From the Editor's Desk: Updates on updates on updates

It's been a busy week (and weekend) with a lot of family stuff going on, so we'll keep things short this week. A few things worth mentioning:

I think we're 100 percent all-in on using Google Hangouts for the podcast now. The audio quality's not where I'd like it to be, but I think we can work with it some more. And it's a hell of a lot easier for video. Plus, you can watch it live, directly from the Android Central app.

Speaking of the app, we're close to beta testing v1.3 — hopefully this week. It's taken a little longer than we thought to get it pushed out (it feels weird being on that side of the equation), but it's a good update. We've got the YouTube API built in now, and it looks great. Plus we've got Google's new drawer code added in, and it also looks great. And a few more bells and whistles. We'll float it to the beta group for a couple days before the big release. Stay tuned.

And now a few other thoughts I've been thinking amid the chaos:

It's safe to say there's about zero security in place around Motorola's upcoming line of phones, right? Between all the pictures — and this full video from Canadian operator Rogers — well, it's gotten to be a little ridiculous. Still, I can't way to actually see this sucker.
Great to see Carbon finally get an update. I'd been pushed back to the official client (when Carbon's conversations view broke), and it's just not as nicely designed as apps like Carbon and Falcon Pro, to name but two.
It's been a couple weeks now since Google killed off Google Reader, and it seems like folks are finally getting tired of talking about it. So allow me a few sentences. I'm using Newsblur. It's got a decent Android app, and I'm using it through the ReadKit app on OSX. It's not as good as Google Reader was (including the Reeder app on OSX — which has yet to be updated post-apocalypse). In fact, it makes me feel like either me or Newsblur is working drunk. But it's better than nothing.
There's not much good to be had in the outcome of the George Zimmerman trial. But I wouldrecommend reading this post from Miami defense lawyer Brian Tannebaum for some insight into the procedure — and the mess that is the media coverage.
Actually, I wish there were a way to make covering trials about 100 times more expensive for TV media outlets. Maybe that would clean things up a bit.
My pals on the print side aren't coming out of all this with clean hands, either, though. Florida Today, based in Melbourne (and part of Gannett, which is the company that owns the paper at which I worked for 11 years) quoted in its reax story a "Howie Felterbush" — an obvious copycat after the hoax perpetrated by a former NTSB summer intern. Whoops. Major whoops.
Jim Hopkins, who runs the long-running, unofficial (and excellent insider) Gannett Blog, does a nice job boiling down how such hoxes make it into print.
This spate of foolishness takes me back the better part a year to my "Acts of children" column. It's just not funny.
On the TV front: "Under the Dome" probably isn't going to make the cut much longer. "The Bridge" has potential (though I wonder how long the Asperger's Syndrome angle has before it gets played out), and Netflix's "Orange is the New Black" (through three episodes so far) is funny, smart, sexy and dirty in just the right places.