Here is a quick promo video of the system. It doesn’t show much really.

Here is what they had to say in the email today.

Keep it simple
The interface is now much simpler. The new customizable home screen gets you to your favorite content quickly. And within “all apps” you can see all of your shortcuts, similar to your Android phone or tablet.

Make it easy to find something worth watching
We’ve improved search across the board for content from live TV, Netflix, YouTube, HBO GO, and more. But what if you don’t know what to search for? There’s now an app called “TV & Movies” that let’s you easily browse through 80,000 movies and TV episodes across cable or satellite, Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, and many other sites. If you’ve opted in to recommendations, we can better predict what you want to watch next.

Make YouTube better on TV
We’re launching a new YouTube experience specifically built for Google TV. It is now fast and easy to get to your favorite HD-quality YouTube entertainment. And we’ve integrated YouTube more closely with Google TV search, so that you can turn virtually any topic – mountain biking, cooking, etc. – into a channel.

Bring more apps to TV
We are opening up the TV to the creativity of content creators large and small through Android Market. Android developers can now bring existing mobile apps or entirely new ones to TV. Initially, the number of apps won’t be large – for example, apps requiring a touch screen, GPS, or telephony won’t show up – but 50 developers have seeded the Market with some cool and useful apps for the TV. We’re excited to see the number of apps grow.

For even more information on these changes, check out these links:
1. Help Center
2. Website

You can also see our revised Additional Terms of Service and Privacy Note that apply to our updated software here

Happy TV watching!
The Google TV Team

The one area I am very happy with is a new gallery system. I like to shoot and upload photos but I don’t want to have countless posts of just a single photo. That is kind of annoying to the reader. I could post photos in groups within a single post but that takes too much time. I want to post photos as soon as I shoot or process them. With the current theme the individual posts don’t show up in the main blog section but they are individual posts. The new gallery system takes the featured image of my posts that are marked at a category of ‘iphoneography’ and adds them to the new gallery located on the site as http://www.husar.us/blog/husarography. This is done completely automatically so all I have do is make a post that contains a single photo and a title via my iPhone using the WordPress app. The site will then add it to my gallery on its own. Very simple process and I can do it from any location while on the move.

On the gallery page you can view the images as thumbnails. Rolling over each image gives you two options. To view the photo is a slideshow format you can click on the magnifying glass icon on the left or as a single post by clicking the icon on the right. You can post comments to the photo on the single post option. Here is a screenshot of the icons on the first thumbnail.

So give the gallery a look and please post comments to the individual photos. I have all my recent stuff up there that I have been shooting with the Instagram app. I have a bunch more photos to convert over from another site.

I hope you enjoy the new layout.

There was a waiting list for them a few weeks ago so I signed up for their email notification. They sent me an email last week and I ordered three of them withing 30 minutes of getting the email. A few hours more and they were totally sold out. I will get into the setup in a few days when I get everything mounted correctly. Until then you will have to setting for a few iPhone photos.

I have to redesign the Pint Tracker UI now that I have this sweet little monitor. The new version will take up the entire screen unlike the photos above.

I now have Pint Tracker running as an AIR app. It is working out great. I have a shortcut down in my dock so it make it really convenient to start and stop Pint Tracker as needed. I found a real nice pint icon over at http://www.iconspedia.com
that I am using. Take a look at my dock and you can see the icon sixth from the right.

I also have Pint Tracker starting up when I boot or log in to the home theater computer. Now that Pint Tracker is an AIR app, I want to update the wood background. Give it rounded edges and maybe a border around it. I want to also work in a nice reduce and close icon. The only real changes I had to make to Pint Tracker to get it running as an AIR app were to make sure my links pointing to the PHP files were absolute. Otherwise Pint Tracker can’t find them. Then the last change was adding this bit of code so that I could drag the app around on the desktop.

Previously I had been running Pint Tracker as a Mac widget. The problem with the Mac widget is that the widget is always on top of all other windows. Running Pint Tracker as a AIR app is a much better option since I can launch, reduce and quit with ease and it goes behind other open apps.

After Justin and I worked on this website for a while Ryan stopped by to see what we were up to. I had a fob ready for him as well. Here are a few “security” photos that Pint Tracker snapped when they scanned their fob for a pint.

Right now I have the camera on top of the TV mounted to the wall. Since I know it is there it is easy for me to get a good photo. Or a better framed photo anyway.

Last night just proved that people look at the fob reader and not the camera. So I need to come up with a way to have the camera and the fob reader in a box or case. Kevin suggested a cigar box so I will give that a try first. I would ideally like the camera to be up at head level. So maybe I will add a shelf next to the TV just for the fob setup. Look for an update on that in the next few weeks.

Here is the leader board after Justin and Ryan had a couple.

