CHUCKTOWN TECH

Why Carriers are Killing Tablets

2012-03-18T15:40:00.000-04:00

Tablets are nice devices many are now using across the world. I feel many more could be using them, but there are some reasons why a lot of people still haven't shelled out the dough yet. It's not that great hardware isn't available, it's because carriers aren't marketing them right.

Above you will see enemy #1, the carriers. Right now the price of tablets are at just about the same level of price as phones. The iPhone 4S costs $649.99 without contract, and the new iPad is $629. I use the iPad as an example because both have cellular radios in them and can be purchased at all the carriers above except T-Mobile. All of these same carriers are able to offer the iPhone 4S at $199.99 with a 2-year agreement. That's a $450 difference off the full retail value of the phone. Great for consumers and great for sales. So why don't we see this with tablets?

Verizon has been #1 when it comes to marketing and offering the biggest number of tablets, so I will use Verizon as an indicator to what is happening in the tablet market. Right now Verizon sells the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 at $699.99 without contract, and $529.99 with 2-yr contract. That's a discount of only $170, compare to the $450 difference of a cell phone. Does that seem a little odd? Now I know quite a bit of that is because a phone has a higher monthly cost due to having to have a voice/text plan in addition to data, but come on now.

Last August something awesome happened to the tablet market when HP killed the TouchPad. HP slashed the price to just $99.99 from $400 and the market answered by gobbling all of them up within a few hours of announcement. Before the price drop only about 100,00 were rumored to have been sold with almost a million manufactured. So from this we know people are willing to buy tablets, but costs must be lowered. If given the opportunity to spend $600 on a tablet or $500 on a decent netbook, who would buy the tablet? iSheep.

So here is the answer to the tablet market. Carriers must cut the price. Wi-Fi models are selling better than LTE models for this reason. Recently Verizon started selling the original Galaxy Tab refurbished for $129.99 on a 2-yr contract. Even though I can't give official reports, I can tell you I have seen a lot more of those old tablets lying around the office than I see iPads.

Things look better for the future. LTE innovation is about to introduce VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) which will make everything work on data connection only. Much like you use Vonage at home a similar thing will be happening on your cell phone. Carriers have an opportunity to bundle everything together into one cost for a data connection. Imagine paying $80 to get unlimited VOIP, 1,000 SMS, 5GB of data. Bundle that plan on either a phone or a tablet. For tablets just pair your bluetooth or use the speakerphone, or pair the phone in your pocket (work phone or inactive phone). This can happen and will give carriers the opportunity to drive down tablet costs more.

I want a $200 Nokia Windows 8 tablet next year, and i want Verizon to make it happen.

iPad, I Mean the New One

2012-03-18T14:53:00.000-04:00

So now that Apple has released another version of it's iPad I'm going to give you what you need to know to make an informed decision, either to buy it or leave it on the shelf. If you look at the picture above can you guess what versions of the iPad are being shown off? Did you even know they were different models? Read on to learn more and find your answers.

So I actually showed off a comparison with the iPad 2 shown left, and the 1st generation iPad shown right. You don't need to see the new iPad because it is the same as the one on the left, except for a slight increase to thickness of just about 0.6mm. Just in case you don't believe me take a gander below.

Looks the same huh? So if you want to buy the new iPad because of looks then this is not for you. The only way to differentiate this thing from the iPad 2 is that there is no 2 on the back of it. The brilliant marketing team at Apple decided not only to name it the same as the original iPad, but make it look just like another iPad. Well done!

Let's hit the specs, which is the only real difference you will see when shopping online for the iPad.

- 1.44 lbs
- 10 hours battery usage on Wi-Fi (somehow the same as iPad 2) and 9 hours on LTE
- 9.4 mm
- 2048 x 1526 resolution retina display (264 pixels per inch)
- Bluetooth 4.0
- 4G LTE for Verizon/AT&T
- A5X processor (dual-core with quad-core GPU)
- Dictation
- oleophobic fingerprint resistant coating
- 5 Megapixel rear facing camera (1080p at 30 frames per second)

So let's break some of these numbers down so we can understand what we are getting.

iPad Screen

Maybe you noticed that ridiculously huge screen resolution. I have good and bad thoughts on this. On the positive end games and other high-def apps will benefit from having a high-res screen. On the negative end some apps and games could look really crappy. I'm all for higher resolution, but why wouldn't Apple be happy with a 1080p screen? Now if you play a Blu-Ray quality video it will actually have to be stretched to fit the screen or possibly have bars on the side. This to me is a huge fail, but at least you get to play Blu-ray quality video without having to compress it to 720 or some other low resolution screen.

For most people the jump in resolution will not be noticeable and here is a great example provided by thenextweb.com who recently went out on the streets of New York to see if people noticed the difference. Enjoy the video.

You will notice a couple of the guys in this video really looked up close to see the difference and got it right. Most people stood straight up and guessed wrong. I'm sure if something intense like Infinity Blade II made for the new iPad was played, they would see the difference. Most people will see the new iPad and think what changed, but for gamers and tech enthusiasts like myself, they will love the new screen.

What I really would have loved to see was a new function for the OS called dual-tasking. If Apple had allowed the iPad to run 2 apps simultaneously side-by-side this would have made it a competitor to Windows 8, and also it would have made a better reason to have such a high resolution. Instead we will still be treated to the same lame old iOS having to go in and out of apps all day long.

What's Under the Hood

I will start with the quad-core graphics processor. Every major blog site was reporting Apple would be putting a quad-core processor in the new iPad to rival chip makers like Qualcomm or Nvidia. They were close, but not quite right. Apple elected to stay with dual-core processing which probably saved on battery life, but bumped up graphics processing. It is obvious when the screen is pumping out the pixels of the new iPad something had to be bumped up in the processing category. This GPU bump will allow the screen to show the brilliant resolution needed for high end games without slowing down the CPU, which handles everything the OS needs to run. I have no problem with Apple electing to hold off on the quad-core CPU. If you look at the Tegra3 chipset which uses a 4+1 processor in the likes of the Transformer Prime tablet, Nvidia manages a very smooth and fast experience that gets only a fraction of the benchmark scores Apple claims on the iPad (Apple is claiming 4x the performance). Granted benchmark scores can be fixed, but the fact Apple has chosen a chipset that gets similar performance on a huge resolution is a great accomplishment.

The new iPad is the first tablet to introduce Bluetooth 4.0. It will join the Droid RAZR, Droid 4, and iPhone 4S as the only mobile products to have it thus far. As far as we know Windows 8 tablets will be requiring it, and I'm sure new Android tablets aren't too far off either. What the new Bluetooth offers is amazing battery life. Imagine buying a wireless keyboard and only using one AA battery for over a year. But the big differentiation is that developers can now use Bluetooth products to enhance their apps. The big accessory this year has been active armbands feeding smartphones and computers information like your distance traveled and heart rate. For many of these you have had to hook it up to USB to feed the data or connect through Wi-Fi. Now Bluetooth will allow these devices constant connection to any app that is programmed to use it.

Who wants a data plan? The new iPad will be including LTE radios at 700 MHz for AT&T and Verizon, but you have to choose which company you want to buy from. The LTE radio will not switch from carrier to carrier, and I would like to know why that is? Is Apple finally letting carriers dictate functionality, or is it a technical issue? On LTE neither AT&T or Verizon will let you use Facetime, but Skype is perfectly fine. Verizon will also let you use your mobile-hotspot capability, while AT&T has disabled it. So it seems carriers are now dictating technology, which Apple has never allowed before (RIP Steve Jobs). But if you are deciding to get AT&T or Verizon's version of the iPad it is a no brainer. Verizon gives you hotspot functionality with data packages up to 10GB if you shell out the big bucks, in addition to far more LTE coverage.

Why did I put an image of the iPhone 4's camera on an iPad post? Because it's the same camera. Except Apple called it iSight to make it sound like it was new, man Apple marketing is getting lame.

$$$

Below is the list of choices if you want the new tablet.

Wi-fi (black or white)

$499 - 16GB $599 - 32GB $699- 64GB

Wi-fi + LTE (black or white)

$629 - 16GB $729 - 32GB $829 - 64GB

I was pretty amazed when I heard just $499 for the Wi-Fi only version, but wow is that LTE price tag a lot. I have a feeling Apple is trying to make up lost profit margin by overpricing the LTE model. No proof, I'm just saying.

For those of you curious about the iPad 2 pricing it has lowered to $399 for Wi-Fi only and $529 for 3G models.

Wrap-Up

So who should buy the new iPad? Well, first let me say if you purchase the new iPad make sure it's the new one and not the 1st iPad. I'm sure quite a few people out there will make that mistake thinking they are getting a deal. Thank you Apple marketing for that little problem. I think anyone who doesn't mind paying a few bucks for high quality games should purchase this iPad. I think anyone who wants LTE speeds because they are heavy browser users or need to download huge files should get this iPad (couch surfers buy Wi-Fi). So other than maybe 1-2 million people go buy the iPad 2 and save $100.

Windows 8 Review

2012-03-04T18:09:00.000-05:00

Lookout Apple Microsoft is now the innovator. That is a bold statement I just made, but take a look at what Microsoft is pulling out of their incredibly large magic hat. Creating an operating system is tough, creating an operating system that spans from phone to tablet to PC is downright ridiculous. One company is about to do it, and do it relatively nicely. There are some huge concerns that you need to know. Read on to see what I feel about the preview version of Microsoft's new baby Windows 8.

Let me start by saying you should be confused, excited, and utterly dumbfounded by what you are about to see. This is just a preview of what Microsoft is doing to transform the way you use your computer. The first time I saw the start screen to Microsoft's new Windows 8 operating system I thought the PC was dead. If this was the direction everything was going, Microsoft is about to lose a ton of money. After using it as my primary OS now for 4 days I cannot describe how wrong I was. Make way for the next generation of computing. Watch this preview video below and then enjoy my experiences with the next gen operating system.

I hope that video wasn't too boring for you. It did give you a great feel for how Windows 8 looks and feels though which is what I wanted. So now let me tell you what it's like to actually use because that video was just scraping the surface of what to expect.

GETTING STARTED

Anyone running 7 can easily download the consumer preview installer here, or if you want to download it from a flash drive or CD you can download the ISO image here and burn it to disk. The product key is DNJXJ-7XBW8-2378T-X22TX-BKG7J and is rumored to be expiring March 2013. That means you get 1 year before you gotta put up some cash for the new software. Here are the system requirements that must be met for install. You must have a 1GHz processor and screen resolution of 1024 x 768. If you use the 32-bit edition you must have 1GB of RAM, and if you run 64-bit edition you must have 2GB of RAM. Touch is only enabled if the screen supports multi-touch. Also, if you want to be able to snap apps and resize them together you must up your screen resolution to 1366 x 768.

Setup really was amazing. The install is finished in just a few minutes. I downloaded the ISO and burned to DVD. The file itself is 3.3 GB for the 64-bit and 2.5 for 32-bit. During the install it has an easy step-by-step, and will allow you to create a partition for dual boot if you wish. So simple your mom could do it. If you have Windows 7 and are adventurous you could install right on top of it and all your programs will run in the desktop app just like they do now.

WHAT TO EXPECT

Now I have installed a 32-bit edition to a laptop running a 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo with 1GB of 800 MHz RAM. That is not powerful at all, but most programs ran really smooth. The major complaint I have with performance is that you don't know if something is waiting to load or is freezing. This can be a huge problem during usage. If something is downloading you get a series of dots that will fly through the screen, but if you are waiting for lag or loading there is nothing. The hourglass is absolutely gone, and occasionally is replaced with dots scrolling around in a small circle. Note to Microsoft I need to see the circle of dots a lot more. So many times I will open an intense web page or high memory app that will just freeze and all I see is my mouse moving. Remember I have a very slow computer so I don't expect it to run smoothly. In fact I just had Ubuntu 11.1 and experienced much of the same. My recommendation is to use Windows 8. I found it much more fun to use, and for now I don't mind picking it over Ubuntu.

For someone with more up to date hardware Windows 8 is a dream. On my power laptop sporting an i7 quad-core and 6GB of RAM nothing was slow. I also am running off an SSD drive at around 256MB/sec read speed. The OS loaded almost instantly from cold boot, and apps were the same. You read that right, almost instantly from cold boot. The major gripe I have is that I get 1080 native resolution and it did not recognize this. I was forced to go to a default resolution of 1280 x 800. Not sure why that happened, but I am trying to find reasons. Other than the resolution gripe, which I am sure will get fixed by the actual release of the OS later this year, I am more than pleased with the speed and feel of the new software. Now let's get into the pros and cons.

START SCREEN

When you first boot your machine up you will be greeted by your wallpaper followed by some notifications cluttered with the time/date at the bottom of the screen. Just slide the screen up with your finger/mouse and voila the start screen to the left will appear. Now you see a completely customizable set of tiles setup in a grid like display. You can move, take away, categorize, or even stretch the tiles. Some tiles like weather, mail, or people will show you live updates. This is just like the live tiles that Windows Phone uses. If you need to see all your program tiles just right click and an option will appear at the bottom of your screen. In fact there are a lot of hidden commands all over so let's go through some of them alright.

