Friday, May 29, 2015

365 True Things: 62/Technology

You know how they say there's an app for everything?

Two years ago when we remodeled, we had a Samsung "Smart TV" installed in our bedroom suite. (It's not really a suite; it's a room with a bed and a couch in front of the TV. But "suite" sounds better.) We do not have cable or satellite, so don't watch broadcast television. Mostly we watch DVDs from Netflix, plus we pretty quickly figured out how to access streaming Netflix and Amazon Prime. That's as smart as we ever got.

Until tonight.


Tonight, I really wanted to watch, on the big screen, a show that is currently streaming on PBS, The Sagebrush Sea. I fussed with a bluetooth keyboard for a while. No dice. David picked up that ball by summoning the keyboard manual on his laptop and beginning to study it. Meanwhile, I somehow figured out how to use the remote to, oh so very tediously, input a URL onto the TV screen—until I got stonewalled by the absence of a / mark. As in video.pbs.org/video/ . . . It was nowhere to be found. So I went to my laptop and desperately googled "access internet samsung smart tv."

And what popped up but the Samsung TV Portal. And the very wise suggestion of finding an app for my phone.

Of course! There's an app for that!

And without further ado, I downloaded Remotie onto my iPhone (for free), then paid $4 to gain access to the touch screen and keyboard features. And lo and behold, they worked! Complete with the /. It was so easy.

Within minutes, we were learning about the life history of the greater sage-grouse, a remarkable bird. And burrowing owls, and pronghorn antelopes, and golden eagles, and badgers. And also: invasive species; wildfires; and humans claiming precious wetlands for their livestock and looking for liquid gold (petroleum). On the one hand, the bountiful beauty of life and creation; on the other, rapaciousness. Or maybe just, indifference—to all the flow of this planet that doesn't depend on capital.

Still: This small technological breakthrough of ours followed on a New York Times article about how the Obama administration is going to limit petroleum drilling on habitat of the greater sage-grouse. I say, bravo! I say, the greater sage-grouse deserves all the respect we can give it. I say, we should be working as hard as we can to protect the beautiful, miraculous life of this watery rock we live on. And we should be tempering our expectations, and using our ingenuity—and our technology—to live more gently on this earth.




To make things even easier when it comes to entering text on your browser, be sure to download the Samsung TV Remote App for your handheld tab (such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab), your Android OS Smart Phone (such as the Samsung Galaxy Phone) or your Apple device (iPhone or iPad). With it, you can easily use a full QWERTY keyboard to navigate the web and your favorite sites. - See more at: http://www.samsung.com/global/article/articleDetailView.do?atcl_id=8#sthash.403c9cDP.dpuf
To make things even easier when it comes to entering text on your browser, be sure to download the Samsung TV Remote App for your handheld tab (such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab), your Android OS Smart Phone (such as the Samsung Galaxy Phone) or your Apple device (iPhone or iPad). With it, you can easily use a full QWERTY keyboard to navigate the web and your favorite sites - See more at: http://www.samsung.com/global/article/articleDetailView.do?atcl_id=8#sthash.403c9cDP.dpuf
To make things even easier when it comes to entering text on your browser, be sure to download the Samsung TV Remote App for your handheld tab (such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab), your Android OS Smart Phone (such as the Samsung Galaxy Phone) or your Apple device (iPhone or iPad). With it, you can easily use a full QWERTY keyboard to navigate the web and your favorite sites - See more at: http://www.samsung.com/global/article/articleDetailView.do?atcl_id=8#sthash.403c9cDP.dpuf
To make things even easier when it comes to entering text on your browser, be sure to download the Samsung TV Remote App for your handheld tab (such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab), your Android OS Smart Phone (such as the Samsung Galaxy Phone) or your Apple device (iPhone or iPad). With it, you can easily use a full QWERTY keyboard to navigate the web and your favorite sites - See more at: http://www.samsung.com/global/article/articleDetailView.do?atcl_id=8#sthash.403c9cDP.dpuf
To make things even easier when it comes to entering text on your browser, be sure to download the Samsung TV Remote App for your handheld tab (such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab), your Android OS Smart Phone (such as the Samsung Galaxy Phone) or your Apple device (iPhone or iPad). With it, you can easily use a full QWERTY keyboard to navigate the web and your favorite sites - See more at: http://www.samsung.com/global/article/articleDetailView.do?atcl_id=8#sthash.403c9cDP.d

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