Thurrott Daily: October 26

What else is happening today?

10/26/2015 1:02:23 PM

Surface Book behind the scenes

Wired has a great article called The Inside Story of Surface Book, Microsoft’s Next Big Thing. You should read it.

Kangaroo: “The world’s smallest portable computer”

This looks very interesting. Kangaroo is basically a tiny PC with four hours of battery life and connectivity for screen, keyboard, and mouse via an even smaller mobile dock. The best part? It costs just $99, plus $39 for the dock. This may be worth exploring. It’s available at Newegg.com now and will be at Microsoft Store Online and retail locations by mid-November.

Apple TV is available for preorder

If you’re interested in the new Apple TV, you can preorder it today from the Apple Store online for October 30 delivery. Or, just pick it up at the local Apple Store on the 30th, I guess. There are two models available, a 32 GB version for $150, and a 64 GB version for $200. I preordered the less expensive one to review and, I hope, to see when/if Microsoft releases Groove and Movies & TV apps for it. /crossing fingers

Apple sued over iOS 9 Wi-Fi assist

And speaking of Apple, everyone’s favorite religion in the making is finding itself in a bit of trouble, PC World reports, thanks to a new feature in iOS 9.

Florida-based William Scott Phillips and Suzanne Schmidt Phillips filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple over Wi-Fi Assist … The pair claims Apple failed to adequately warn users that the feature would use data from their cellular plan, resulting in overages.

The feature in question — which is on by default within iOS 9 — switches to cellular data when you have a weak Wi-Fi connection. “For example, if you’re using Safari with a poor Wi-Fi connection and a webpage doesn’t load, Wi-Fi Assist will activate and automatically switch to cellular so that the webpage continues to load,” Apple explains.

I’ve seen a number of sites writing up tips about disabling this feature, but I’m not honestly sure if this is a big deal or not. I’m also not sure I want to figure that out.

Toyota regains top spot in automotive sales

As the owner of a VW SportWagen TDI—that is, a diesel vehicle—I was fascinated and frustrated to discover that VW was so fixated on becoming the top car maker that they willfully broke the law to make it happen. Except that it never really happened: While VW was briefly the top car maker earlier this year, Toyota has in fact regained the top spot, and sold more vehicles in the first 9 months of 2015 than did VW. And given VW’s issues, I think it’s fair to say they’ll never beat VW this year now. Which is just fine with me. Assholes.