a big heat sink to keep the Fire TV from actually catching on fire. [iFixit] - Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote for iPad hit 12 million downloads in first week
Microsoft’s first touch-friendly version of Office hit the App Store recently, while the Windows Tablet version still isn’t ready to go. The iPad apps allow anyone to read documents for free, and allow Office 365 subscribers to create and edit documents. The move seems to have paid off… an awful lot of people downloaded the apps during their first week of availability.[@Office] - Microsoft makes it easier for enterprise users to sideload apps in Windows 8.1 Update
It’s not particularly easy to sideload “Modern” style apps. Microsoft really wants developers to make them available through the Windows Store instead. But that’s not always an option for enterprise users. Now Microsoft’s making things a bit easier on those folks. [Windows Blog] - Pre-order Samsung Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo, Gear Fit from Amazon
The $299 Gear 2 smartwatch, $199 Gear 2 Neo, and $199 Gear Fit activity tracker are all up for pre-order. [Amazon] - Cyanogen Inc grows up, gets a real corporate logo and stuff
As the developers of this popular custom version of Android transition from a volunteer-driven effort to a real corporate entity that’s partnering with smartphone makers, they’re giving their logo and branding materials a new look. The Cid mascot lives on… but it’s part of the community version of Cyanogenod, not the Cyanogen software that’ll ship on upcoming devices like the OnePlus One smartphone. [Cyanogen]
You can keep up on the latest headlines by following Liliputing on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.
If I’m forced to side load anything that I previously did not have to in Windows 7, then I’ll stick with Windows 7 and start to look into Linux for the future!
Makes sense that they’re going for a different look now that they’re a business. Good thing their name isn’t that bad.
I’m always surprised how devs, despite their excellent skills, have such bad/immature naming sense where they use words like paranoid, beast, l33t speak and other things I would have thought a 10 year old would have come up with. The same goes for their logos.
I’ve been using CyanogenMod software for a few years on various Adroid tablets and phone, and have been well pleased. The carriers (I’m looking at you, AT+T!) have no interest in providing updates to older hardware, instead they want to sell a new phone (and extend that ever-important 2 year contract lock-in). Intentionally obsoleting a perfectly functional piece of hardware in the name of hardware just seems wrong.
CyanogenMod keeps my phones up to date and performing better than new. I also enjoy the lean install size, without all the vendor (Samsung and Asus especially) and carrier (T-Mobile, AT+T) permanently installed software/bloatware/crapware.
Thanks to all of the developers who maintain and update the Cyanogen software, and the related infrastructure (such as ClockWorkMod)! Best wishes to you as you transition to a corporate structure.
One future stumbling block I forsee in the future is the Merrifield processor family with it’s ability to lock out “unauthorized” OS versions. While Intel has pitched this as being a security feature for corporate users, they haven’t provided any information on whether this would prevent the carriers from adapt this feature to provide better carrier lock-in.
https://liliputing.com/2014/03/phones-with-intels-64-bit-chips-could-discourage-custom-roms.html
Wow, I really need to proofread more thoroughly before posting… Sorry about that.
I’ll blame it on lack of coffee. Yeah, that’s it…
That Intel “feature” certainly does sound like something carriers would abuse. I hope not and we’re just misunderstanding something. From first glance though, it seems to go against the ideas of all the work they’ve put into writing open source drivers by helping create a closed device.
They do have a similar feature now but targeted towards notebooks where theft/intrusion can be detected, locks things down and alerts the IT department through a cellular network. It works independently of the OS like this new feature. My notebook has this feature but I have it disabled since I don’t have any remote IT management software to use it.
This new thing could be good if carriers actually use it as intended to secure your lost/stolen phone and/or detect boot viruses but still allow the user to bypass it to install user authorized custom ROMs. That kind of sounds like Secure Boot but that didn’t seem to turn out well for Linux users.