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All Posts by Phil Nickinson

Amazon Echo 101: The basics of Alexa

3 Comments
Posted by Phil Nickinson on 2 Feb 2017 10:22 am
Amazon Alexa and Echo are one and the same, right? Sort of. Not really. But yes and no. Let's break down what's what in the hottest little AI we've seen since HAL. There really is no escaping Amazon Echo. Or Amazon Alexa. Or both. And that actually highlights the confusion some folks have experienced — especially folks who aren't totally immersed in this newfangled Internet thing. There's a...

Super Bowl LI — Modern Dad's guide to the big game!

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 27 Jan 2017 5:49 pm
The final game of the NFL season is nearly upon us. Here, now, is your Dad Guide to making the most of it. Super Bowl LI (which, uh, explains why I call it Super Bowly) is coming Feb. 5 (at 6:30 p.m. on Fox). And if you're as excited as I am to see the Atlanta Falcons humiliate the New England Patriots (it could happen), then you'll of course be glued to the game. But for those of us who...

BoomTouch first impressions: The 'As Seen on TV' speaker isn't ... horrible?

9 Comments
Posted by Phil Nickinson on 26 Jan 2017 1:00 pm
There's no way something this inexpensive and lacking any real tech can be any good, right? RIGHT? You can spend a lot of money on a speaker. Or you can spend a little. But you'll forgive my skepticism of a cheaply produced commercial that lauds the merits of a speaker that lacks Bluetooth, or even a line-in option. See at Amazon No, BoomTouch is one of those things that you see on on TV...

Meitu — What you need to know about privacy and the filtering app

15 Comments
Posted by Phil Nickinson on 21 Jan 2017 4:41 pm
[record scratch] [freeze frame] [shot of Phil in Meitu app] Yep, that's me. You're probably wondering how I ended up here ... Every now and then we get hit with an app that seems to just take over. The latest — and god help me, I'm about to talk about selfies — is called Meitu. There's almost no way that you haven't seen it — or at least the results from it — in the past week or so. It's...

The Belkin Wemo Mini makes your home that much smarter

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 19 Jan 2017 11:30 am
A question your friendly neighborhood Modern Dad gets a lot is this: Are connected lights worth it? Sure. But there's a great alternative. And that alternative is a smart outlet. And we've got a brand new one here from Belkin, called the WeMo Mini. Here's the gist: It's a power outlet that, uh, plugs into your power outlet. [CUE XHIBIT YO DAWG MEME.] It also plugs into your router, which...

How to install new games on your NES Classic

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 13 Jan 2017 7:30 pm
The NES Classic — you saw our first vid on it, right? — is a cool little piece of nostalgia. But it's sorely lacking in the games department. Or, rather, it REALLY needs a way to add games. Fortunately the NES community has answered, and in a big way. And after a few rounds of tinkering we now have a super easy way to add games to the NES Classic. I used the "hakchi2" method. You'...

A Bluetooth controller fixes everything wrong with the NES Classic

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 2 Jan 2017 1:40 pm
NES30 wireless gamepad
The NES Classic ships with a wired controller — and with a rather short cable, at that. The NES30 Bluetooth gamepad fixes that. For everything that's great about the NES Classic — and there's a lot that is really fun here — one glaring black mark remains. Wired controllers suck. And more than that, the wired controller that comes with the NES Classic is ridiculously short. Maybe not for...

NES Classic is a throwback to Nintendo's best days

27 Comments
Posted by Phil Nickinson on 28 Dec 2016 12:00 pm
For a kid who never had a Nintendo growing up in the 1980s, the NES Classic is a perfect retro console at the perfect price. Once upon a time — say, a couple hundred years ago — we didn't have smartphones or tablets for gaming. I'm talking life before Mirror's Edge. Before Pokémon Go. Way before the new Super Mario Run. Instead, those of us of a certain age were born into the era of the...

SnapPower Guidelight and a USB charger is a smart way to fix a dumb outlet

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 23 Dec 2016 1:00 pm
Never fear the dark again — or have a dead phone — with this ingenious way to make the most out of your home's power outlets. Seriously, the SnapPower Guidelight is one of those simply little things you'll wonder how you lived without. I got in on the Kickstarter campaign, so I've had them for a little while and saved a little money in the process. (They're great, but they're not necessarily...

With the $50 Barnes & Noble Nook 7 Tablet, you get what you pay for

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 20 Dec 2016 11:30 am
If all you're looking for is an e-reader, then maybe $50 isn't that bad. Maybe. Possibly. The Nook 7 from Barnes & Noble is $50. That may be the best thing I have to say about it. It's not particularly fast. (Or fast at all.) The display isn't anything to write home about. The software is basically stock Android with BN apps added in. But if all you're looking for is an e-reader, then...