To the right, you will see the charms section. I hate the name, but you will use them quite a bit. This is accessed by just swiping your finger from the right bezel or by moving your mouse cursor to the top right edge of the screen. You can access the charms from anywhere in the OS and here is why that is important. To the left you will see the search function. Like phones are now doing, you can universally search for apps, files, or content just by typing in the search feature. Moving on the Share feature is very similar. If you are reading an e-mail or looking at a web page simply hit share and you get a similar menu listing all the apps you can share your content with. So click Twitter and you can make a post, or click mail and you can e-mail a link. The start/settings buttons are pretty obvious so I won't waste your time. Then there is the devices section. When you plug something in say a phone or a printer Win 8 automatically obtains the drivers and connects the device. Microsoft is saying up to 90% of devices will work this way, even cellular embedded modems. My HTC Trophy however was not recognized at all.

Above you will see a shot of some interesting tiles. Notice the ones with the blue backgrounds? Those are all programs/utilities that must be loaded in the desktop version of Windows 8. The old desktop you're used to in Windows 7 is now treated kinda like an app. It has it's own tile and when a utility like Task Manager is opened it loads into the Desktop app and goes full screen when you click the icon. You will see yourself going to desktop mode a lot, but for most day to day usage you can stay mostly in the tile menu which operates much quicker than the desktop app.

Now let's go multi-tasking. Above is an example of the new taskbar. Whether you are in the desktop, start screen, or app just move your cursor to the left corner or slide your finger from the left bezel on touch displays. You will notice the start screen on the bottom left as well as your most recent app at the top followed by your other recent apps. Just like on a phone Microsoft is freezing that app when you stop using it so it does not use resources. Like a phone some apps like the Music app or Slacker radio will continue to play audio, but all other features in the program are frozen. This allows the OS to run smooth even if you have an outdated PC.

APP STORE

Just like on phones Microsoft has seen the error of it's ways and will now offer a centralized store to download apps. No longer will you want to visit websites every time you want to download something. Just open the store icon and get searching. Developers will have a choice of submitting apps that are not certified, and will not have access to any other resources like people or mail; or get certification from Microsoft and deliver a safe app tested and approved. This will still give developers the ability to make apps with any content they want, or limit the content to have more access and greater appeal in the market. Either way the user will get a safe easy way to download apps with peace of mind knowing Microsoft has made it safe. The only negative I have now is that just like the phone it will get cluttered. The app store is sorted by category, top paid, top free, or all stars.

As far as the apps themselves I am excited from what I have seen so far. Above you get to see one of the few weather apps already in the market. The apps are fast, beautiful, and free until the true release of Windows 8. For now I can tell the app store is limited because of the whole free thing. No Office 15 is being shown off yet, and most of the apps already in the market are free on mobile devices already. So for now don't expect a very robust market. When making this post it seems the app store is around a couple hundred apps.

Now just because you can't download your favorite games and programs from the store now, doesn't mean you can't use them. If you pop a CD in it will still install programs, but only from the desktop app not from the start menu. This will prove to be annoying. For now remember, this is a transition happening. Microsoft can't just kill the desktop and go completely to the tile interface.

METRO UI

Last year we saw the emergence of the Metro UI in Windows Phone and more recently in XBox. The new metro font created by Microsoft followed by the new live tile interface has focused Microsoft's direction. Above I am showing the People hub which shows off the new font, as well as the way Microsoft has included services like Twitter and Facebook to enhance the UI. Just like on Windows Phone when you open the people hub you are treated to a list of all your contacts, a "what's new feed" showing your social updates, and a "Me" info section with all your personal updates. No other platform has done a better job of this than Microsoft. As you see above they really take advantage of the resolution by showing the pics/videos in the feed. I can easily scroll using my mouse or swipe using my finger. Apps like this are what makes computing fun, and why the phone is becoming more important than the PC on your desk. Using Windows 8 has made me realize the desktop we are used to is sluggish and stale. The more I am forced to use the desktop app, the more I realize how great the new metro UI is. Let's talk about where it is going.

We all remember the death of DOS right? Back in the day a PC was run completely by DOS commands. Then Windows came and transitioned everyone to the Windows interface with a mouse. By Windows 98 DOS was dead. I think the desktop is now going through the same phasing out process. With Windows 8 the transition starts by making the desktop an icon that will still run and install things just like DOS, but by Windows 9 (X, 10, whatever they want to call it) comes out I bet it's gone. The only thing Microsoft needs to make this happen is a big app store. They have to transition everyone. To many it will be irritating, and there will be growing pains, but the future looks bright. We won't need a mouse and keyboard in 10 years. That's why this new UI loaded onto PCs, tablets, phones, TVs, etc. is so important.

THE 3 SCREENS

So when Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer started using the term "3 screens" years ago when the XBox started catching on it was just an idea. Now Microsoft it making it happen. From the phone, to the XBox, to the PC; a Windows Live login and a metro interface are making all 3 components speak to each other. A TV can get media from a PC, a phone can control a TV. Now a Microsoft e-mail account get's you Skydrive with 25GB of cloud storage, a Windows 8 settings/theme backup, XBox live integration with all your devices, e-mail on all your devices, the ability to purchase media on one device and share it with all your other devices, and we are just getting started. Rumors are already being circulated Microsoft will create a cloud media service like Google Music where you can store all your media on Microsoft's servers and never have to download it to a hard drive.The code being used for Windows 8 is almost perfectly in line with the code on Windows Phone so that the apps will be inter-usable from PC to phone to XBox. The capture below shows all the settings that currently sync from one Windows 8 device to another. Add Xbox live and Skydrive and I would say Microsoft has a pretty good thing going here. Windows 8 is fully compatible with Homegroup, which any Windows 7 user hopefully is familiar with. That will give you the ability to share files or stream media content directly with any PC/TV compatible on the same local network.

OVERALL IMPRESSION

This is a transition OS much like Vista. The fact we still have to use the old desktop is a drain on the overall experience. If you use a touchscreen I don't know how you could not like Windows 8. You can tell the mouse and keyboard was an afterthought. If you don't have a touchscreen you must learn all the little keyboard commands and mouse controls necessary to be a power user. Every boxed edition sold will need a cheat sheet and to me that is a big fail for Microsoft. The interface is not intuitive enough for a techy like myself to figure it out without a run through. However, once I was used to how everything worked I was extremely pleased with the feel of the interface. It is fast even on old processors. It is far more fun than any other OS. I know I will get hate mail for this next comment. Apple your iPad is a year away from being obsolete.

So that is what I think of the OS itself. If you want to read on I am going to discuss Internet Explorer 10, the new browser included in Windows 8. If not I hope you enjoyed my preview and happy downloading.

IE10

So let me start by giving you a story. My brother and I often argue a lot about technology and what the best OS is or who the best company is. The Microsoft v Apple argument has gotten quite heated. Recently we have been arguing over browsers and capabilities. He is a web/app developer with a heavy emphasis in Java, while I am just a user heavily trained in sales and troubleshooting. So pretty much every argument is between the developers capabilities with the product and the actual user experience. Recently he has been focusing on the HTML5 crossover which is all good. Both of us can agree Flash must go and HTML5 is what will do it. So to him going to www.html5test.org and rating all the browsers is essential because he needs to know the capability of the browser. I on the other hand have a crop of websites I go to which I know will display differently depending on which browser I am using. So of course he hates IE because they are so behind on HTML5 capability not even caring about things like hardware acceleration or just flow of the interface. So here is my impression of what is happening to browsers.

I have heavily used Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and IE9. Chrome is probably my go to especially if you have a low powered PC. IE9 is still my daily driver because I think it still gives me the best access to content on the webpage even if it falters with some of the CSS or Java rendering. The acid3 tests will prove IE still has a little trouble with Java and HTML5 tests prove developers are heavily limited with IE9. However, IE10 is supposed to close that gap. It's tests are just below what capabilities Chrome and Safari have, and to a developer IE10 should be a welcomed edition. But to a consumer IE10 might be a step back for now. Let me explain.

Above is a screenshot of IE10 in the desktop version of Windows 8. Looks a lot like IE9 eh? Well, if you look at where the big colored blocks are with the headlines over them in white there is something missing. There are actually graphics supposed to be displayed with transparency over the colored backgrounds. In IE9 all of it is viewable and loads perfectly, however in IE10 nowhere to be seen. Below in the Metro interface of Windows 8 the same thing happens. In Windows 8 Metro you cannot have addons like Flash so I went to the desktop version of windows 8 downloaded all the addons I usually use in IE9 and still was unhappy with performance. So what to do?

As you can see above the metro UI is a bit different, no home or favorites button. There are tabs, but you have to right click on the page to bring them up. The pages load quick on either interface, but with heavy sites the browser will not show the page until it is fully downloaded. So you can be sitting for a few seconds before you see anything on the page. This sucked! So I battle with myself. Should I use the desktop version which will load Flash and be more clunky or stay in Metro and have a cool interface, but be limited. Neither!

The HTML5 test showed a huge improvement from 141 for IE9 to 314 in IE10, and a 100 in the Acid3 test when IE9 got a 97. So I should love IE10 according to my brother's perspective. But no, even though it loads pages quicker than I have ever seen it's still not good for the user. I have installed Chrome on my desktop for now. I personally hate that I have had to do this, but IE10 needs more work. The speed and testing shows potential for IE10, but all my websites should load properly. This can be fixed, IE10 is still a very early build. I also would still use it on a tablet any day. But for now on my desktop Chrome it is until Microsoft can workout the bugs in the rendering.

That's all for now folks. Since the browser is such an important way we use our computers I thought I would single it out here in my Windows 8 review because it is such an important part of the experience. Hope I enlightened some of you. Enjoy and feel free to e-mail me your thoughts or questions.

Mountain Lion OS X 10.8 Review

2012-02-16T21:09:00.000-05:00

Today Apple decided to give everyone a little taste of the next OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. True to their word Apple is about to release their annual OS upgrade. I give you some of the big changes I find important so you don't have to wade through the hundreds of enhancements Apple has been working on. The new changes were much needed. Let's hope this covers up all the stability issues that plagued OS Lion last year. Read on and enjoy the video preview.

Welcome to the start screen for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. Notice Mac was not used in the previous sentence, that was on purpose because it's gone. Now if only Microsoft can get rid of that annoying Windows label we can have an OS war once again. Any way notice the screenshot above. Apple is now forcing it's users to install their OS using an Apple ID. Can't say that I am surprised, but not sure why I should be forced to do it. This will give everyone the ability to start using the cloud before they even open their first program. Once you sign in to your pretty new software there a few more major things you will want to use. Below I am going to run down these improvements so enjoy.

Messages

Once you unlock your Mac just put two fingers on the right edge of your magic trackpad and swipe left. Voila a new messages bar. You now have a notification bar to feed you messages. Seeing this I immediately smiled because I so love using something similar in Ubuntu. Gadgets on Windows 7 is nice, but nowhere near as nice to see or use. Using a high def screen this is an excellent use of space. A browser does not need to take up a whole screen anymore so mad props to Apple for letting us use that space. Notice the dark gray background people? Why can't they use it for iOS? I'm so sick of the same old lame color scheme, but that is not what we are discussing now so let's continue.

iChat is now as dead as Whitney. Make way for Messages. I don't like the generic naming, but the functionality is where it's at.

Taken from iOS's messenger app, OS X 10.8 is joining all your services like Google Talk, Jabber, Yahoo, and AIM all loading buddy lists. Notice they left out MSN...burn. There is also a hook built in to launch Facetime. Props to Apple for integrating all these services, but I would love to see MSN and Skype integrated as well. While we are at it, Facebook please? I guess I am asking too much. Also, do not expect to link your 10 digit iPhone number. This will be e-mail link only from iMessenge.

Airplay

So Apple is adding mirroring to Apple TV using Airplay. There will be an icon that shows up in the menu bar letting you know you can mirror when an Apple TV is connected to the same network. Apple is a little behind here. Yes, they make it really easy to use, but I am shocked they did not do more with this feature. So right now it only mirrors up to 720p content. The only nice thing is it will auto scale the media you are mirroring and adjust the resolution if needed. So great job with mirroring for dummies, but real nerds are going to feel limited.

Gaming

Apple is blurring the line between iOS and OS X by letting the Gaming Center onto it's bigger platform. All the games you love on iOS will now be played on the big screen. I don't know how well this will translate considering you are using a magic trackpad and not a touchscreen, but we shall see. You will also be treated to sweet features like leaderboards, achievements, in-game voice chat, and multiplayer online opponents. Once again this will appeal with the Mac for dummies crowd, but hardcore gamers won't give a damn.

Cloud

iCloud has been pretty much used to just backup your iPhone stuff in case it crapped out. OS X 10.8 makes it a key feature for anyone using Mac products. Since you have to login with your Apple ID the first time you start the OS, iCloud quickly gets to work and before you know it contacts, calendar, and mail are pushing from your iPad or iPhone. Also, there are some enhanced features to documents. Apps will get access to your doc library, and you will get to create folders to organize your docs. Way to show up Skydrive Apple. Changes are instant as well. I have to admit Apple has raised the bar with cloud syncing. They were not the first, but once again they integrate the service flawlessly.

iOS facelift

So a lot of programs are seeing a design overhaul to look more like OS. Check below for some examples. You also see new share buttons show up through much of the highly used programs in OS X so sending a link or media file to mail, twitter, Airdrop, etc. is so much easier now.

App Security

Apparently Apple is getting a little suspicious of malware these days. So much so, they have introduced something called Gatekeeper. This will mostly just bug developers, but will help the Mac for dummies crowd secure their computers. So now when you submit an app it has to have a level of certification. A user will have the option to download certified or non-certified apps from the App Store. This will give the user an easy way to download apps without having to worry if Apple approves of it, but developers may get irritated knowing they may need to get Apple approval to have the biggest share of the market.

