Android apps in Chrome on TV

Google Chrome logoGIVEN THAT MOST of this week's Google updates revolve around April Fool's jokes, up with which we shall not put, especially as it's 2 April now, it has been a relatively quiet week for Google news.

However, a quiet week for Google is a busy week for just about anyone else, so there's still plenty to talk about. Coming up: some retro games are coming to Android, every Android app is coming to Chrome, and Chrome is coming to your Android TV Box.

But first, as we reported yesterday, Google For Work products are getting bolstered security including monitoring of events on domain machines and the ability to block features like downloading, sharing and printing.

The company has also banned security certificates issued by the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) meaning that websites using them for 'secure' credentials will have to rethink, after it was discovered that they may not be as 'secure' as you'd like. CNNIC has branded the decision "unacceptable".
Not strictly Google, but worth noting that a whole bunch of titles are about to get Android ports. Specifically Tomb Raider I, which is available now, and the Nintendo world will be breaking out of its proprietary bubble as the Japanese company confirmed that ports of Mario, Zelda and co are in the pipeline.

While we're off-on Google, another app worth mentioning is WhatsApp, which is getting a full rollout of its VoIP service this week.

Back at Google Towers and there's big news for Android developers as Google finally releases an Android Runtime for Chrome kit, meaning that, for the first time, any Android app can be ported to any operating system capable of running Chrome.

The initial test apps released over the past six months were a little less than inspiring, and there have been many homebrew attempts to introduce other apps to the ecosystem (we successfully got Skype working on a Chromebook), so this should be big news for a lot of brands that want to support Chrome OS without coughing up the extra to develop for it.

To support this, a Chrome Stick has been announced by the good folk at Asus. Quite separate from the Chromecast an the myriad of cheap Chinese Android sticks already on the market, the Chrome Stick will create a full Chrome OS powered environment on any screen with an HDMI port.

Expect to see that later in the year. Before we go, a quick reminder. From 21 April  it is believed that Google will change its algorithm (yes, again) to penalise websites that aren't mobile friendly, lowering their appearance in search results. Web teams, you have been warned.

Finally, it's happy birthday to Gmail which was 11 years old yesterday. You don't look a day over 10.

As part of the birthday celebrations, the Android app has had a tweak which creates a Universal Inbox view across all your accounts, POP3 and native. That's this Week in Google. More next Thursday.

Cr. The Inquirer

Comcast Gets Social to Shake Bad Customer

a Comcast cable truck works in front of a home in Mount

 Comcast is adding more social media representatives as it tries to work on its reputation for inefficient, unresponsive or just plain rude customer service.

It is tripling the size of its social media team to 60, and could add more. That's just a tiny percentage of the thousands of customer service people it has. But answering people faster on Twitter and Facebook is part of an overall push to improve customer service.

The country's biggest cable provider is promoting its customer service efforts as regulators weigh whether to allow Comcast to buy the No. 2 cable company, Time Warner Cable, in a $45 billion deal that would create an Internet and cable giant. The combined company would serve nearly 30 percent of cable TV subscribers and more than half of high-speed Internet subscribers.

That's raised an outcry from consumer advocates who say the combined company would have too much control over the country's Internet access.

And the company's reputation for treating customers badly — calling them names, making it difficult to cancel service, requiring multiple visits, calls and emails to fix problems, tacking on fees, passing customers from call center employee to employee — hasn't helped it sell the deal to the public.

The company has a "multiyear road map" to fix its problems, and "still has a lot of work left to do," said Tom Karinshak, the senior vice president of customer service for Comcast Cable.

Comcast's spending on customer service has increased in the past few years, rising about 5 percent in both 2013 and 2014, to $2.21 billion last year.

Comcast Corp., which is based in Philadelphia, announced its social media push on Monday. It aims to answer complaints on Facebook, Twitter and possibly other forums in 30 minutes. It now often takes far longer than that — more than a week for many recent answers to customer complaints with its @ComcastCares service account. DirecTV, a satellite TV competitor,Android TV Box, and other big cable companies Charter and Time Warner Cable have recent replies on Twitter that come within a day or just hours of a complaint.

As for other improvements, Karinshak said Comcast has added more appointment hours in evenings and weekends, let customers return equipment at UPS stores and been able to reduce the number of times technicians have to make multiple service trips to fix problems.
For customers on the phone, Comcast said a change in its computer systems lets employees spend less time on data entry.

The company is also testing an app that lets people know how far away a technician is and shows a picture of the technician. It is also working on redesigning its bills and simplifying promotional packages — the cheaper prices you pay for a limited time after signing up.