Amazon Fire HD 8: Finally, a tablet worthy of your kids

33 Comments
Posted by Phil Nickinson on 19 Dec 2016 3:00 pm
See at Amazon Have kids? Have kids who are always "borrowing" your tablet? Maybe get them this instead! Fun fact: Kids like stealing their parents' tablets. Maybe they're just watching videos. Maybe Pokémoning. (That's a verb, right?) Maybe they're just catching up on emails and building new slide decks. (My kids are weird. Don't ask.) Thing is, I've never really found a tablet I actually...

Lenovo Yoga Book: An Android tablet like none other

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 19 Dec 2016 2:29 pm
The innovative display ... the gorgeous hinge ... the futuristic keyboard ... or the crazy cool pen input — there are loads of reasons to love the Lenovo Yoga Book. I've seen lots of Android tablets in my day. Even the odd Android-powered laptop. I've seen Android tablets that sort-of try to become laptops. Today, though, we truly have the first one that's able to both — and then some. That...

A $13 leather Pixel XL case that's good enough for now ...

34 Comments
Posted by Phil Nickinson on 14 Dec 2016 9:00 am
Pixel XL X-Level case
With few selling leather cases for the Pixel XL so far, we turn to Amazon, and snail mail from China. If you just have to have a case on a phone (and that's a thing I've finally come around to), then you have to have a leather case. It's really the only civilized thing to do, right? Problem is leather cases for the Pixel XL are pretty hard to come by at this point. Google doesn't sell any...

Echo Dot is the best Alexa

23 Comments
Posted by Phil Nickinson on 12 Dec 2016 4:50 pm
Big Alexa? Little Alexa? Or waterproof Alexa? You've got choices when it comes to picking the best Amazon Echo. We've got answers. You almost can't go wrong picking any of the three versions of Amazon Echo. That's the official name, of course, for the little connected speaker thing that we affectionately refer to as Alexa. But the simple fact is that there are three of them, at...

Google's Trusted Contacts is a simple way for families to have some peace of mind

11 Comments
Posted by Phil Nickinson on 8 Dec 2016 1:00 pm
Getting your child their first phone is maybe as exciting for the parent as it is the kid. It's also scary as hell, yeah, but part of the idea of putting a computer in their pocket is so that you can keep in touch with them as they start branching out into the world — especially if things go wrong. (And they will at some point, right?) Now emergency contact apps are nothing new....

Modern Dad says the Ring Pro doorbell is worth the bucks!

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Posted by Phil Nickinson on 6 Dec 2016 12:30 pm
Look, a couple hundred bucks (and change) is a lot of money to spend on a doorbell. I get it. But the Ring Pro has absolutely been worth it. The Pro is the best of the best, and I haven't once regretted buying it. If you don't want to drop that much cash, also check out the original Ring. It's a little bigger and the camera's not quite as advanced, but it's still an excellent...

Make your dumb car smarter with Automatic Pro!

33 Comments
Posted by Phil Nickinson on 1 Dec 2016 9:00 am
Let's face it — we can't all buy new cars with the hot new tech. A Tesla just isn't for everyone. But we can do a few things to make our older, dumber cars just a little bit smarter. And for that, I'd been eyeing one of those little dongle adapter things from Automatic. Automatic Pro is the big brother. It's $129, but for that one-time expense you get data that uploads...

Google Home review: Taking back the living room

112 Comments
Posted by Phil Nickinson on 4 Nov 2016 12:10 pm
Google Home review: Taking back the living room
Google Home is a great start with enormous potential. Don't look for a "definitive" review of Google Home just yet — because it's just getting started. But it's already very, very good. Google's position in the home remains a little precarious, if you think about it. Or at least it's still very much in catch-up mode. It's been some five years since Android @Home failed to launch. (You're...

First look: WatchAir Smart Antenna

32 Comments
Posted by Phil Nickinson on 11 Oct 2016 4:59 pm
WatchAir
Plucking HD signals out of the air is easy — but this wireless antenna system and DVR can make it smart, with some improvements. A decent part of my hiatus away from Android Central has involved one thing — cutting the cord. And I've taken the $150 a month we were feeding to the cable company and whittled it down to about $83 with streaming services. That's a savings of about $800 a year,...

With Google Home and Google Wifi, we're finally getting a proper smart home foundation

52 Comments
Posted by Phil Nickinson on 4 Oct 2016 6:45 pm
Google Home family
Google Home and Google Wifi aren't going to be able to fix the Internet of Things. But they will try to make it smarter and point it in the right direction. The Internet of Things — many of us have a less-kind name for it — wasn't going to be fixed in a day. It wasn't going to be fixed in the blazing sun in Mountain View in May, when Google first announced its plans for Google Assistant and...

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