Wrap-up

Not being a huge Apple fan, I feel like something is still missing from OS X 10.8. I am impressed with the way Apple implements the things we want to use the most, but still I can't say that OS X is the best system out there. Anyone with a Mac should download this upgrade on the first day of release. I would guess it will be available for download within a few months. Check the video below for a great walk through from Nilay Patel at www.theverge.com. It's the best preview I have seen thus far.

Blackberry Where Are You?

2012-01-30T18:34:00.002-05:00

Blackberry for the longest time was THE smartphone brand to go for in the mid to late 2000's. Having used and owned a couple of their devices I am very keen to what they have done, and are doing now to own the smartphone market. Love'em or hate'em Blackberry is still very relevant, but huge changes are about to take place. With Blackberry's share of the phone world falling off a cliff the last year, there is still reason to have hope. Read on to get a layout of what to expect from the Canadian icon...

Above you see an early model of what RIM (the company who makes Blackberry) was churning out of the factory. Rappers like Jay-Z threw out the word "blueberry" to describe their Blackberry because of this little guy. For all who think Jay-Z is too amazing to make the mistake, go listen to the song Encore when he says "out the country with the blueberry still connect". Yeah, not the lyricist everyone makes him out to be. Going back to Blackberry, they owned the smartphone market. In 2008, when the Pearl and Curve hit the market, RIM was able to push smartphones to all consumers and not just business professionals. They owned 43% of the smartphone market, and stock prices were up around $150. So what went wrong?

In April 2007 Apple introduces the iPhone and in January 2009 Android is introduced. The touchscreen world hit RIM like a ton of bricks. Trying to hold off the Apple surge RIM released the Storm on Verizon exclusively. This was a chance for both RIM and Verizon to take control of the market. As many of you may know though despite very nice sales, reliability issues stained RIM's reputation and the new touchscreen style SureType (a clickable touchscreen) did not make quite the impact it needed. Verizon decides to turn to Android for a second chance at an iPhone killer. So in the holidays of 2009 Droid becomes the spark Verizon was looking for, and RIM is now the bastard son of Verizon.

global smartphone market share mid-2011

In 2010 RIM still tried to pump out some devices continuing the same old Curve, Storm (Torch), and Bold series with a new optical trackpad instead of the trackball we all loved so much on earlier devices. All of a sudden at the end of 2010 Blackberry starts losing a little market share and starts to panic. Windows Phone hits market, Palm is about to die, and Android is gobbling up whatever market Apple hasn't covered yet. So RIM goes crazy and starts buying software companies to makes it's browser and UI better. And finally, RIM acquires what they think will be the Holy Grail of UIs...QNX.

QNX is another Canadian company that will bring RIM a smaller and different type of OS that will keep up with Android because they now plan to run Android apps on top of it.

So in 2010 QNX is adopted to usher in a new OS that will recapture the hearts and minds of old RIM users that left for other platforms. So in 2011 Blackberry releases the Playbook. I can only describe this as a turd covered with a nice aluminum chassis. Although the hardware is very nice, in fact nice enough that Amazon built the new Kindle Fire on it. Hardware is not all of a device these days though. RIM put the most half baked OS ever to be seen on a device. The things consumers identify as Blackberry is BBM (RIM's homemade messenger) and secured e-mail. Guess what the Playbook did not have? That's right kids, neither. They touted a great Flash enabled browser and the ability for HD content playback done extremely smooth. In addition they practically stole a multitasking design made by Palm showing you all your running programs at once in a card type design. This is nothing new, but QNX allowed all the cards to play simultaneously. Much like a PC you can see multiple programs processing at the same time never before seen on a mobile device. Check out the video below to get a taste of what QNX is doing to Blackberries.

So obviously this was more of an ad than an instructional video, but you could see what it could do. it looked nice, and honestly getting my hands and actually using one of these was a dream. I would have liked a little more screen real estate, but not a deal breaker. What makes me stick with my Touchpad instead of the Playbook is RIM's slow march to making the OS finished. About a half year after launch we are just seeing what the email client will be, and BBM is still nowhere to be found. To top it off RIM's secured BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) is rumored to not be able to work on the Playbook. This is very bad if RIM can't get it to work right. BES is what secured organizations, like our government, use to give the president a secured smartphone. There is a reason the DoD hasn't outfitted Obama with an iPhone or Droid. An isolated server dedicated to RIM's services is a paranoid government employee's dream. Without these two things BES and BBM, RIM will most surely lose a lot of Blackberry loyalists.

So what is RIM's plan for the future? QNX will be deployed on both tablets and smartphones in the future. BES is still unclear, and honestly I think BBM will be eliminated. Soon Blackberry will release a new edition of the QNX OS that will include Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, E-mail, and text all together in a universal inbox. This is the alternative that I actually really like. I know a lot of people will be pissed to see BBM go away, but one unified messaging app is a better way to communicate. It's just quicker and easier for the OS to handle on the device. So now that we have a grasp of what they are doing on software, let's talk hardware.

So Blackberry just released a new version of the Curve, Bold, and Torch on all the major carriers around the world. Did you notice? I would bet not. These devices are also running a mock of the old software with some transitional pieces to the new QNX phones due out at the end of 2012. Did I just say the end of 2012? Wow! Still makes me dizzy to think we won't see the next generation of Blackberry until the holiday season. To hold us over though look at the pretty Porsche phone above.

Right now RIM's stock and employees are falling off a cliff. Thousands of employees were laid off last summer, their co-CEOs stepped down, and two of their employees just got booted off a plane going to China because they were drunk and stupid. Do you think RIM can stay alive long enough to see QNX save the day? Ask their new CEO Thorsten Heins. Thorsten, which is pronounced like tersten, is a German who used to run the technology division at Siemens. Seems natural RIM would appoint a Siemen's executive. They originated together back in the 90's building cell radios and making email/SMS paging a reality on your hip. During Thorsten's reign the cellphone division died and Siemens got into energy and networking technologies instead. So 4 years after being acquired by RIM, he lands the hardest job in Canada right now. Good luck!

Is this what Hitler would have wanted?

Listening to Mr Heins on various media outlets he seems optimistic about the changes occurring at RIM, and felt old leadership needed to go to make the company fresh again. Right now the public needs to see something new from RIM, but we will have to make do with what we have now for another 10 months. So when will Mr Heins unveil the new generation and hurt sales of the current generation? My guess is August after RIM stock hits $9. By that time the iPhone 5, the Droid 4, and the Nokia Lumia will be dominating the market. Expect Amazon or Facebook to scoop up RIM, gut it, and make something even worse out of it.

CES 2012: Automotive review

2012-01-16T18:52:00.001-05:00

I don't get the opportunity to write about cars very much, but I was ecstatic to get the opportunity to look at some of the automotive splendor that was wielded by the major auto makers at CES this year. In the midst of the Detroit International Auto Show for some reason big auto decided to use CES as an opportunity to show off some more concepts. I am a bit of a car enthusiast and some of the tech recently demoed is going to blow you away. Read more to find out what Ford, Audi, Lamborghini, and Porsche are doing to keep the tech world interested on more than just Apple.

I'm going to start this post by showing off what Porsche is doing with it's dash system. For those that don't know Porsche is making some big changes to their product line. Creating their first sedan, adding electric motors, and signing a deal with Blackberry prove to make 2012 an interesting year. Take a gander below:

So above you will see a very sleek design much like you would see on your most recent Blackberry devices. Well, that's because it's running Blackberry's new OS called QNX. QNX is no stranger to dashboards and you will see them implemented in Audi and of course Audi's off brand you may know by the name of Lamborghini. Here is Porsche though creating a QNX device that mirrors the Blackberry OS on top of Nvidia's Tegra 3 processors. Other companies like Audi try to tailor the look to their tastes on the Tegra 3, which is far from the Canadian programers tastes in Blackberry world. Below is the concept car for the next Carrera. As you can see that is an LCD dash display also running off the same Tegra 3 processor. Now attached to those carbon fiber seats are a pair of Blackberry Playbooks. The Playbooks will bridge to the dash and to your phone, if it so happens to be a blackberry device, to run email as well as other media apps like Pandora to make your car brilliant.

Blackberry is not done with just the Carrera. To compliment the new relationship with Porsche the boys in Canada are also releasing a limited edition Bold 9900 named the P9981. Not much creativity their on the phone naming eh? How about the Boresche? Take a gander at what it will look like. The back is sporting all leather, and as you can tell aluminum plating everywhere. Hope that doesn't make the signal suffer. If you want one of these take your heart medication now because the cost may be around $2,000, leaving many retired Porsche owners in the hospital after sticker shock.

Now I'm not done with luxury quite yet. Below please fix your attention to the newest redesigned Lamborghini known as the Aventadore. Like tradition it was named after an amazing trophy winning bull that surprised Spaniards back in 1993. The 691 hp V12 built in the Aventadore will gladly live up to it's name. Thanks to Audi this work of art on wheels will have a Tegra 3 processor in the dash to host it's LCD dash and 3D navigation system (just the maps not the interface luckily). Take a gander at the Start button with the flip cover on top, much like a jet fighter. In fact many of the design queues found in this car are modeled after a jet. That's because this bull was modeled after an F-22 Raptor. notice the lines on the nose and tail. As you can see LED lights are everywhere and the body is made of carbon fiber. Lamborghini claims this beast is two generations past anything else on the road, I would agree unless Bugatti releases a Veyron with a similar dash.

So how would you like to own one of these mean machines? Well, good luck! Rumor has it the 4,000 planned for production are already sold out and at a price tag of over $375,000. Lamborghini has said the molds for the carbon fiber will only last up to 5,000 cycles so don't expect them to sell a whole lot more than 4,000. I recently started weeping while playing Youtube clips of the Lambo because 2 people have already destroyed their bulls. Please rich speed enthusiasts be nice to this one, y'all killed a lot of Mercialagos.

I hope you enjoyed the high end of automotive, now let's take a look at what Ford is doing for the low end of the auto world. Below you will see what Ford is wanting to do in the $20-30k range to help the 99% feel like they are in the 21st century.

Ford has been missing from the plug-in crowd, but they are about to go all in. This month Google got to taste the Focus all electric plug-in before anyone else. Ford is able to mark this thing at 100 MPGe, and it's not just the Focus. Late this year the 2013 fusion will join the Focus to make a more efficient team of cars beating the Leaf, Volt, and plug-in Prius. Having drove both of the gas versions of the car recently I can say I am very excited for the Fusion. The Focus just feels way to cheap to me and I feel like I am in a clown car when I sit in it. I digress, both of these cars will deliver on performance and efficiency. Both will also have similar dash kits powered by Microsoft SYNC. It's all about what you can connect to the iPhone, and Ford has outperformed all the other automakers when it comes to connected devices.

From a simple iPhone you can control climate in the car, charging levels, and of course media. I know all of you have seen the kid dressed as Vador trying to start his dad's Ford. Yes, you can start your car with an iPhone. What is really helping drivers is the voice input. To be able to interact with apps like Sirius or iHeart Radio by voice can really make Ford the game changer it needs to be to keep ahead of the Toyota and Honda brands taking the majority of the market share. SYNC will also be adding up to 19 languages this year, that should give Ford an international edge.

My last bit I want you to see may never make it to a car, but thank Audi for bringing something truly innovative when it comes to heads up display. Please watch the video below and have your mind blown.

I know it's a short clip, but I hope you noticed the driver swiping information to the passenger. Imagine reading your texts or viewing your maps without ever looking down. We could even see an augmented reality feature that points out what buildings or businesses you are about to pass without ever having to move your eyes from the road. Really great stuff from Audio, and I hope to see a whole lot more.

CES review: Mobile phones

2012-01-16T02:00:00.001-05:00

Is that upgrade date about to come up on that old Droid Incredible? Or maybe your contract just expired and you feel the urge jump ship and try a new carrier. Either way it is time to treat yourself to a new stylish mobile device. CES was an opportunity for the world to see a few new mobile devices worth taking an eye at. Read my reviews on what could be your next phone. I have also seen the future a bit so do read on...

This year the prize winning phone for CES is the Lumia 900 that will soon hit AT&T rumored for March. As you can see above, the 900 decided to show up it's little brother the 800. Growing from a 3.7" to a 4:3" screen and also adding a front facing camera, the 900 is dressed to impress in both black and cyan colors. Like it's little brother it will have the same polycarbonate casing so if you scratch it the color stays true. The 900 is also a uni-body design, so no expandable memory or battery changing under this hood. Please don't fear though because this is an absolutely beautiful phone. If anyone is on AT&T looking for a new phone, please go check this guy out when it hits shelves.

From one windows device to another we go take a look at the HTC Titan II. Even though the Titan just released on AT&T not but 3 months ago, HTC isn't afraid to one up themselves. Really not much has changed from the original Titan. HTC has added an LTE radio, much like the Nokia 900 will have, so expect a fast browsing experience if you are in one of the 6 cities AT&T has LTE in. Also, and here is the kicker, HTC has added a 16 Megapixel camera to challenge that point and shoot still sitting in your purses. I know it's just a number, but that high a resolution should be able to help some of the quality issues HTC has struggled with in the past. From what I have seen so far, the camera will not disappoint.