We did run out of beer after just 4 pints last night. I knew we were close since Pint Tracker tells me the pint count. Well kind of. Right now Pint Tracker keeps track of individual people totals and beer type totals. Since this is only the second keg I have been tracking and the first was a Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat, I could tell how many we have been pulled from the tap. But it doesn’t keep track of the current keg totals just overall totals for a particular keg type. As soon as I add another keg of Pale Ale or Unfiltered Wheat I won’t know current keg totals. So I need to show current keg total on a new screen. I will have to come up with some kind of meter to show current keg % full. Only thing I can think of is a pint decreasing it’s beer level with each tap pull. Then show a warning when it drops down below a certain level. If you have a better idea let me know. Or maybe a keg photo with a break away cut out on it to show the inside and the beer level.

I was able to get 50 pints out of the last full keg. I buy the 5.5 gallon smaller kegs since they are easy to handle and lets me swap them out quicker for more variety. Also one thing to think about is different pint sizes. I use the following three glasses most of the time.

I would like to standardize to the two far left glasses since they are the same oz. size. That will give me a better reading on a keg’s pint count. Also I have to drain off a little with each session to get the warm beer out of the line. I would estimate that is about 3-5 pints over the life of a keg or a quarter pint with each session.

With a 5.5 gallon keg there are 704 oz. Using 16 oz glasses that is 44 pints, with 12oz pints that is about 59 pints, and with an average of 14oz per pint that is 50 pints. I had 50 pints out of this keg of Pale Ale and that is not counting drain off pints. I may be off a few pints this time because I have been testing and deleting those records from the database. I will get a new keg today of Fat Time so it adds another beer on the leader board. It will be interesting to see the beer count with another full keg. Also I need to start showing recent keg lifespans. I can see a few new screens being added very soon.

Sorry for such a long post but this is exciting (geek) stuff! Do you have any ideas to enhance the system? Let me hear them if you do!

Also on Pint Tracker I exported as a Adobe Air App so I am now running that full time now on my media center PC. Here is the latest beer totals.

The web cam idea was one of the things on the TO DO list. I am happy to say that is workign 100%. When anyone swipes a valid fob the app now snaps a photo. It really makes the app a lot more fun. I just need to have people over so I can start gathering a bunch of photos from different people in the pub. I was able to adapt some code that others had already written so it was pretty easy. Kevin shared some of his Flash camera code with me and blog.vamapaull.com has some example code online as well. From those two examples I was able to make my own photo functionality from within Flash.

Here is now it works. You swipe your fob and Pint Tracker verifies that you are a valid member of the pub. Then the app fires off the quick cam and snaps your photo. A nice camera nap sounds is played for effect. Pint Tracker then uses some PHP to save the photo to the web server in a predefined directory. The photo is displayed on your profile page along with your beer stats. I have also added a new rotating display that shows the ‘Latest Security Photo’ witch is the last photo taken with the quick cam. There is a unfinished screen shot below of what that looks like.

I also had time to polish up a few other screens and add a more sexy look to the app. Thus the I’m Too Sexy for my Beer note above. There is now a check mark animation on the opening screen that I really like. 5 pints are shown and 5 check marks animate. Check out the screens below.

The above screen is the new opening screen. It also cycles this screen as part of waiting on a fob to be scanned animation. The check marks animate as a bonus. Pretty sexy don’t you think?

The above screen is the new ‘On Tap’ view or second screen in the waiting process. The beer glass label tells you what is currently on tap and changes with each new keg.

This is an unfinished screen but I had to show it. It shows the last photo that was captured and saved when a valid fob is scanned.

So there you have part of the new look of Pint Tracker v1.1. I still have work to do on the new stats screens that is not pictured above. As soon as I get v1.1 done I will get a new video up to show the features in action.

Also, the Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat was finished off on Sunday. We put in a keg of Boulevard Pale Ale last night. Also, I only get the smaller 6 gallon kegs not a full keg. Just in case you were wondering.

I will have a web page up dedicated just to the Pint Logger app and the stats it is generating. Look for a post on that very soon with the URL.

Here are a few quick photos from my iPhone of just me on the leader board. The current beer on tap is Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat. That is only on tap because my wife had girls over from work this week. They needed a girly beer on tap for their consumption. Lightweights. But trust me, I am working hard to empty the 5 gallon keg after they had their 6 beers.

Until I get the dedicate page up for Pint Tracker here is what is on my mind for updates.

1. Twitter updates on how and when they consume beer. If you are not on twitter what better reason could you want to join!?

2. Photo taken when someone swipes their fob. These will be posted to the web and Twitter.

3. Control the tap flow based by the fob swipe.

Thing on the functional side that I want to do.

1. Don’t load anything if I cannot connect to the database. Right now it loads and doesn’t display anything.

2. close and open the doors when a fob is swiped for nothing more than a visual effect.

That is all I have for right now. My pint is empty so I need to swipe my fob and get a refill. Too bad you are not here, I know that is what you are thinking right now. Anyway.

A few things to come in future versions….

1. Tweet with each beer server. Who, What and When with a link back to the dedicated page.
2. Take a photo via an attached quick cam with each fob beer served and load it to the web.
3. Control the flow of beer with a servo motor and ball value. This will be the hardest of the 3 major upgrades for sure.

Watch the video and let me know what you think.