If you missed yesterday’s live stream, here’s the latest AFTVnewscast episode. Thanks to everyone who viewed live and who participated by asking questions.
The AFTVnewscast is streamed live on Fridays at 1:30pm PT. You can watch all episodes on YouTube, subscribe via RSS, subscribe via iTunes, listen via TuneIn, Stitcher, or download the MP3 directly. Read on for the show notes and links.
Show Notes & Links
Amazon officially says Fire OS 5 will come to 1st-gen Fire TVs and Fire TV Sticks in February
Fire TV Game Controller Product Page
Sideloaded apps like Kodi can now be launched from the Fire TV ‘Apps’ section
Alexa on Amazon Echo and Fire TV can now initiate phone calls through new Ooma skill
Amazon will reportedly release a portable version of the Echo in coming weeks
Triby to be the first 3rd-party device to fully integrate Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant
Ford to integrate Amazon Alexa into cars with SYNC Connect
‘Mozart in the Jungle’ will be Free to watch this weekend — No Prime Membership Required
Mozart in the Jungle on Amazon
Amazon adds PBS Civil War-era drama ‘Mercy Street’ to in-season Prime Video lineup
First episode of Mercy Street on Amazon
New deal brings more CBS and SHOWTIME content to Amazon Prime Instant Video
Netflix cracks down on proxy streaming
Netflix now available in 130 countries with 600 hours of original programming coming in 2016
Seagate releases Fire TV media receiver companion app to use with their suite of services
Seagate Media Receiver app on Amazon
Deer Hunter 2016 released for all Amazon Fire TV devices
Amazon shopping partially available on Fire TV, with full shopping feature postponed
Amazon launches add-on subscription service for TV networks and media collections
Pre-rooted ROM and better rooting procedure coming soon for the Fire TV 2
Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller Wireless Receiver
How to block software updates on the Amazon Fire TV or Fire TV Stick
AmazonBasics 4-Port USB 2.0 Hub
Logitech Harmony Smart Control with Hub
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Hey Elias,
Great episode. Can I make one suggestion for these pages you make post-show? It’s a great idea to link to the articles you wrote that you reference in the show, but would it be possible if beside these links you put a link to a specific time stamp in the episode where you begin talking about these topics?
For example, new Alexa skills starts at xx.xx of the show, so you create a link that would bring the user to xx.xx time point.
It’s possible to do with a simple modification of the YouTube link to the episode itself and I think it would be a big help to those who wish to skip other parts and get to a part of the show they wish to see. Thanks!
What!?!? Who would want to skip even a second of this great show!?!?
:-P Just kidding. That’s a great suggestion. I’ll give it a shot for the next episode and see how time consuming it is to add the timestamps. I can’t say I’ll do it for sure from now on, but I’ll give it a shot.
Haha, much appreciated, Elias! Thanks!
I looked into this more and there doesn’t seem to be a simple way to make a link that moves the position of the embedded video. Links with timestamps will just send you to YouTube and start playing at the timestamp. It looks like there’s a way to achieve what you want using the YouTube API, but that is a bit more complex. I still need to look into it a bit more.
For example, for the Ooma news story, you would post the following link…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=husZhPVkQik&feature=youtu.be&t=281
Just wanted to comment about the xbox 360 controller and wireless dongle as I had some trouble with my fire TV 2nd gen this week. I found USB debugging required to be turned off and I needed to unplug the Ethernet cable for the dongle to function. The light on the dongle did not light up until I completed these steps and plugged the dongle back in. Hope that helps some people.
Turning off USB debugging is a necessity anytime you want to use the USB port for something other than ADB. Thanks for the tip about the Ethernet cable. I hadn’t heard that before. Are you saying the controller never works if your Fire TV is connected via Ethernet?
Will the february update for AFTV1 effect its ability to store Kodi downloaded movies on the USB thumb drive. It does it now without rooting. My AFTV2 does not store movies on either the USB or sd drive locations. I bought a AFTV1 on ebay just to have the capacity of external storage. I simply transfer the thumb drive to AFTV2 to watch HD movies I have downloaded using AFTV1. I would hate to lose that capacity. Please don’t tell me to root my AFTV2. I have tried and failed zeroepoch’s method numerous times.