Now that I have satisfied the AT&T crowd for a bit let's move to Verizon's neck of the woods. Verizon just so happened to be dipping into many categories at CES last week, but they managed to drop our jaws a couple of times with little nuggets like these:

Above you will see an add for the Droid RAZR Maxx. As you may already know the Droid RAZR hit market back in November and is the slimmest smarphone you can find on the market. Right now it is the slickest Android phone you can find in my opinion, and Motorola is going to try to bank on that. As you can see from both pictures these phones look pretty darn familiar. If you held both the purple RAZR on the left and the RAZR Maxx above together you would notice the Maxx is thicker at just 8.9mm instead of the amazing 7mm shown to the left. This is due to an incredibly large addition the the battery capacity. Motorola decided to just about double the battery size in the Maxx to 3300 mah, and boasting a game changing 21 hours of talk time. They have not said if that will be with LTE running at the same time on big red, but you gotta admit it sounds intriguing. Just like the original Droid RAZR it also seems to not be able to remove the battery cover, so every bit of capacity improvement to the battery is a welcomed one. We can expect the RAZR Maxx to enter the market at 299.99 when it becomes available. For now though, you can pick up the RAZR in black or white, with purple soon to follow.

Are you the power user that needs a physical keyboard? Look no further because Motorola and Verizon are putting out the Droid 4 soon too. Yup, Motorola is going to be putting out their 4th edition to the Droid in just a little over two years. Wasn't it just August we were talking about the Droid 3? I shouldn't knock Motorola for this crazy pace they are pumping out phones with. The Droid 4 is just adding to the oddly angular body style of the Droid RAZR, and Verizon is pushing everyone to get on LTE. I am actually happy to see a keyboard device as nice as the Droid 4 hit market after seeing 8 LTE touch display phones that all looked pretty darn similar (yeah I know the Stratosphere has a keyboard too, but I'm talking high end here). Luckily Motorola's CEO is letting everyone breath for a bit. In an interview during CES the road map for future devices will be slowing down a bit for Motorola. Expect less devices with more innovation in each model. Like music to my ears Mr Jha.

One more huge phone to show off for Verizon and it will be a bit cheaper than the RAZR Maxx. The LG Spectrum is set to tee off on Verizon 1/19 with a price of just 199.99. The show stopper on this device is the display. Using a true HD IPS display, similar to what you see in the iPhone 4, 720p native resolution is for real, setting the bar at 326 ppi pixel density. It will need that resolution because it is going to be on a 4.5" diagonal screen ran by a 1.5 GHz dual core processor. This beast is meant to play video and on Verizon's LTE network your wish is the Specturm's command. Now I haven't seen the Spectrum up close yet, but I like smoothed design back and I cannot wait to see some Netflix oozing out on the display.

Unlike last year big red kept it quiet unlike last year. If you remember CES last year Verizon showed off 4 LTE devices, one of which did not release until August of 2011. I think that is why we saw only a couple of models shown off this year. AT&T didn't really show off much either, but it is quite obvious that AT&T is going all in on Windows Phone as the alternate choice to Apple while Verizon has decided to go Android. Although I am partial to Windows Phone as an OS, I think Verizon will keep raking in the cash thanks to exclusive deals like the Droid RAZR.

*** Samsung Galaxy Nexus news flash: The recent Android developer phone will be hitting Sprint soon and will have Google Wallet featured. This is a direct knock at the Verizon version showing Sprint is desperate for market share. Will it work? Hell no! ***

Moving on to some devices that will not make a lot of noise, but should most definitely be pointed out. Let's talk Sony. I thought this CES would be the emergance of Nokia again to the American market, but alas we are treated to another resurrection of sorts with the Sony Xperia Ion and S models. Enjoy!

Starting with the S model seen right Sony is following Nokia's design with a poly carbonate body. Oh how sweet it looks! The slightly curved body, vertical cutouts for camera and speaker, the uni-body design, oh and a shutter button. Wait, what is that clear band around the bottom? Oh, and it lights up too. People there is a USB port on the bottom of the phone and the cell antenna is in that clear plastic piece. We are witnessing some really amazing design here that should be noted. It is quite sad knowing not one carrier has picked up this phone, so you will have to buy an unlocked GSM version from Sony's website if you want your hands on it. However, for you AT&T goers look below.

Although the Ion doesn't take all the amazing attributes from the S it is definitely no slouch. AT&T users will be wowed this spring with it's 4.6 inch 720p Bravia engine display. Sony has also loaded a 12-megapixel Exmor camera ready to go in just 1.5 seconds from standby. Expect LTE radios and NFC included as well. Sorry folks, Sony still has no love for Verizon. This S model should be a great competitor to AT&T's Windows Phone arsenal toting a new Android device that is on it's way to dropping it's 4.0 OS.

I hope that is enough phones for you to think of right now. There were a few mid level phones for Metro PCS and Sprint that were shown off, but certainly not of the caliber we see above. Lenovo also announced Intel-powered Android devices as well as Motorola stated they would be going to Intel's x86 architecture for Android as well. That means Motorola is planning to expand on their laptop doc model with a little Google OS I think. imagine connecting your phone to a tablet and then docking it to a workstation to get a full PC feel. Motorola seems to be the one that will make it happen, but let's see if Microsoft and Nokia can show something off before the end of the year.

I hope you enjoyed my recap of CES on the phone side. Stay tuned for tablets, TVs, and more.

CES day 1 review

2012-01-09T00:32:00.000-05:00

The Las Vegas Convention Center has slid open it's doors and here is a taste of what we are already seeing before any conferences even begin. CES doesn't officially start until tomorrow, but displays are already showing and many of the major companies at the show are sneaking a peak at new hardware and stealing eyeballs while they still can. Let me give you a taste of some of the more interesting peaces. Read on...

So let me tell you what seems to be flooding the show already, and then I will go in depth for some more specific pieces of tech. Just as expected a lot of TVs, tablets, and ultrabooks seem to be flooding the tech blogs. Lenovo, Samsung, LG, Acer, and some smaller guys have already been showing off some hardware. Let me just say it has been a little interesting, but mostly boring.

In the tablet market lots of Gingerbread Android tablets have been shown off all under $500 with the side item explained by every pitch man that Ice Cream Sandwich Android 4.0 will be coming soon. ASUS leaked that there already released Transformer Prime will be upgraded shortly after January 12th, why that date I don't know. So for now, we still haven't seen anything new with software. Something I'm really bored of hearing already at CES is that all these tablets are dual-core, and in most cases Tegra 2. That is so last year with Tegra 3 already available in the Transformer Prime, so yours truly can't really recommend any of the tablets I have seen so far, except maybe this interesting little guy.

OLPC's XO 3.0

What is that you say? Don't worry I said the same thing. So OLPC invents low cost power efficient computers mostly for the education field. When you hear about a school district giving kids laptops that don't have an Apple on them, this is the company they go to. XO 3.0 is the latest iteration which is the first tablet they have put out. Although this piece of hardware is not finalized, it is close to release. They are hoping to cut the cost to just $100. Yeah, I know right what a steal, but what else do we get?

Well, as you can see this thing has a solar panel built into it's casing. Since this kind of device will be pitched for children, you gotta make it last and be easy to use. This device is sporting a 4 watt panel to charge a 2 watt tablet, so you can actually run this thing while it's charging off solar power. XO has made this thing compatible with any and all types of power sources as well. There is all kinds of ports on this thing, including a positive and a negative metal contact on each side that can take anywhere from 2 - 25 V so get those car battery connectors and keep em warm.

If you notice the screen is sporting some weird OS on it. This thing is running a customized skin of Linux built by OLPC as well with their own app store. Their app store is mostly just learning, education, and testing type stuff. OLPC is nice enough to let us know that you should be able to order with an Android kernel on it or another version of Linux if you would like. Hooray for consumer choice! They cannot however get an x86 OS like Windows on it though because that would consume more than the 4 watt target they would be looking to beat. Currently they can only get Windows down to 5 watts, I was quite surprised to hear they got it that far down.

Next, let's skip over to something that has nothing to do with computers. I'm talking stove tops now. Yeah I have gone crazy, I'm talking stove tops. Look below:

The company Thermador is displaying something called an inductive cooktop. Above you will notice a completely flat glass like top. Below is a series of heat pads all connected. At the bottom of the surface sports a small touchscreen that constantly feeds you data. As you place a pot on the surface you will see a ring show up to indicate the size of the pot, and a color of blue for cold or red for hot. As you move the pots on the surface the ring moves as well. Touch the ring and you can set the temperature going from 1-10 or the amount of time you wish to cook on that pot. Absolutely brilliant and sleek to look at.

Below I show you the guts of the cooktop. Don't think this tech comes cheap. It can drain energy up to 4600 watts, that's a lot of light bulbs. If you have a spare $5000 and are looking to remake your kitchen, this would be a nice start for ya.

Alright enough of odd kitchen tech let's get back to laptops. There are actually two laptops I want to bring to your attention.

First, I will quickly show you this new laptop from Acer called the S5 Ultrabook. This thing is ridiculous thin and made out of magnesium and aluminium. This model is just 13.3 diagonal screen, but Acer will make a cheaper plastic variant just a little thicker at 15 inches. Not much else has been released yet, so I would expect more details once CES truly kicks off. Enjoy the pics below.

Just one more laptop I wanted to show you by Lenovo called the X1 Hybrid laptop. Lenovo has been displaying a whole new lineup of colorful laptops, but this however is not one of them. What makes this guy standout is it's ability to run Android and Windows together in a relatively fast and nice package. The X1 is an already made laptop in the ThinkPad series at Lenovo, but they have enhanced it with a dual core 1.2 GHz snapdragon processor that you would see in some Android smartphones and tablets. This allows the laptop to put the Intel running x86 architecture into sleep mode and run ARM on the snapdragon to load their own Android skin.

This is not a full android OS like you are used to like on a phone. It seems they want to use the Android hybrid for basic tasks like media or email. Lenovo has made it so easy to switch between the two though, and also very fast, which makes me wonder if many other laptop rigs will start doing the same thing. Here is the best part, when a PC goes on battery power it's usually 2-4 hours, but this laptop if flipped onto it's ARM base Android platform will run for 10 hours. Well done Lenovo.

Last, I am going to show you something that I don't really want you to think of buying yet. I am showing this off to just give you a taste of something that will flood the market this year. Video conferencing on the TV is hitting big time this year. Now that Microsoft has purchased Skype they are wanting to push it to everyone. Below you will see a Samsung add-on for $150 that will connect to any TV with an HDMI input.

This is called the InTouch Wi-Fi camera. It gives you 720p resolution and a host of online apps to use on your TV such as YouTube, weather widget, and Google news. Not bad for someone with an older HDTV trying to add a couple more years to it's life. For now though, I urge you to think before you buy. The Kinect for $100 is a much better option if you have an Xbox 360, or wait a little while for the price to drop. I would also bet this isn't the last plug-and-play camera we see at CES. Wait a little while and let's see if anyone drops a 1080p camera add on, or I will give you a little spoiler. Lots of TVs are just going to come with cameras built in soon.

That's all for day 1 folks. I will be back again to give you the scoop on CES goodies. Check back tomorrow.

CES 2012 Preview

2012-01-01T23:31:00.001-05:00

January is a time to forget the past, and look forward to the hope a new year brings. It is only fitting that the International Consumer Electronics Show kicks open it's doors from Jan. 8-13. For those that don't know, next week every electronics company in the world will be trying to catch the eye of bloggers, press, and consumer's eyes as they unveil the big sellers for 2012 as well as new technology that will usher in new up and coming trends. Everyone except Apple will be trying to show off their muscle in the tech world, and Microsoft will be making their final appearance as they will be skipping CES 2013 just as Apple has done for years. Expect to see some amazing stuff from automobiles to refrigerators on the convention floor, so please read on as I go in depth with what to expect.

There is a lot to cover for 2012 so I am going to give a brief run down of what some of the big boys will be displaying for us. Also, I will give you some trends to watch for as we continue the year after CES. Somewhere in the long post I will give some predictions and hopefully I can keep you focused. So let's get started.

Lucky Goldstar will be showing off a TV that I am salivating over. To the right you will see LG's new OLED screen reaching 55 inches and only 4mm thin. That's less than half the thickness of an iPhone. WOW! Also expect them to show off their Cinema 3D on a range of screens. LG is pimping their 3D because you can wear the cheap glasses you see in the theater, and not the overpriced shutter glasses currently seen in most TV's. This will be a trend among many TV manufacturers this CES.

Pioneer

Expect Pioneer to give us a taste of their new smart stereos filled with apps like Pandora, X-GPS, and Rdio. I am really impressed with the look of their new equipment. Of course Pioneer has always been friendly to mobile devices sporting USB connection and iPod connectors galore. What I am hoping to see is some deals with auto manufacturers to stock head units (like the one above) in their vehicles instead of the cheap junk we see now.

Chevy and OnStar

Last year we had a little taste with Cadillac's CUE Infotainment system. Chevy I'm sure will be showing this in much more depth as well as some OnStar integration. Expect them to play nice together to fulfill all your entertainment and traveling needs. Last year they announced a partnership with Verizon to use the widely spread LTE network to connect Chevy's vehicles into the future. Also, we may see a taste of optional tablets included with cars as kind of a stocking stuffer. Think of those overused Lexus Christmas commercials with a few seconds at the end reminding you to pickup a new iPad with your new car purchase for the holidays.

