Modern Geek

We discuss Google’s announcements at the I/O conference last week, including the Nexus 7, Android 4.1 update, and the Nexus Q media center set-top box. We talk not only about the Q’s specs, but also its design, such as how it stacks up on the Dieter Rams 10 principles of good design.

We run down the news from last week’s Microsoft event announcing the Surface tablet, and we offer our analysis. Short take: The Surface isn’t a direct iPad competitor, but rather a device cutting the middle between ultrabook and tablet. We’re excited. Also: We receive our Raspberry Pi and talk a bit about our plans for [...]

We take a look at our favorite announcements from Apple’s 2012 WWDC Keynote address, and discuss new media’s growing position as a primary news provider in the tech industry.

Juan and Chuck catch up by taking some listener calls including questions about selecting an HDTV to use as a large computer monitor and how to read Amazon and other online reviews critically.

We discuss what Twitter’s recent DNT support means to users. We talk about Google+ changes designed to (artificially?) increase your friend list. And we relate some of our recent experiences with the Arduino platform.

Chuck reviews the sweet iOS podcast manager app Instacast. Will WiFi work out of the box? Will ACPI suck? What’s that new app store like? Juan delivers the details in a run-down of his experiences installing and trying out the latest long term support Ubuntu release — without opening a terminal.

That’s right — Juan finally stepped up and chose his tablet. We share our detailed personal process for selecting the perfect gear, a process you, too, can follow to make sure that when you throw down the big bucks you get something that’ll serve your purposes well for years to come.

We discuss the Kindle Fire, the fact that it’s the best selling Android tablet by far, and what this means for the non-iOS tablet market. We add our thoughts to Woz’s recent evaluation of the Windows phone. We discuss Firefox’ move to automated updates and how it’s time for business apps to build to standards [...]

We note continued SSD price drops, including Intel’s new sub-$90 60GB model. We share some Apple II experiences in honor of the “computer for the masses'” 30th anniversary. We discuss the pseudo-open-source release of the original Apple II Prince of Persia game source code along with documentation — plus the widespread adoption of older game [...]

We talk about Google’s theoretical Goggles. We note that AT&T will soon begin unlocking off-contract phones on request. And we cover some of the new grant-funded YouTube content for geeks and how it makes sense of the whole YouTube channels system. Also, we hear from a listener who has first-hand experience with Time Machine backups.