Wednesday, April 23, 2014

new Kindle Fire HDX 8.9"

Our new Kindle Fire HDX 8.9" just arrived. Dad bought it a few days ago in order to read e-books. With 64 GB of storage, this Kindle is more than just an e-reader.

The tablet will be useful for the rest of us as well. An actual Android device will allow me to quickly test my code instead of having to wait several minutes for an emulator to initialize. It also means Mom and I no longer have to fight over the iPad 2 all the time. At least I hope that's the case!

In other news...

I recently passed 50,000 edits on the English Wikipedia. Though I don't have time to edit Wikipedia much anymore, this is a pretty big milestone.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

sometimes I miss the '80s...

Last week saw the release of the Amazon Fire TV streaming media player. Of course, no product launch is complete without some sort of celebration. To that end, Lab126 had a launch party at Firehouse Grill & Brewery in Sunnyvale this afternoon.

The project founders were such big fans of Ferris Bueller's Day Off that the Fire TV was code named Bueller. It only made sense that we used it to play the movie on the restaurant's projector screen. The events team also set up additional devices for gaming and retro music. The '80s theme was a nice touch.

There was also tons of food, including a cake made to look like Ferris Bueller's famous Corvette. It was an amazing event for sure. I'm sure you want to see the pictures, so here they are. :-)

Currently watching: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

check out the Amazon Fire TV!

"Ladies and gentlemen, the dawn of a new era has arrived." -- me

Back when I joined the Lab126 team, I was told that I'd be working on a secret project related to the Amazon Kindle. Two years later, our product has finally been released!

The thing we've been working on is the Amazon Fire TV streaming media player. It features high-speed streaming video, voice search, an app store, parental controls and lots of other neat stuff. The device costs only $99 and comes with a free month of Amazon Prime. The Fire TV is pretty awesome for sure. Or at least it should be, considering that I worked on it for two years. :-)

Because the launch began at 11 a.m. in New York City - or 8 a.m. on the West Coast - we had to arrive at the office early to see it live. The feed disconnected a few times due to the bandwidth, but things otherwise went without a hitch. It certainly feels great to be part of the team that made this possible. So yeah, you should order an Amazon Fire TV if you don't already have one. :D

Currently listening to: "Burn" by Ellie Goulding

Disclaimer: All views expressed in this post are solely my own. I do not represent Amazon in any official capacity.