Monster

For those that don't know Monster is the name behind overpriced audio components like Beats headphones. They recently have announced big partnerships like HTC and HP to bring a better audio presence to their brand. Monster will be announcing some new partnerships as well as products. I know recently Nokia showed off a new headset branded by Nokia, but built by Monster. So let's see if they can impress us with something that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

Nokia

Welcome back to the party Nokia. For the last couple of years Nokia has been absent in the US. Finally in 2012 we can expect them to make an impact again. Their recent partnership with Microsoft will usher in a new generation of Nokia smartphones and tablets that could make them relevant once again. Also expect really cool headsets and speakers like the ones pictured above. I will be going into Nokia's cell phone renewal further down the page.

Microsoft

The final year Microsoft will be kicking off CES and they will not disappoint, or will they? Just about a week ago Microsoft let out a rumor that they will not show off any new products, instead a recap of 2011 and focus on the direction of Microsoft for 2012. This kind of surprised me a little and here is why.

Last year Microsoft showed off the new OS Windows 8, and teased us that it will have a tablet friendly ARM processor version of the OS. Late last year Windows 8 the developer version was released. From that point Microsoft has been tweaking it quite a bit and has stated the official Beta release would be available in January. So what's going on Microsoft? Will you be showing off both versions of the OS we are anxiously awaiting for? Microsoft has also stated that they will leave products up to their partners instead.

So here is what I think. Expect a couple tablets from players like Sony and Dell to give us something to look forward to. Do not expect a desktop ready version quite yet. We know they are saving big announcements for XBox later this year in the way of the next gen system and Kinect sensor. So expect them to pimp out the new software UI they released in December, and show off there dream of Metro UI on the PC, phone, and TV. Nothing new really, but lots of potential.

Ultrabooks

PC makers are getting sick of the Macbook Air taking a large part of their market, so in comes the ultrabooks. Intel has come out with some very efficient, low cost chipsets that will make a low cost computer hum along like a gaming rig. Toshiba, Asus, HP, Dell, etc have all showed off a new fancy metallic ultrabook for under $1,000 and it will not stop at CES. Expect lot's of these small, light power books to be all over the place and all look exactly the same.

Apps

Some really amazing apps will be shown off and available soon if not already. The health genre is going to see a flurry of available new apps to help patients prevent having to come in for a checkup. Already we have seen a couple of apps pop up that can take your pulse by using the camera optics on your phone. Or maybe you have seen some of those new watches or armbands that wirelessly connect to your smartphone and feed it data. Qualcomm has already stated it wants to get new software to underdeveloped countries to help them increase efficiency at little to no cost. Expect Qualcomm and others to really take a huge step forward at bringing mobile tech to the health & medicine field. What's great is a lot of this new tech sounds like it may be more as charity and not so much profit.

Tablets

Trends are showing the iPad may be losing a small market share and for good reason. Recent economy tablets like the Nook touch and Kindle Fire have been putting a dent in Apple's dominance. New quad core tablets are now hitting market like the ASUS Transformer Prime shown above. It is a high def, powerful beast showing off the best Android has to offer and for only $499. Expect the floor of CES to be flooded with new tablets running Android's software and hopefully 1 or 2 Windows 8 tablets. They need to sell fast because the iPad 3 is rumored to be right around the corner. Expect dual core laptops like the Xoom or Galaxy Tab to start cutting their prices to sub $400 to take some of iPad's sales.

Mobile Phones

It is no secret AT&T and Verizon will be showing off some devices at CES. Both CEO's will be giving 45 minutes of their time to show off what they have planned. Verizon I expect to continue to expand on LTE, but I think more in cars and home appliances, instead of smartphones. Last year they showed off 4 LTE phones that were not ready to go yet (Bionic took 6 months to release). I think they will learn from that mistake and keep it to the technology not so much the devices.

AT&T on the other hand is all in with Windows Phone. Verizon has gobbled up the greatest Android devices and passed on the new Microsoft phones. In comes AT&T to save Steve Ballmer's day. Not only did they just release phones like the 4.7" display HTC Titan and the Samsung Focus S, but they plan on releasing a rumored 3 more by a certain company named Nokia. I won't comment too much on what is planned, but look below and you might see my next phone if it only had a Verizon logo on it.

Wrap Up

Expect lots of big 3D TVs, tablets, ultrabooks, smartphones, apps, games, cars, and cute girls showing off nerdy gadgets. This is CES folks! Come back next week for more in depth updates and reviews.

Coca-Cola What is This I See?

2011-12-21T00:15:00.000-05:00

Coca-Cola has always had a place near to my heart. Growing up in Atlanta you switch from a milk bottle to a Coke bottle at a very early age. I have frequented the Coke museum and cannot tell you how many Cokes from around the world I have tasted. When I want a soda, I ask for a Coke and that's it. You better not bring me a Pepsi unless it's to pee in. I like polar bears more than Britney Spears, at least after the whole K-Fed thing. So when I saw Coke try to usher in the future of vending I just had to tell all y'all about it. Read on...

So in 2009 Coca-Cola decided to create the bombshell of vending machines. It is called "The Freestyle", when it debuted it was titled "The Fountain of the Future". If I were to wind the clock back to 1990 and envision what my dream Coke machine would look like, I would come up with something pretty darn close to what you see below. Enjoy!

Now, many of you might have seen these things already, but here in good old Charleston we are a little behind. Atlanta, NY, and around California you may have been enjoying these for a couple of years now. What makes these things unique is the nice touchscreen LCD embedded in the fountains shell. Also, it can pack up to 106 different flavors of soda. Did I type that right? 1 0 6 FLAVORS OF SODA!!! Much better I think, eat that Baskin Robbins.

There are actually 3 sections that mix when it pours your sweet beverage. The core ingredients of your choice, the carbonated water, and the sweetener. Much like in the old days when you stepped up to the counter you could order your Coke and then tell him what flavor you wanted added to the beverage. Enjoy from raspberry, cherry, peach, vanilla, orange, strawberry, etc. It's all good, and available with many different Coke products like Fanta and Sprite. Want to lower the calories? There are 60 diet and zero calorie drinks available. Oh joy!

I found the touch screen to be easy to use, and never had to double tap. If they are out of a flavor the icon for it just grays out. Also, you can find custom sodas for the vendor you are visiting. For instance, I found my first Freestyle at Firehouse Subs. They have a unique cherry lime soda filled with sugar that just so happened to be displayed in the fountain's menu.

I absolutely loved seeing it in the shop and wanted to spend a few minutes just looking at all the flavors. Just a hint the raspberry Coke Zero was not a hit. Here's to creating suicides again just like when I was a kid at McDonald's. Look below for Coke's representative showing off the sweet machine.

Verizon Galaxy Nexus Review

2011-12-12T23:53:00.000-05:00

To all my American readers the long awaited Samsung Galaxy Nexus can be yours on Verizon, but this phone is not for everyone. Yes! it will be the biggest baddest phone anyone will talk about this holiday season. Yes! I do think it will be the best phone on the market until probably a Nokia Windows Phone device hits market. Read on to see why I am not recommending this phone to the masses.

Before I get too in depth let's talk about some of the basics. The Nexus brand means this is the approved developer device for Google. This specific version of the Nexus will be the first to debut Google's next version of Android "Ice Cream Sandwich" (v 4.0 also known as ICS). This is the phone Google will woo developers into buying because it will have all the latest and greatest features for them to help write existing and future applications. Let's talk about what Google and Samsung put under the hood to make the Galaxy Nexus stand out.

- Super AMOLED 720x1280 pixel at 316 ppi
- 4.65" contour display
- Software keys (home, back, recent apps)
- 1.3 MP front/5 MP rear camera (with flash)
- textured back
- dual core 1.2GHz cortex-A9
- dimensions: 135.5 x 67.9 . 8.9 mm
- weight 135g
- CDMA/LTE bands for Verizon Wireless only in the US
- 1 GB RAM
- 32GB of internal storage
- sensors: accelerometer, compass, gyro, barometer, proximity
- A-GPS
- 1850 mAh battery
- NFC embedded in battery

HARDWARE

Looking at these specs here is what we can assume. The screen is big and beautiful, and I mean really big. I personally believe the AMOLED screens are the best in the business. Using LED's to light the screen allows you to get true blacks and possibly consume less power. The only thing I don't like about the AMOLED display is the slight cold temperature you can sometimes notice with white backgrounds giving the phone a blue hue. Many of you will never notice the color difference I just mentioned, so don't let it persuade you to not buy this phone. Honestly if anyone looks at this screen they will fall in love with the phone, until they hold it.

Just to compare, most of you are familiar with the iPhone which measures 114 x 59 x 9.4 mm. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus measures 21 mm taller and 8 mm wider, but it amazingly is the same thickness as the iPhone 4 and adds the LTE antenna that Apple has yet to cram into their thin device. Compared to some of the other big boy LTE devices on Verizon, it is quite similar in size to the likes of the Rezound and RAZR, just a few mm taller than both mentioned. It has a cheap textured plastic on the back which actually feels much better than the normal smooth plastic Samsung usually uses. The thinness really helps offset some of the height this phone seems to bulk up on. Now for most functions the size is fine, and I did not mind throwing in my jeans pocket. What I don't like is not being able to stretch my thumb to all corners of the screen. Typing one handed requires some skill, so unless your Megan Fox expect to use both hands a lot (she has freakishly long thumbs).

One big thing I am not a fan of on this phone is the camera. It is a bit disappointing that Samsung did not use the same lens as the Droid Charge or Amaze 4G. On this device Samsung decided to revert back to a similar camera they had on the Fascinate. I guess they wanted to cut down on cost a little, but this is supposed to be the phone that will usher in a new generation of smartphones. Don't get me wrong the camera is still fine, but it will in no way stack up to the likes of the iPhone and N8 dominance we see in phone cameras.

So that's enough about the hardware. Really, Samsung did not do anything too revolutionary with the hardware other than a brilliant screen. What is interesting about the Nexus is the software loaded on this bad boy. Android 4.0 loaded with an all new UI, software buttons, new widgets, new task manager, menu system, and a spiffy face recognition unlock that many of you will probably never use.

Let's all dive in to what we really care about on the Nexus. The video below is one minute and fifty five seconds of sweetness.

Now that the video is out of the way let me tell you what I like and don't like about the new OS.

USER INTERFACE

I love the black backgrounds and font called robo. Coming from a Windows Phone 7.5 device I absolutely love that Google followed Microsoft's lead here. With the new screens Samsung is putting out, black backgrounds make the OS really pop. In addition to the amazing screen, the software is smooth as silk. I have seen no lag whatsoever in any task I have performed. For Android, this is a huge step in the right direction. It seems as if the hardware has caught up to the software to make a perfect symphony.

To get a little more deep I also was impressed with the Widget integration into the app drawer (as seen above). Now you can see the widget before you add it. Before on Android you were forced to long press on the home screen, click widgets, and choose from a list of items with no idea what they were or looked like. Now, just click the app drawer icon at the bottom, press widgets and take your pick.

Also, there is a very attractive data app that allows you to see how much data you have consumed. You can choose to make a hard limit say 2GB for all those that are worried about overage. In addition, below the data grid you can see what apps are hogging the data. Worried about how much data Netflix just blew threw? Look no further, it's right in your settings now. (screenshot to the right)

In the camera Google has added a nice feature other phones have already included in one way or another, panorama capture. It is a bit different than what I have seen in other phones. Most panorama will make boxes or indicators when to take the next shot. In Android 4.0 Google wants you to shoot like a video camera, just start your shot and pan to the right. Below the shot it will show a progress bar letting you know if it's about to reach the 360 degree limit. A nice touch, but I kinda like the way other apps will just guide you to the next shot one box at a time.

On a side note taking a picture is virtually instant. I don't know if I really like it or not, but it's there. It could cause more blurry photos because you are going to move the phone when you take the shot. Use your timer for a more precise shot.

Speaking of cameras Google+ integration is both charming and necessary on this phone. It is time for users to stop updating Facebook and start networking on Google+. The hangout feature allows you to video conference up to 10 people at once or just chat as a messenger if you want.

STORAGE

As much as I love Google services, I hate that Google is forcing you to use them now. Cloud storage is ruining the consumer freedom we once had, and let me explain. There is no SD memory in this phone. You get a very big storage space in this device, but gone is that nice little slot where you could transfer your old memory cards and bring over all your media. Now let me introduce you to the cloud. Meet Google Music, Google+ (for pictures), Gmail (for contacts, email, calendar, books, and apps), and I'm stopping there. Now some of these cloud services for things like contacts can immediately bring down your info say if you ever replace your phone or have to wipe your data out. However, other services like apps and pictures you may have to re download yourself or wait up to 24 hours for it to start pushing back to your phone. Meanwhile please don't ever forget which email you used or your data will be lost for ever. I can't tell you how many people I have seen lose their contacts or have to repurchase an app because they forgot their Gmail account. I digress, please stay with me.

I never thought I would say this, but I miss Blackberry's excellent backup/restore ability through their desktop manager. You could connect through USB backup everything in a few minutes and restore it just as easily to a new device. Now, pray the cloud did it's job and don't ever forget your log in ID.

NEEDS IMPROVEMENTS

Other than the backup options here are a few other items I wish Google could improve on.

- Go back to a vertical menu for apps. I hate having to scroll from screen to screen. It is harder to find what you are looking for, and takes longer.