Cr.ABC News, Android TV Post

Now TV arrives on EE TV today

Now TV arrives on EE TV today

EE has announced that Now TV will be added to its EE TV smart box today. The popular streaming service offers movies, sports and Android TV box sets, as well as access to live Sky entertainment, sports and movie channels.
EE TV already offers 70 Freeview channels and 18 on-demand apps including YouTube and BBC iPlayer. Customers will now be able to watch plenty more - so long as they have a Now TV pass.

Now TV's Entertainment Month Pass is the cheapest package currently on offer. Subscribers get 13 pay TV channels including Sky 1, MTV and Sky Atlantic plus 250 box sets of series like Downton Abbey for just £6.99 a month.

Now TV also has two sports packages: customers can opt for a Sky Sports Day Pass for £6.99 or a Sky Sports Week Pass for an extra £4, which allow customers to watch everything across the broadcaster's seven Sky Sports channels.
A Sky Movies Month Pass is available as well. It provides subscribers with 16 premiere movies a month, more than 1,000 on-demand movies and 11 Sky Movies channels for only £9.99. There are no long-term contracts for any of the Now TV bundles, so it's easy to cancel if you tire of it too.

Now TV Director, Gidon Katz said: "With Game of Thrones, the world's most talked about show available to watch from the very beginning, there couldn't be a better time for EE TV customers to enjoy Now TV."

The EE TV box is currently free for EE mobile and broadband customers.



Once customer have not wait for long time of this service, they will use Smart Android TV box effectively.

Cr.Broad Band Choices

The million-dollar question about Android TV

 Google's new TV Android Box

The big story out of this year's Consumer Electronics Show is Google's move to bring Android into your living room -- but when it comes to the company's new Android TV ecosystem, one big question remains:

How will software updates work?

Android TV, in case you've had your ears plugged lately, is Google's latest effort at getting its software into your home entertainment setup. At CES this week, Google announced that Sony, Sharp, and Philips all had Android TV-powered televisions in the works for this spring. A set-top Android TV gaming console is supposed to launch next month, meanwhile, and at least one standalone streaming media player is scheduled to arrive later this year.
But with the software coming preloaded on all of those devices, we need to know: Who will be responsible for future OS upgrades? Will Google itself handle rollouts, as it does with its Nexus products and Android Wear watches, or will it be up to each device manufacturer to process every update and send it out to customers?

The questions of how reliably upgrades will be delivered and for how long your TV will receive them are pivotal

As anyone who's familiar with Android knows, it's a critical question to consider. With phones and tablets -- Google's own Nexus devices being the main exception -- the responsibility of OS upgrades falls on the shoulders of individual manufacturers. It's an inevitable part of Android's open nature: Google's approach to the platform means manufacturers can modify the software in any way they wish, which allows for a level of diversity and innovation a closed ecosystem couldn't provide.

But that also means the software has to be handed off to those manufacturers anytime an update arrives -- and it's then up to the manufacturers to modify it as they will and roll it out to users. And, to put it nicely, some manufacturers are better than others at getting upgrades delivered in a timely fashion.

Irksome as that can be, it's par for the course with phones and tablets -- and it's something we've (more or less) come to expect. The same goes for the typical shelf life of a mobile device: Once a phone's been around for about 18 months to two years, you know it's probably not going to get any more major software upgrades. Love it or hate it, smartphones operate under the principle that you're gonna buy a new one every couple of years.

Televisions, though? If you're anything like me, they're a completely different story. Most people I know (myself included) don't buy new TVs terribly often. I've seen some analyst estimates that put the typical TV replacement cycle in the ballpark of once every four to five years, but even that seems a bit on the high side to me.

So with a still-young operating system that's bound to get a fair amount of updates over the months and years ahead, the questions of how reliably those upgrades will be delivered and for how long your TV will receive them are pivotal. If Google puts out a transformative Android TV update in December, you don't want to be waiting six to eight months for it to reach your television.
And if you buy a TV this year, you don't want to find out that it's done getting upgrades two, three, even five years from now. Buying a new phone every couple of years in order to keep up with the latest software is one thing. I don't know that most of us want to be on that regular of a replacement cycle with our televisions, too.

Google has said that all Android TV devices will have a consistent user interface, which gives me hope for a universally streamlined and Google-controlled upgrade system -- but hope isn't the same thing as confirmation. And even if upgrades are guaranteed to be timely across the board, the question of how long TVs will receive updates after they launch still remains.

Maybe an Android TV-based television will be a brilliant way to experience entertainment. Maybe a "dumb" TV with a more easily replaceable set-top box will be the smarter option (better to buy a new $100 box every few years than a new $2000 television, no?). Or maybe sticking with the simplicity of a phone-centric streaming solution like Chromecast will end up being the most sensible solution for some of us.
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Here's hoping that by the time Android TV products show up on store shelves, we'll have enough specific and detailed information to make an educated decision.

Cr.Computer World