Weekly output: T-Mobile Live Translation, Android 17, Southwest Airlines + Starlink
Despite Las Vegas not being my favorite travel destination, I returned there barely a month after coming home from CES. My excuse this time was the consumer-experience management firm Medallia inviting me to its conference there, travel expenses included; after some back and forth with their PR firm that raised the possibility of my moderating a panel at their event, I decided to accept the offer. The speaking gig did not work out, but I did learn a fair amount about the state of CX these days.
2/11/2026: T-Mobile Debuts AI-Backed Live Language Translation, No App Needed, PCMag
T-Mobile had offered me an advance on this news last week without sharing any details about it until Tuesday afternoon, right after my flight to Vegas had taken off. Then I realized that their press release left out such critical details as whether this network-hosted AI translation would keep any transcripts, so I sent back a series of follow-up questions; answers arrived just in time for me to finish the post before showing up to dinner half an hour late.
2/11/2026: Google (Almost) Announces First Beta of Android 17, Emphasizing Flexibility For Larger-Screen Devices, PCMag
This post written off Google’s embargoed announcement ran in two versions–one describing the release of Android 17’s first beta as an event that had just happened, then one posted later Wednesday reporting that Google had pushed back that release without explanation. This is nowhere near the first time I’ve seen software releases not happen on schedule, but it is the first time I can remember that a company clicked “undo” on an embargoed announcement an hour after the embargo time.
2/12/2026: Southwest Airlines Will Switch Part of Its In-Flight Wi-Fi to Starlink, PCMag
Southwest’s announcement of this went out late enough Wednesday that nobody on staff at PCMag was able to pick it up then, allowing me to file this Thursday morning. I had hoped that the time in between would allow Southwest’s PR office to answer the questions I’d e-mailed Wednesday afternoon, but I never heard anything back.
#Android17 #cx #GooglePR #inflightWiFi #LasVegas #Mediallia #pressEmbargo #SouthwestAirlines #SpaceX #Starlink #TMobile #TMobileLiveTranslation #translation #Vegas #WN