- Make the software buttons (home, back, tasks) stay on the whole time you are using the phone. I will be using an app and all of a sudden the bottom of the screen goes black forcing me to poke around for the home or back button. FAIL! Force the app to use that screen real estate or keep the back light on for the buttons.

- keep the menu icon consistent. There are three little dots for the menu button now on the screen. sometimes on top of an app, others on the bottom like in all the menus. Keep this consistent so it is easier to find.

- please please please put a shutter button on the devices. Windows Phone requires it, and it is so nice.

WRAP-UP

Positives: awesome screen, smooth OS, LTE speeds, Verizon's huge network

Negatives: Google cloud services, poor battery in LTE mode, many apps don't work yet (newest version of Android to be blamed here)

Overall: Buy this phone if you want to be cutting edge.

Football Tech 102

2011-10-22T22:38:00.000-04:00

My next installment of football tech gets much more complex. For those who enjoyed my 101 course, 102 brings more advanced tech to keep you reading. This time I jump into secured iPads, weird looking mouthpieces, and a new sensor technology placed in the players uniform. You have graduated from what you see on the field (the focus of 101) to more of an information based approach in Football Tech 102. Enjoy!

Let's start small today, bite size even. Take a look below and see a new mouthpiece the Stanford football team is using.

X2 impact is a research company out of Washington who is trying to gather information on brain injuries. This big tasty looking mouthpiece packs a gyrometer and accelerometer to help measure the linear and rotational force of head impacts. These measurements will give us a better understanding of how a head injury can occur.

Right now these mouthpieces are being used in practice and games. The information they are trying to measure is direction of impact, speed of impact, G force, and probably a few other pieces of data that go way over my head.

Next, I'm going to move onto another measuring device you may have seen at the NFL scouting combine earlier this year. Watch my boy Julio Jones of the Atlanta Falcons below.

The Under Armor E39 has started a revolution on data collecting in sports. Collegiate and professional teams around the globe have started using monitors on their players to track things like speed, acceleration, and heart rate. Here is a more detailed explanation of what the E39 offers teams.

This high tech performance garment will be available to the public 2012 from Under Armour. I love that it connects through bluetooth so just about any mobile device these days could collect the data. And it boasts 2 GB of storage so you don't have to constantly download the data.

So what will teams be downloading all this data to? Well, if you ask the Ravens or Bucaneers it would be the iPad. This year both teams decided to ditch the playbook and give their players something more modern to help them keep there head in the game.

Teams are now having to get together with an IT specialist to outfit spiffy new iPads. The tablets these teams are giving players are fitted with high security measures. NFL teams for some reason think their playbooks are more important than national security secrets. When Ray Lewis takes home his iPad he has to type in a pass code to use it, and a 2nd pass code just to open the playbook. If Ray has a tough week and enters the wrong pass code 3 times, voila his data is erased and a call to IT has to be made.

One might think this will help reduce paper? Think again tree huggers. iPads are not allowed during games, and anything with a camera is prohibited from being used during practices so teams still have to print playbooks.

The iPads are more for security measures. If a player goes home he does not bring the playbook, which very easily can be photocopied. Instead, he brings home his iPad with all the information of the playbook. His iPad will also have game film, nutrition guides, and calendars.

Finally, I'm going to show you something all of us can enjoy and not just players and coaches.

If you are reading this article I would hope you enjoy watching football. Below is a quick demo of what Direct TV is offering on tablets now to help you catch the game.

That's something to keep all you fantasy players updated even away from home. If you haven't made the jump to a tablet yet there are some alternatives for mobile devices to keep you enjoying the game. Below is a nice review of NFL Mobile found on most smartphones using Verizon's network.

.I hope you have enjoyed my second course on football tech. Enjoy the game!

If you need a refresher feel free to read Football Tech 101 again.

HTC Brings the Beats

2011-10-22T11:16:00.001-04:00

I am thrilled to see HTC find a way to differentiate themselves from all the other stale Android makers out there. To the hardcore Android user, you already know about their Sense UI and how it makes HTC stand out, but to the average cell phone user HTC needed something different. In comes Beats by Dr. Dre whose headphones everyone has heard of, and now can give HTC that little different look on the shelves that might boost their consumer focus. Read on for my in depth look.

Behold, the HTC Sensation XE has shown itself to the world. This is the first device HTC has pumped out to show off the new partnership between HTC and Beats. The Sensation was an already powerful high end Android phone that kinda got lost in the crowd of other HTC devices like the Thunderbolt and EVO 3D. As you can see above there is a nice little Beats Audio logo, sporty red highlights, and an above average pair of headphones sitting to the side.

HTC did not stop with what you see above let me tell you what they did not only to hardware, but also software to fulfill the Beats experience.

Hardware

One thing that I loved about HTC is they used to have little red strips of coloring around the earpiece and back of the phone like on the Droid Incredible, but they went away from that. I was so happy to see Beats gave HTC a reason to bring back the red. It gives these phones pop and will help them stick out on the shelves when everything else is either black or white. For this little color deviation I say thank you.

In addition, these new Beats devices will come with one of Beats overpriced headsets. The Sensation XE is boxing the YourBeats in ear headphones, which has a nice aluminum in line volume control. These puppies retail at 89.99 right now, and this is Beats cheapest headset. Great design and quality parts somewhat justify the bump in price. The YourBeats as well as Beats Solo headphones will both take advantage of the added function in the phone, which I will go in depth on in just a moment.

Honestly, I like Beats headphones, but they do lack in sound quality and here is why. I have spent a lot of time customizing car and home audio systems and there is one major difference I find when putting together a system, drivers. Drivers are essentially how many speakers you have separating the sound on each channel. Beats uses just one driver to push all the sound to your ear. This limits the quality because they are trying to tune the speaker to all sound frequencies and not just a specific range. What we will find with beats is that the extreme highs and extreme lows get distorted and probably could be more clear if they would separate with 2 or 3 drivers in a set of headphones like some other companies.

I'm going to show off some tests soon, but before I do I need to explain the software changes that happen as well.

Software

HTC was able to help the Sensation recognise when the Beats Solo or YourBeats headphones are connected. Once you plug-in a nice little headset shows up and a fine tuned EQ is automatically turned on for the Music app. The EQ only works with the Music app, if you have downloaded any other music playing app (Pandora, Winamp, etc) the EQ is disabled and you get the default sound curve. Huge fail for HTC! I'm sure this is a limitation with the Android OS, but really you can't make it universal? Just as a side not you will notice above there is a Disable/Enable toggle button that you can use all the time. So even if you have your own headphones you can enable the Beats EQ.

Quality

One of Beats claims is that there approved devices will give you audio like the creator intended it to be. AMS Acoustics tested the Sensation XE with the YourBeats headphones as well as other headsets to let us know what Beats does to make it sound more authentic on their products. HTC has tweaked the software in the phone so you can turn on a finely tuned EQ setting that will make the audio sound better. This will automatically turn on when the YourBeats and Studio headsets are connected, but for other headsets you have to use manually. Is there a benefit to the enhanced EQ? Well, below there is the SPL curve that shows off the purity of the sound being transferred to the headset.

This graph is showing how much sound gets lost when the EQ gets turned off represented by the black line. Is it a lot, no not really. The arrows are showing where the sound gets enhanced when the EQ is on. These frequencies are around 40, 2K, and 10K frequencies. Basically 40 is the really low hitting base, 2K is mid to high think Celine Dion, and 10K is ultra high usually artificially made or maybe a high hat (If you're over 40 you probably can't even hear it). What does this mean? Not much, the little crank up at the low frequency might help if you have a headset that can handle it. Most of the in-ear headphones we use with phones can't really handle that frequency anyway, but the Beats headsets just barely benefit.

Above is an interesting graph allowing us to see where the volume gets boosted. This shows the EQ for the YourBeats headphones (red line), Solo headphone (grey line at bottom), and two other headphones that do not get recognized by the phone as Beats headsets. What we learn is that HTC and Beats have fine tuned the EQ for the Beats headsets. The YourBeats headphone gets a huge boost for the high end frequencies and they extend the bass curve, probably because it has such a small driver it can't handle the extremely low frequencies well, so they tried to expand the curve. For the Solos which use a much bigger driver they did not need to extend the lows and they kicked down the trouble a lot. I would guess the highs were coming in far too loud during testing on the Solos. The two non-Beats headphones had pretty much the same curve.

By these tests we can see that the software in the phone was tweaked very nicely to enhance the sound experience for the Beats headphones. So out of the box you get a great experience. However, there a plenty of EQ apps out there in the Android market that you can customize yourself to better your experience. So the Beats experience doesn't really create a better sound, it just makes things more convenient and hooks you into using their products.

Final Thoughts

I love what HTC has done to bring the average consumer a great looking device with a great audio experience. To experts, you can create a better audio experience yourself. In fact, I really don't like the fact Beats EQ is only available in the stock Music app (So if your streaming Pandora you get a flat EQ). I also don't like the EQ wasn't tuned for more Beats headphones. But, I love the use of color in the hardware and that I get a quality set of headphones. HTC has found a great way to make their devices look better on the shelf.

I will leave you with what HTC plans to do with their next Verizon LTE phone leaked recently on Android Central, known as the HTC Rezound.

What a great Christmas treat

Android Hate

2011-10-02T02:03:00.000-04:00

It is time for me to get a little something off my chest. I have a very love/hate relationship for Android. There are millions of people purchasing Android devices that probably need to take a look around before flocking like lemmings to stores because a sexy lady wielding a sword destroyed a robot. Read what I mean after the break.

Every day at my job I have the privilege of fixing phones. I hear complaints, replace phones, and get to listen as people vent about everything they can vent about. Over the last couple of years one subject tends to dominate my conversations on a daily occurrence. That subject that consumes the majority of my thoughts and discussion, is Android.

Here is a nice example of what I deal with on a daily basis:

consumer: My phone is crashing constantly

me: I'm sorry to hear that.

consumer: This phone sucks I can't ever use it

me: Have you downloaded anything new or gotten any errors?

consumer: no, I never play any games. I just use facebook and text a lot.
(The whole time I am thinking they probably have 25 apps in their download items)

me: Have you tried cleaning out your messages or reinstalling Facebook

consumer: yes, I have done that already

me: Well, let's try a master reset and start over. (I'm not going to play around all day)

consumer: I've done that and it's still happening. I want a different phone

me: Well, if you're unhappy with Android maybe we should try a different OS

consumer: like what? the iPhone, I hate it.

me: OK! Well, how about the new Windows Phone HTC Trophy? It's incredibly stable and easy to use, but does not have the huge app selection of Android yet.

consumer: I just asked the store rep to show me the phone and they don't have one. Also she gave me a weird look. Let's do something else.

I now am about to pull my hair out for two reasons. One, because if she gets another Android phone she will probably call us again about her phone crashing. Two, because the store rep has probably never used a Windows Phone and can't even show the customer the device. To add to my frustration they called me because the store rep could not handle the consumer's complaint, and are now denying my help.

Some days, I just wish my boss would do this to me

Before I begin my rant I will say this, Android is great for the mobile world. It's open nature has led to some great innovation, and it has allowed carriers and phone manufacturers to advance technology quicker than any other OS. Look at the amount of LTE devices that have launched already (Verizon-5, Metro PCS-1, Srint 6-WiMax devices). No other OS in the mobile market has pushed innovation more. Android has also allowed many differences when it comes to software. Do a quick search for Grid OS and you will see the creativity that a free OS like Android has given developers to truly innovate.

So I do not want you to think I totally hate Android. I actually would recommend it for a large number of consumers, but nowhere near the 56% of smartphone market share Google is capturing now.

However, I am not here to praise Android and all who profit off it. I am here to tell you why you should think before buying anything with Android on it. Below I am about to list some of the biggest complaints I see with Android and the solutions you should consider to remedy these problems.

The number one problem I see from day to day troubleshooting Android phones is phone crashes. Every smartphone is going to crash eventually, but with Android it seems to be a daily habit. What makes this issue extremely irritating, is that there is no easy way to troubleshoot the problem. If you're wondering why it happens to your phone, it could be a number of reasons: overheating, battery loss, software errors, loose battery, liquid damage, or maybe you powered it off by accident and never noticed. To make matters worse, no one ever remembers what they were doing and what was running on the phone when it crashed. Motorola's chief executive Sanjay Jha decided to vocally explain what he sees the problem to be.

"The open nature of the Android Market is adversely affecting the overall quality of apps and causing users to return large numbers of Motorola devices...For power consumption and CPU use, those apps are not tested. We're beginning to understand the impact that has," Jha said.

He claimed that 70 % of all the Motorola Android devices that are returned by users are sent back because of poor application performance.

Although Mr Jha states it is outside applications causing issues, I would strongly urge Mr Jha to look at his software as well. Motorola as well as every major OEM that produces Android phones load their own UI skins and apps to the phones as well. On top of that, carriers like Verizon and ATT load their personal touches as well, adding lots of memory consumption and additional CPU hogging that does not help the phones run at all. What really hurts about the added UI touches and additional applications, is that there is no off switch, no way to delete the stock apps that are baked into the phone. As a user you are stuck with what you have, unless you are advanced enough to tweak the software yourself.

So what are the alternatives? Should you look for a different phone?

Here comes a plug for Apple and Microsoft.

As much as I hate to push someone away from open source software offered on Android, please buy something else. In the modern world where grandparents are using smartphones, and teens are consuming text messages like quarters in a NY toll booth, please purchase a different phone.

