The Michael J. Fox Show looks like it will do okay as a light family-oriented comedy. It’s not for the kiddies, but it’s about a family, following the lead of Modern Family, with won a handful of Emmies. Breaking Bad ends Sunday. Get Netflix and watch the fifty-something episodes. Person of Interest is still holding my interest. Big Bang is doing well. CSI is holding out. NCIS is doing well and NCIS LA is still holding out. House of Cards is on vacation, but catch up on Netflix, where it originates. I’m holding my breath for the 2014 return of Game of Thrones. Black List got off to a great start and may rise to stellar heights. Continuum is on vacation but I never miss an episode. Black List is using a similar formula. Modern Family is now on USA Network showing re-runs like they do with NCIS and NCIS LA. You can find CSI Miami way up on the Comcast dial. It’s a decent show that I hardly saw any of the episodes. I’ll let you know when Portlandia starts, and Grimm, too. I missed a year or two of Star Trek the Next Generation, so I check BBC America for missed episodes. I have not learned to navigate the spyware, etc. on projectfree.tv to see back episodes of Game of Thrones. May have to renew my HBO account when it starts up again.Hawaii five-0 starts in ten minutes. We’ll see where the plot goes without Kono.

Some of my best material is written between the lines. Did you notice that I have been paying a lot of attention to wearable devices? There are hardly any on the market, but this category will be HUGE in a year or less. We see the convergence of voice control of smartphones getting much better and NO improvement in pockets on men’s clothes. Both of these aspects are converging to make the smartwatch or smart ear attachment the NEXT BIG THING. There is the possibility of smart eyewear getting into the frey, too.

But for now I’ll speculate about the smartwatch and you can read between the lines that I’m also considering these other gadgets, also including superior headphones/earbuds.

The Samsung entry claims to only work with the newest Note 3 smartphone. That’s a great combination, but it takes a $700 phone and a $300 watch to implement. A year from now, a later or the latest version of Android should have a standard interface to match up two such devices. That may be announced with the latest version of Android (4.4), the “KitKat” version to come out in October. 

The KILLER APP would be to make routine use of your smartphone without taking it out of your pocket or briefcase. This would be done DICK TRACY-STYLE with a wrist radio. It’s easy to bring the wrist up to your mouth in a noisey elevator or car or Starbucks to speak or hear the signal coming from your (much-smarter) phone. All this technology exists and it’s just chicken-or-egg when it hits the market. Right now we’re waiting for more demand. 

Intel, AMD and others are working on development of these devices right now.

Nexus 5 will come out in October on the Android Play Store for about $300.  It will have a 5 inch 1920×1080 superameloid display, like Galaxy s4, a better camera than Nexus 4, and LTE, and a fast processor. It will have the next operating system KitKat, named after the candy bar. The name key lime pie was dropped a few days ago, andKitKat will be the new ” k” operating system, Android 4.4. For anybody not wanting to spend twice as much for the reigning king, the Galaxy 4, this is big news.

The new TV Season is just around the corner. There are two last episodes of Breaking Bad until the series ends. It’s my #2 favorite, following Game of Thrones. Both should be watched from the pilot, through the entire series. It’s easy on Netflix for Breaking Bad; and for Game of Thrones, go to projectfree.tv and look for it under “G”. 

It is rapidly becoming a scenerio where you need a decent Internet connection and something like a Magic Jack Plus and Netflix and something like a Rocu box or a smart TV and you’re set, for phone and TV series. 

I know this is a simplistic comment, but it is the direction things are heading.

Then you need some way to get the picture, if necessary, from your laptop or computer to the huge screen. One way is to have a server on your home computer and broadcast to the smart TV or Internet-enabled Blu-ray player. Another is to have an HDMI interface on your Laptop and an N wireless WI-FI. Some tablets and smartphones have the right interface. You, of course, need a cable from your computing device to your screen. There are wireless scenerios from your computing device to the TV which are getting pretty good. Going back to the server and then to the TV is too long a path, but controlling the server on the main computer and broadcasting directly to the TV from it works, but I haven’t tried this is a while. This is the Microsoft Media Center type of scenerio which can be done with various non-Microsoft methods, also.

This is all pretty sketchy, of course, but a “best” method has way too many variables for me to pick one for you. 

I’m going to get into this over the next year and keep you informed of my success or failures.

Well, it’s about time, but I finally had a little spare time, so I enabled LTE on my phone. I’ve only tested it in a few locations but it works better than the “older” T-Mobile HPSA+ (which they call “4G” but everyone else scoffs). HPSA+  has not been bad in the Portland area. But in many cities it is not even a close second. T-Mobile’s transition to LTE is needed to gain some customers. 

LTE is more symmetrical and I, on one test, got UPLOAD speeds in the 13 million bits per second range. The download was busy (too many customers online) and was around 2 million bps. Download started in the 15 Mbps range, but throttled down each second of download. I suspect this throttling down goes away at  two in the morning.

The best phone coverage is Verizon and the best data coverage is AT&T and T-Mobile is competing on cost and open pricing with no contracts.

Their goal is to rip off as many AT&T customers as possible and they make it easy to do with unlocked phones and straight pricing.

It was no child’s play to “root” the phone (gain access to root-level commands) and install a different radio driver to work with LTE. I can’t say I recommend it for the average user, as it requires a somewhat complicated list of instructions. I made several non-productive attempts until I got it right. As it turned out, the instructions didn’t work, and I tried alternate methods until one worked. And this was dealing with the simplest, most fool-proof method.

Could I do it again in an hour? Probably. Did it take more than a day the first time? Yes. If your time is worth anything to you, just buy a Galaxy S4 or Note 2 or Note 3 if you’re on T-Mobile or AT&T.

I’m as much interested in HOW things work as possessing something that works. So this is just trying to keep up with technology.