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(Continued from page 1) Chromebooks. Almost all of those Android
billion! Most UHD sets will also up-convert apps were written by third party developers,
2K material to near 4K resolution. and Google was dependent on them to re-
As far as 4K material goes, there are many write their apps to play well with Chrome-
4K sources now available. Netflix (for a books. But those developers were already
small premium) offers a selection of many in the Android marketplace; as of June
4K shows/movies, as well as all Netflix origi-
nal shows are shot in 4K now. Amazon Vid- 2017, there were two billion Android devic-
eo also has a large selection of movies to es in use! While Chromebooks finally
rent/buy in 4K as does Fandango. My per- passed Apple’s Mac computer line in quar-
sonal favorite is Walmart owned Vudu. Vudu terly sales in 2016, we’re talking perhaps
offers a digital copy for life of almost every eight million in annual sales. Now you see
DVD or Blu-ray that you purchase. All new the problem. Why would developers invest
movies are also available to rent or pur- much time in rewriting apps already selling
chase in 4K format, with older titles being in a huge marketplace so that they could be
added constantly. sold in a much smaller one?
Both satellite providers Direct TV and Dish In any event, the transition continues – albe-
offer a variety of 4K channels and rentals. it much slower than projected. New
Apple has just announced the new Apple TV Chromebook releases are optimized for An-
box with 4K/HDR support with a large selec- droid apps, and reviews have been positive.
tion of material available on iTunes. I think it is fair to say that for consumers al-
YouTube also features many 4K/HDR vide- ready using Android phones and/or tablets,
os and movie trailers. My personal favorite a new Chromebook running Android apps
4K source though, is a UHD Blu-ray player.
Nothing outside of a movie theater can com- becomes a much more viable alternative to
pare to the sight and sound of playing a a Windows laptop. Meanwhile, the conver-
4K disc or streaming 4K content from Netflix sion for older, existing Chromebooks is
or Vudu through a receiver with a Dolby At- slowly moving forward. (I have a small
mos 5.1.4 speaker setup in your own house. Acer Chromebook purchased in 2015 which
If anything in that last sentence is unknown is on the list for eventual conversion to An-
to you, wait until next month when I’ll dis- droid apps, so Google is promising to take
cuss the sound aspects of UHD and the im- care of a large share of its existing Chrome-
plications of HDCP 2.2 and HDMI 2.1! book owners.) -Stay warm!
Wi-Fi - 2.4 or 5GHz
By Carol Picard, Editor / Webmaster, Mid-
land Computer Club, Michigan
September 2017 issue of Bits and Bytes
(Continued from page 3) capmidmi (at) yahoo.com
from a non-Google source mentioning some mcc.apcug.org
aspect of the program. Piecing together
those bits ‘n pieces, this has apparently I normally have acceptable network speeds
turned out to be a lot more difficult than throughout my house but one day, while
Google expected – in part because existing downloading file to desktop computer, which
has a PCI wireless network card, was only
Android apps were scaled for the smaller getting 3 Mbps download speed. This is my
screens of phones and tablets and did not primary computer and is also located in a
display well on the larger screens of (Continued on page 5)
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