Why Apple or Microsoft? Because they set strict limits as to what OEMs and carriers do to their products.

Less updates and fewer apps is the recipe for success. Android phones can include literally hundreds of apps on them. When you take an iPhone out of the box you can literally see as little as 16 apps, and Windows Phone is the same. Here is where the big difference comes in. Apple comes with no 3rd party apps to bog down your phone. Windows Phone devices can come with a few 3rd party apps, but you can immediately delete them. Android you are stuck with what comes on the phone, unless you void your warranty.

It is clear because Google is so hands off limiting carriers and OEM's with their software additions, the OS is being crippled. Google is trying to remedy this. Their major updates are coming annually now instead of the frantic pace we saw in 2009 and 2010. And with the Honeycomb tablet OS they practiced restraint and really limited what other companies put on their OS. So maybe things will change. For now though, I will urge you to consider an alternative.

Android fanboys you can now fill my inbox with hate mail.

Motorola to bring back the RAZR

2011-09-24T14:23:00.001-04:00

Oh Moto, how you wish to be relevant again. I'm sure anyone in the U.S. during the 2000's either owned a RAZR or saw an advertisement for it. The $300 RAZR ushered in the new thin metallic phone style that proved a phone could look great and fit in the pocket easily. From it's debut in 2004 to it's death in 2008 the RAZR sold a still standing record of 130 million units. The unbelievable success of the RAZR earned Motorola the top spot in mobile sales and billions of dollars in revenue. Well, after being buried for a few years Moto has decided to resurrect the name and try to move up in sales numbers again.

She still looks pretty and can be bought on eBay for about $20

From 2006-2008 Moto tried it's best to create a successor to the original RAZR packing more memory, bigger screens, and better cameras. Because of these slight tweaks Moto would try to increase prices as high as $800 only to have to slash them in half due to poor sales, software glitches, and hardware failure. Also during this time, Apple released the iPhone and showed the world you have to make one great model and don't mess with it.

Would you pay $800 for this? Neither would anyone else, they cut the price to $250

Move to 2009 and the debut of the Droid. Verizon and Motorola create a partnership and a $billion ad campaign that showed the world the iPhone was not the only smartphone worth having. Although the Droid was very successful, Moto still was not making enough revenue and the company actually split into two divisions. Since then the mobile division of Motorola has been spewing out Droids like Hasbro spews out Transformer toys.

I am now going to list to you all the Motorola Android devices that have been produced with the reasons for making them.

Droid (first Moto Android device)
Droid Pro (portrait QWERTY)
Droid 2 (1GHz processor)
Citrus (economy device)
Droid X (4.3" screen)
Droid X2 (dual-core processor)
Droid 3 (1080p camera/front facing camera)
Droid Bionic (LTE)
Triumph (Droid X non-Verizon)
Titanium (better version of i1)
Photon (WiMax 4G)
Atrix (dual-core w/ laptop dock)
i886 (basic Android phone w/number pad) *pictured right*
XPRT (Droid Pro for non-Verizon)
Cliq (slide out keyboard, cheaper than Droid)
Cliq2 (slider w/ FM radio)
Flipout (rotating keyboard)
Flipside (optical navigation touchpad)
Charm (large portrait QWERTY)
Defy (DLNA, thin bezel)
Milestone (Droid for non-Verizon)
i1 (Nextel)

These are just Android devices, I am not including the dozen or so basic phones they have created. Just like in 2007 when Moto tried to flood the market with different versions of the RAZR, they are doing it again in 2011 with the Droid.

So now it looks like for 2012 Moto in all it's wisdom has decided to bring together the Droid RAZR. My prediction is that the Droid RAZR will mark the end of the line for Motorola. The big difference between the Droid RAZR and the Droid Bionic will be a Super AMOLED qHD resolution display. That's a screen produced by Samsung, it boasts a 960 x 540 display resolution, and produces true blacks helping reduce battery consumption. While I believe this is a nice screen bump for Moto, and it should help then thin the model a little, it is not a huge difference from what they already have in the Bionic. Here are some unimpressive leaked photos courtesy of the Verge.

Anyone impressed?

So Motorola I urge you to take my advice because I hate seeing an American company lose market share in this economy. Take a hint from Apple and just make one kick ass device for all carriers to enjoy. Refine it and test the hell out of it, make sure it is reliable. Being the company that created the cell phone I want you to succeed. Bringing the RAZR back will not make you relevant again. You will keep playing catch up to Apple, Samsung, and HTC who are all making better sales profits than you.

Xbox brings in the metro

2011-09-10T11:52:00.000-04:00

Xbox has slowly escalated into gaming dominance over the last few years. The explosion of Kinect last year, the addition of Zune media, and a touch of Netflix has made the Xbox a media powerhouse as well. Their not done yet, Microsoft is about to overhaul the UI to give Xbox a whole new feel. I'm going to give you a taste of some major changes you are about to see come to your living room in the next few months.

General Impressions

Compared to the existing Xbox, this new UI is far more clean and user friendly. Less menus, softer graphics, and better fonts makes for a better system that all should enjoy. The Metro UI Xbox is using can be found on their new Windows Phone OS, and will be displayed on their Windows 8 OS for PC next year. The large square icons with soft thin fonts are universally displayed on all 3 operating systems. For those of us using Microsoft products, the familiarity between the platforms will make a nice transition between devices and bring better compatibility for software integration.

Bing

Microsoft has not just tweaked the UI, there is some functionality additions to the rather large update. Xbox users today have voice control, but only for a small list of commands. Microsoft is going to expand this quite a bit with their Bing search integration. Bing brings with it Microsoft's TellMe technology that will greatly expand your voice command capabilities. It seems the search function will be limited to just media so you can find movies or music. I would bet this will be expanding to web and email in the future, but for now they will stick with media.

Live TV

There is one big area of opportunity that Microsoft can capitalize on if done right. Xbox will integrate live TV. Here, Microsoft can help everyone shed their DVR box provided by their cable operators. I have used Windows Media Center for a while now on my PC using a TV tuner, and although the TV tuner does not generate the best picture, Microsoft has created such a nice UI for the channel guide I absolutely hate using my Comcast box. If live TV is executed well on the Xbox doves will fly and angels will sing because a miracle in TV technology will have just happened. Right now Microsoft is working hard at getting cable providers on board. Already Sky in the UK, and Foxtel in Australia have jumped on board. Don't feel left out my American friends ATT's U-Verse seems to be warming up to the new console idea. Below is a nice little demo of what the PC does to give you a taste.

Social

There has also been some social networking updates that have been added. Now when you go to the menu title "Social" you will see a group of avatars show up. Along with the new avatar party going on Microsoft has added some Facebook integration not there previously. You now can send gamer party invitations to Facebook and post your achievements. Great, as if the Playdom games didn't clog my feeds enough. Also, you will see in the pic below chat bubbles actually generate above the avatar. No word yet on how interactive this will be. Will you see facebook posts as well? Will they integrate Skype, now that Microsoft owns them? And if you look to the left of the avatars you will see a friends group and family center. It would be so easy for us to customize a groups list and use Kinect to conference them live.

Gaming

I would like to add one more Kinect feature. Last year when Microsoft demoed Kinect it was limited to just a few games and I was left wondering if they would be able to expand it. Well, this year it will be expanded not just to dance and sports games, but first person shooters will benefit as well. Enjoy the demo below.

no controllers = death to Wii

The hand gestures used in the demo absolutely impressed me. You could tell the aiming still wasn't as nice as a controller, but it seemed the overall experience is much more fun adding the Kinect. Still, how often do you want to get off the couch to play Ghost Recon or Halo?

Wrap Up

I hope you enjoyed the new Xbox experience. The new interface should make for a fast and easy to use dashboard. I especially love the voice integration and can't wait to see Skype get thrown in as well. Rumor has it the beta version of the new dashboard will be testing in October with roll out for the holidays. Sorry to peak your interest early, but I figured it was worth it. Now for those of you who don't have an Xbox 360 do you buy one this holiday season, or wait for the next Xbox which will be demoed next year?

Football Tech 101

2011-09-04T04:28:00.000-04:00

Ah football season is finally here for all to enjoy. Wait a minute this is a tech blog. Why is football being mentioned on a tech blog? I have two passions, one obviously is technology, and the other is hard nose American football. I am about to merge the two together while I show you the amazing technology behind the world's greatest sport.

First, I'm going to show you what the players gotta wear to stay safe and perform. Then, I'll give you a look into some of the stuff off the field you may be interested in. Let's stop wasting time and get to it.

Helmets

Added in the 1930's, the helmet is now the life savor for our nation's top athletes. A player can have up to 15 G's of impact during a collision. The helmet's purpose is to keep the player alive and hopeful able to play another down after getting a bone crushing hit. Helmet's started as leather pads and have progressed into high tech composites and metals. Today, cheap helmets are just simply plastic and foam running around $100. However, if you want the best get ready to shell out over $400.

The newer helmets produced by Schutt Sports involves a sophisticated design starting with pads made out of thermoplastic urethane which replaces it's foam counterparts. The whole purpose of the newer tech is to make the helmet lighter, cleaner, and cooler for the player. Below you will see an impressive video that goes into more specifics of how this simple dome keeps a player from ending his career in a wheelchair.

enjoy the titanium facemask

Shoulder Pads

Shoulder pads are the most customizable piece of a player's uniform. Each position has different performance demands. For instance a wide receiver will need a lot of movement and light weight padding while a quarterback will look for more padding to absorb impacts from all angles. As you see to the left you can go small and light to big and heavy seen below. Also, there are a lot of accessories you can add and I don't mean bags and necklaces.

Here is a list of the accessories I'm talking about: rib protector (hard plastic or soft foam padding), back plates (various sizes), and collars. These pads run anywhere from $100 - $500 before you start adding the added back, collar, and rib protectors. Hey, go cheap and you could be feeling a broken neck or cracked rib. I think the biggest thing about finding a good set of shoulder pads is comfort. There are a lot of screws hiding in these pads and you can feel them a bit. Before purchasing a set for yourself or loved one try it on, have somebody smack your shoulders and chest a few times really hard. Still feel soft? Good, now rotate your arms and shake your shoulders and if all is well shell out the big time bucks for your new weapons. Yeah, I said weapons these things can really hurt when they drive into you at 20 mph.

Gloves

There are pretty much just 2 types of gloves, lineman and receiver. Both types of gloves will run from $20-80, but you may have to buy a couple of pairs in case one set gets ripped up. There is not much you have to worry about with gloves. For receivers they are made to be thin and light. Usually, you will get a kind of tacky surface around the finger and palm to help grip the ball. Mostly though all of the gloves are just made of a mesh polyester or neoprene type cloth. For lineman, the gloves will get more padding and usually bigger strapping around the wrist to keep things stiff. We wouldn't want your wrist and fingers popping out of joint now would we.

Pants (and what goes under them)

Let's be honest there is not a whole lot to the polyester spandex pants you see on the field and most football teams even in youth leagues will supply them. So, let's look at what goes in and under them. You will see a pair of 29.99 undergarments with a top of the line supporter cup as seen below. These beat the old plastic sharp cups of the past. Now they have nice gel padding around them to keep your junk from getting pinched. And the shorts have a pocket built in so you don't have to use those awful straps around the sides. Even the shorts have stepped up their game using an anti-microbial fabric that helps push out the moisture and keep bacteria from lurking around your junk. They are both built to reduce friction and push out the moisture so you can stay running all day. I'll be honest the newer undergarments for the modern football player is the biggest improvement in athletics and they are the cheapest part of the uniform. Hooray for progress!

There are also a lot of pads you have to wear below the belt. Hip pads, thigh pads, and knee gaurds are all slipped into the pants. These are always just cheap foam and slide into pockets formed in the pants legs, except for the hip pads. Unfortuanately, the hip pads are buttoned to the waist of the pants. This is not comfortable when you get a hit. luckily some of these undergarments have hip pads as well as rib and shoulder pads up top as well. I would like to thank Under Armour for being the first I know of to add these small, but comfortable features to sportswear. The players these days don't feel the screws and buttons like they used too.

Shoes

Just like in basketball shoes have gotten ridiculous. Ranging anywhere from $40-200 for pretty much the same stuff. When it comes to football there are pretty much two types of shoes. You have shoes for artificial turf and for the natural turf. When on the natural stuff you want cleats usually big ones if the field is wet. While on turf the cleat is much different. I like to think of it as rubber teeth lining the outside of the sole. These teeth will allow the player to change direction and grip the turf when needed. This is far different than outdoor cleats that are just big metal spikes that dig into the field and allow you to push off in any direction. So if you wanna go pro you will need the indoor/outdoor versions so I hope you have a couple of Benjamin's leftover after all your other gear. One small bit of advice, make sure your new kicks have a sock liner. A sock liner will give you that extra cushion and tight fit in the shoe helping to prevent blistering and they feel really nice on the toes.

That's right, Jordan is going NFL people

OK, that is enough of the uniform tech. Let's get to something more off the field to finish the post.

The Yellow Line

That's right that annoying, but helpful line indicating where the first down is. How do they do it? We have even seen them add the black line for the line of scrimmage, a red highlight when the team gets in the redzone and some networks will add a line for original line of scrimmage or where a field goal would be kicked from if a team was to attempt it. So let's find out shall we, because I have always been so fascinated the way it lights up on my TV.

Most of the graphics you see on the field every Sunday is produced from a company called Sportvision. They have created all the cool graphics for football, baseball, NASCAR, and even a lot of news networks. But we are here for football and that damn yellow line has me mighty curious.

