The price scanner application is down at my supermarket, revealing the system it runs on. The short-lived Windows Embedded CE.
The hardware is also discontinued. Windows Embedded is now an Internet of Things thing, but I’m going to guess the new price checker software runs on Android.
A profile of an interesting Boston semiconductor fabricator, specializing in custom chips.
A tip o’ the Dog Rat toupee to tastewar, for pointing out this video.
The only edition that’s available at the moment is wee bit dear.
Oh boy! Driver updates! I’m very interested in taking these, because it’s a Qualcomm system. I doubt Microsoft considers Snapdragon a semi-experimental platform for Windows 11, but I do. Much more interesting than having another x64 system.
What I was most curious about is the Bluetooth update. Audio/video synch was way off with my Sony SRS-BTX500 Bluetooth speaker. The native Windows driver was almost certainly negotiating the AAC codec. For $6, I bought Bluetooth Goodies’ replacement driver in order to negotiate AptX. It was money well spent.
Before taking the updates I returned Bluetooth to the native Windows driver. Would the update fix the audio sync problem?
Most definitely yes! Is AptX — a Qualcomm specification — being negotiated, or has AAC been fixed? I don’t know, but it seems I will be able to stick with the Windows driver. If anything goes wrong, I’ll flip back to Bluetooth Goodies.
Google sent a message with a security warning about a new login from an unknown device. Was it me? I didn’t know, because the device was identified as “AFTMM.” What the ding-dong heck is an AFTMM?
For a moment I wondered if, perhaps, there had been a security breach — until seeing that AFTMM is the build code of a 1st generation Amazon Fire TV 4K Stick from 2018. I have one of those plugged into an HDMI port on my Onkyo home theater receiver.
I had logged into YouTube on the Fire TV stick, but a full day before the warning was sent. This is the first time I’ve seen a “login from new device” warning delayed for so long.
This picture I used recently shows the setup I’m working on right now.
That’s my new Samsung Galaxy A9+ tablet. Best Buy had a too-good-to-resist Black Friday price for the model with 8 GB memory and 256 GB storage.
It was either that or a Lenovo Idea Tab Plus with 8/128. But, as you may recall, I have vowed to never again buy a Lenovo product. That is, unless and until the trackpad failure on my 2-year-old laptop PC is resolved.
A big surprise with the new tablet is the way it works with the 1byone Bluetooth keyboard. I bought it for $25 back in 2018, for the Lenovo tablet that’s in this other recent photo.
With both the Lenovo tablet and the Amazon HD10 tablet from 2022 (that’s now in my bedroom), I had to type slowly to prevent characters from being dropped. I thought it might be a problem with the keyboard. Now I see the tablets were simply too slow to keep up. With the A9+ I can type without worrying about lost characters.
I have a new appreciation for the humble 1byone. It’s a perfect little gadget, with an excellent trackpad that works the way the Lenovo laptop’s should be working. If you leave the keyboard idle it turns itself off, and the battery charge lasts almost forever. I checked Amazon, and it’s no longer available, at least not under that brand name.
YIKES! This is one of the least disturbing generative AI videos created by someone, or multiple someones, real or not, named Dietmar Höpfl.
After it runs, click on whatever link takes you to YouTube, then “@shockfactor_ai” to see more. IF YOU DARE!
Or, if you prefer, there’s the horror of Instagram.
