Connecting a classic (non-Google TV) Chromecast to a new WiFi (or heaven forbid a hotel WiFi with a capture portal) was always such a pain. And casting over networks without mDNS is flaky at best and otherwise downright impossible.

By contrast, I’ve loved taking along my Chromecast with Google TV to hotels, along with:

• A VPN client installed it already,
• An Android phone that can create a WiFi AP while connected to the hotel WiFi,
• A Bluetooth speaker and my Bluetooth headphones paired to it so I get great audio as well.

This has been a complete gamechanger and a genuine upgrade over yesteryear’s Chromecasts.

Apple doesn’t care about your privacy. They care about their image of caring about your privacy.

What do you do with CDs? Genuinely curious about how they can be used in 2024 and surprised artists still have any printed.

I absolutely love Windows with the Linux subsystem. Coming from Mac it’s genuinely terrific to not have to mess around with homebrew. Incredible to see how Windows came from being comically inferior to surpassing Apple as there has been absolutely no progression there in the last decade.

It would be better if direct sales were allowed, but unfortunately dealerships are required by law in almost all US states. The shady bit is how Tesla got one of the few exceptions and continues to be exempt despite being among the leading car manufacturers in the USA. All other leading manufacturers are required by state laws to sell their vehicles through dealerships.

Tesla’s NCAS chargers only began to allow non-Teslas to use it from 2019, so this is kind of recent history in terms of car ownership and network coverage.

That hasn’t been my experience, but perhaps regulations are stricter in the EU.

Regarding the sales process: in Tesla’s early days, they received an exception to the requirement for needing to use dealerships. Generally this is very shady and is outright unfair towards other car manufacturers—even Rivian didn’t get this same special treatment because lawmakers saw how Tesla abused it.

Tesla’s growing monopoly on charging networks isn’t something to be proud of, in my opinion, and neither is their proprietary charging cable. We need open standards.

Also, Tesla’s mileage estimates are notoriously exaggerated. Perhaps technically you can get the claimed range if the entire trip is downhill…

Whoa, the owner acknowledged that the weather was to blame, not Tesla?!

Allow me to clarify:

• Limited support for AirTags has been added to Android, that is the context of the posted article and the experience you are describing.
• Apple neither supports account access on Android devices or provisions access to their tag network on behalf of linked accounts, so unless you have an Apple device, you cannot stipulate that a tag that belongs to you.

Consequently, the solution offered by Google appears to have been effectively built without Apple’s support. Goggle’s added support for AirTags despite Apple’s cooperation—and support for other tracking devices—is a net positive for privacy.

Yes, users have begun to be alerted of trackers—this is the recent change by Google as it relates to this post. An ongoing issue is, to my knowledge, that there’s no way to identify what kind of device it is. Goggle’s instructions literally suggest taking a screenshot of the serial number for later reference.

Android has no way of knowing if a tag is “unauthorized” because Apple does not provision access to their tag network. You could, in principle, ignore tags that you know about, but you’d have to do it by identifying it by some arbitrary hexadecimal GATT ID.

As always, Apple wants to keep it that way, because it gives a poor experience on Android.

Theoretically (and I might be wrong about this), without attempting to reverse engineer how Apple assigns these codes, there would be no to differentiate AirTags, AirPods, iPhones, etc.

We’re up in arms about the discontinuation of a 12-year-old security camera? I think 12 years of support is more than reasonable.

There is a much more sinister issue that Google is trying to resolve with this: it’s currently possible to stalk somebody by placing a tracker fob in their bag or on their car, so long as you know the victim’s device doesn’t support it.

Suppose some creeper with an iPhone is stalking a victim with an Android phone. So long as they use an Apple AirTag, the victim will never know they have a tracker trailing them wherever they go. And in reverse, the issue is the same.

Apple isn’t concerned about this, because they hold a monopoly in the market they care most about and can leverage this as an iPhone-only feature. After all, so long as you have an iPhone, you’ll be warned about an AirTag you don’t own following you. Apple wants to leverage this as an exclusive safety feature and have no intention of allowing other devices to do the same.

Apologies for providing this background as I know that this goes against the circle jerk of accusing Google of infringing our privacy. Feel free to disregard this context of it being beneficial to our collective privacy.

I find it difficult to know if my flight will avoid 737 Max, so I’ve been avoiding airlines that have them in their fleet. Unfortunately, British Airways recently rebooked me onto an Alaska Airlines, and sure enough, it was a Max 8. Sometimes you just can’t win.