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Track Your Stuff With Elgato Smart Key

Intro
Ever misplaced your keys? Or wanted to know when your luggage has arrived at the baggage claim? Maybe marked the spot where you parked the car in the mall lot?

The Elgato Smart Key aims to address all of these situations as a sensor that you either attach or place on different items for tracking. Depending on what you are looking to track, the Smart Key can notify you of certain situations that might need attention. Walk too far away from your keys, it will start to beep. Attach to your luggage and when it comes near to you at baggage claim, your phone will notify you.

Two Apple Software Deep Dives

Any geek (or developer) with even a passing interest in Apple surely is aware that the Cupertino company hosted their annual developer’s conference this past week. And what a doozy it was, with massive, meaningful updates planned this fall in iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, emphasizing continuity and cloud. There’s a lot to digest. But even given a limited, initial analysis, I’m pretty stoked. Here’s an early breakdown of two compelling Apple software initiatives:

Chromebooks Land Offline Movies & TV

By way of Twitter, we’ve learned that the Google Play Movies & TV Chrome browser extension has been updated to allow Chromebooks to cache rented or purchased video content for offline viewing. And, given my travels, this may breathe new life into my largely abandoned $250 Samsung Chromebook. It’s been interesting to observe the platform evolve … Read more

Aereo Now Streaming To Chromecast

Still waiting on a potentially fateful ruling from the Supreme Court, Aereo today announced Chromecast support for its Android app. That means that users with the service can cast Aereo video from an Android mobile device direct to an HD television via Google’s popular HDMI streaming stick. Aereo already works with Roku and Apple TV, but Chromecast … Read more

T-Mobile: The Uncarrier Hard Stop

My T-Mobile honeymoon has long since passed, with the day-to-day reality of life on a second-rate carrier having set in. Of course, your mileage may vary as cell coverage is highly dependent upon locale (or building composition). For me, T-Mobile has provided an extremely frustrating experience with perhaps, ironically, superior coverage roaming overseas partners versus native networks here at home — with the majority of my calls dropping. On the occasions I have coverage to initiate one.

Upgrading Verizon To FiOS TV Quantum

As Verizon declares its FiOS Quantum TV rollout complete, fellow Northern Virginian Ananth Sarathy shares his initial experience with the new whole-home DVR. He’s also kindly agreed to take questions in the comments — perhaps he’ll even be able to explain Verizon’s obtuse pricing.

I’ve had the new Quantum DVR for about a week now. The interface is the familiar FiOS interface that we’re used to, for better or worse. It doesn’t seem to have yet received the recent UI upgrade and is missing a few elements, such as the autotune to HD feature. The boxes do use the same FiOS remotes as before, so I’ve stuck with my existing ones, and didn’t need to program them, which is nice. But I kind of wish they had upgraded to a remote that could control AV system volume as well.