I'm going to give you a simplified version of how this works or else I would need thousands of words to do it. So in 2003 the NFL and Sportvision adopted this technology to all broadcasts along with another important piece of technology known as Skycam. Using 8 computers, 3 encoders, a mess of cables, and a junk load of cameras Sportvision is able to make a virtual model of the field. Essentially behind the scenes they have a computer generated field with all the players and could make a really cool animated football game if they wanted, but that's not their goal. Using the first down marker the computers know where to put the line, and since they have a 3D model of the field (thanks to Skycam and the other 25 cameras positioned around the stadium) and players, they can create a line right where they need to. Also, they grab a palette of colors for everything on the field (like the brown football and orange field markers), and also a palette for the players (skin tones, uniform colors, etc.). This allows the computers to make the players colors go over the line so it appears they are walking right through it. So, you can get rid of those green screen theories because it doesn't matter what the colors are as long as the computers load the proper color palettes before kickoff.

So basically you are watching a real football game on top of a virtual football game both at the same time. Because of this they can add what is called VI (Virtual Insertions), like all the cool border graphics you see on the jumbo tron or all the arrows and stats that show up on the field during a telecast. They just have to make sure the computer knows what graphics to use at the right time. Unfortuanely, this also let's them throw adds and videos on your screen. Imagine your watching a game and the bottom right 1/3 of the field is a virtual screen showing a Nike commercial and the ball gets a big pink swoosh on it while the FOX logo suddenly turns into Michael Jordan. Yes, this scenario can happen quite easily.

I'm done for the day folks. I hope you enjoyed the post, and enjoy the game.

It is Time for a Microsoft Boom!

2011-08-28T21:25:00.000-04:00

There are a lot of haters and just plain negative feelings towards Microsoft these days. Their stock just sits in the mid-20s while Apple and Google explore the 300-500 range while making the same amount of revenue as Microsoft. People just generally have a bad taste or a boring aura around the brand. Well, I think it is time for people to be optimistic about what Microsoft is about to do in the consumer market, and here is why.

There are only a few companies with serious ecosystems that include media content, cloud capability, mobile operation, TV connection, and PC software. I would like to explore each of these, and setup what I think to be the perfect opportunity for Microsoft to capitalize on.

Let's start with our connection to our televisions. Google has recently fallen flat with Google TV, and Logitech has been forced to start at a $299 price point and then readjust to $99, because it just is not catching on. Apple has the Appletv, but like Google they cannot get all the content they want, and when you do find the content you better fork over money for it. Add to that the fact you have to buy a box in addition to the 3 or 4 other items already hooked up to your TV. This is where gaming comes in.

In the gaming field Microsoft is dominating right now with the XBox 360. It took them 6 years to turn a profit, but they are the top gaming system selling right now and are planning to unveil the next gen system sometime next year. Why is this important? Well, Unlike Apple and Google they can leverage XBox to link your TV and home network through their system. Apple and Google are trying to leverage their boxes to play games, but let's be serious Angry Birds and Papertoss just don't translate to a 50" screen as well as playing a made for the big screen game like Halo. Unless Apple or Google makes a big deal with Sony or Nintendo, Microsoft has a way to your TV with hardware you probably already own. Once you get to the TV a company just needs to give you access to media and they own you, monetarily at least.

Media is very important to every consumer and every company offers a way to get your content in multiple places so I won't get too in depth about this. You just need to choose who you want to buy from, whether it be Microsoft with their Zune software, Apple with iTunes, or Google with their anybody can sell anything on our platform. Seriously, I am so confused about what Google is trying to do here my head starts feeling like spaghetti junction in Atlanta during rush hour. Amazon, Sony, Samsung, and Google themselves are just some of the suppliers of media in the Android and PC markets. Thank you Google for being open source, but it really hurts your platform.

Now once you buy this media it is important to share it, which is where cloud storage can be incredibly useful. Google is killing competition with services like Google music that let's you upload your whole library and download it at will from any PC or mobile device. Microsoft has created their Skydrive service which puts not only music, but documents in the same place; this is unlike Google who decided to separate Google Docs into it's own realm. Only problem with Skydrive is that it is limited to 25GB, so movies are out of the question. you will need to use Netflix on Xbox360 or use your Zune client on your PC. Now for Apple, who wants to capitalize on a service everyone else offers for free. Sure they give you 5GB, that is about 2 HD movies or maybe a 1,000 or so songs. If you want to up that storage space get ready to fork over $20/10GB, $40/20GB, or $100/50GB a year. Oh, and here is the kicker some media types will only store if you purchase through Apple in your iTunes account. WHAT A DEAL HUH!

OK, so here we have the perfect storm for one of these companies to give us the whole package. My vote will be with Microsoft, and I'm hoping a lot of people will see it my way. The folks in Washington are working very hard at creating a UI across what they call the "3 screens"; by this we mean TV(large screen), PC (medium screen), and mobile device (small screen). This UI is currently called Metro and can be proudly shown off on any Windows Phone device just see below.

<><><><><><>

<><><><><><><>

Will this be liked by all consumers, of course not. But it is a unique and different experience than anyone has felt on a phone before. In the short time that Windows Phone 7 has been on the market the reviews have been great, but sales have been minor at best. But this is only the beginning. Just last week Microsoft introduced a trimmed down version of this UI on the XBox and below I have added what is to be the PC version so take a gander.
When first seeing this I freaked out (the PC is about to die), but this will make a great UI to fit tablets like no other OS. This similar feel between the 3 screens will make it easier for Microsoft to share content between devices and for consumers to be able to consume that content. Microsoft is also doing whatever they can to add a top notch social experience. While Google Voice and Facetime are populating their respective markets for Google and Apple, Microsoft went and bought the biggest video conferencing network known as Skype. This new Skype acquistion has already been linked with Facebook and will be integrated heavily into all Microsoft products soon. Add Linked In, Twitter, and MSN Messenger and Microsoft is brewing to make one mean platform. Now your XBox and PC can take advantage of these mergers, but soon their phones will too. So Microsoft has done their homework and spent heavy dollars to give every consumer a nice playground between all their devices. Whether it be video conferencing, texting, E-mail, Zune media, XBox gaming, or just wanting something new without having to go in/out of icons all day Microsoft has created the experience. It is up to us to use it.

HP WebOS#!^

2011-08-20T02:03:00.001-04:00

The merger of HP and Palm was anything but smooth. Having purchased products from both companies I thought something great would happen. I thought Palm would now have what it needed to be become great again. Boy, I could not have been more wrong. Read my thoughts on why we should have seen the downfall of Palm.

So the last 48 hours has been quite a busy time for tech enthousiasts. On the wake of Google buying Motorola HP is now ditching the WebOS hardware devision it just purchased 1 yr ago. Below is a sad and very dry earnings call by HP announcing the death of WebOS.

http://cdn0.sbnation.com/podcasts/HP_on_webOS.mp3

So it seems by listening to this earnings call HP wanted a tablet to rival the iPad, gave it 3 months to start making an impact, and pretty much gave it a small budget to advertise the next generation of tablets. Maybe HP should learn how to startup a new product by looking at Microsoft. Microsoft just spent $1 billion to market WP7 and it still only has 4% of the smartphone market after 10 months. Microsoft also did not make any profits on XBox for almost 6 years and it is now the top gaming system on the market by far. I'm not here to talk about Microsoft though, so let me give you a rundown on why the HP-Palm merger did not work.

Let me take you back in time a bit. Back in 1992 Palm Computing Inc is founded as a software company relying on Tandy and Casio to make the first gen Palm Pilots. A few years later they are bought by 3COM. At the time 3COM owned Palm life was not good, so a lot of the people decided to get together and create Handspring in June 1998. While this was going on 3COM was making the hardware a publicly traded entity keeping the Palm name. Eventually the two companies Handspring and Palm would combine again to make PalmOne Inc. in 2003 and all of a sudden Treo's were developed to create the smartphone. Yes, all of the amazing little gadgets we call smartphones (Blackberry, iOS, WP7, and Symbian) all came after the Palm smartphone.

Alright, so now we know who Palm is, let's talk about HP. That huge PC maker that announced it was purchasing Palm in 2009 for $1.2 billion. At the time of the merger Palm was having a hard time getting people to buy in on WebOS, their new web based operating system that first added cloud storage to smartphones. Microsoft, Google, and Apple all jumped on that bandwagon years later. HP probably saw some value in what Palm was trying to do, and probably saw some big value in the hundreds of patents Palm held. Can you imagine Palm suing Apple for making a smartphone? It can happen, which is why no one has tried to sue HP during the last year when everyone is suing everyone for patent infringement. Microsoft is even forcing Samsung and HTC to pay them for selling Android phones because of a few patents they bought from Palm years ago. So HP had great reasons for buying Palm.

Here is where things went wrong for the Palm and HP marriage. During the honeymoon of the merger Palm came out and said they were going to make a tablet and more powerful smartphones. Sounds great right? Well, during this nice announcement HP decides to hire Leo Apotheker in 2010. None of you probably know who this guy is, but he used to work for SAP who were buddy buddy with Oracle and made server software for the corporate end. Oracle threw a huge hissy when Leo left for HP and proved that Leo stole Oracle's intellectual property. What a great CEO right? And what does he know about hardware?

Yeah, that's Leo

So now a business minded software thief is running HP who makes hardware. Fast forward another year. HP is now ready to roll out 2 smartphones, the Veer and Pre3, and a tablet known as the Touchpad. They show it off at CES 2011 and it makes a lot of noise, but we still have not seen any advertising. So April rolls around and the Veer hits ATT with a "soft" roll out. In the retail world that means we don't quite want to spend millions on advertising so we will see if any one buys it without us pushing it. Well, let's just say it never had a chance because I bet none of you reading this blog have seen that phone. So shortly after that in May, the Touchpad finally hits market. Still no major advertising and is sold exclusively at Staples...yes people you read that right. Sales are so bad in July they started dropping the price to sell. August 1 Best Buy tries to sell 250,000 tablets back to HP because it is not selling. But the ads finally hit with Manny Pacquiao, that will save the day right?

August 28, 2011 HP announces the death of Palm. And good old Leo released this fun statement explaining HP's new focus.

"strategic priorities of cloud, solutions and software with an emphasis on enterprise, commercial and government markets"^.

Like I didn't see that one coming.

So what does this mean? If you want a cheap laptop the Touchpad is starting to drop to just $99 and if you can ever find a Pre3, which never hit market, you will be a tech God.

Generally, I wouldn't bash a company, but the last few years I have seen HP turn into a very bad company. The choice of Leo for CEO, poor marketing, and the horrible return and customer satisfaction rates have put HP on my black list. What makes me feel really horrible is that I have promoted their PCs and laptops many times. For this, Chucktown community, I am truly sorry. And for all of you who linger longer you will notice in my laptop comparo HP was nowhere to be found.

Thanks for reading people and go buy the new collector's item HP Touchpad.

Grid OS, Like Tron Grid?

2011-08-17T02:05:00.002-04:00

So I had to show you guys this wacky new thing that is going to hit the market. A company called Fusion Garage (they made the Joo Joo) is producing a tablet called Grid 10 and a smartphone called Grid 4. The numbers are nothing special, that's how many inches the screens are diagonally. I am going to give you my impressions of this odd new OS.

Thanks Engadget for the nice vid

Wow, that was weird right? I felt like someone just put a blue filter on everything and the smurfs are now creating weird new operating systems for our tablets. Let me say that part of the odd coloring was due to poor lighting and the camera used to film. Generally from a better angle and up close it is very normal looking lots of grey and blue highlights. Sound familiar Apple fanboys? I digress, let's get to what I thought about the Fusion Garage's new OS for all the hipsters out there.

First up to bat is the home screen. OK, I give big props for going way out of the box on this thing. I love the way the icons collapse into a folder and expand again. I understand the grid and it was easy to grasp, but just make it more transparent. Big hint, don't show the grid until I touch the screen. I want to see my background and I really don't understand why the clock and dates need to take up half the screen. Speaking of screen what is the resolution on this thing 480x800? No, in fact it is 1366 x 768 much like the iPad; so why does it look so cheap? Anytime you have to put a PIP to let the user know where they are on the screen, HUGE fail.

Let's get a little into the hardware of this freak of tech nature. Screen resolution was mentioned earlier and note it does have a 4 point capacitive touchscreen. To the la men that means you and 3 friends can use 1 finger each and do nothing special. Most users will never use more than 2 fingers at a time, but there are some uses for 4 points of touch like playing an onscreen piano or making really bad finger paintings much quicker.

For the social peeps you do get a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera, but no rear facing. Wouldn't want you looking stupid outside trying to catch the best sunset ever.

Now for the boring specs:
1.2 GHz dual-core Tegra II processor
GPS
Gyroscope
Accelerometer
Ambient Light Sensor
512 MB RAM (yeah I know, ouch)
Wi-fi b/g/n
16GB memory
3.5" headphone jack
Stereo speakers .5 watts (bust out those lame Kenny G mp3's people no bass here)
Bluetooth 2.1
microSD slot
Dock with HDMI/charging point/USB

One last spec I want to note is the price that I think is a little high. $499 for the wi-fi only version and $599 for the GSM version. No CDMA/LTE versions so don't even think of using this on Verizon or Sprint's network. I don't expect these price points to stay due to the fact they will not sell a lot. I'm a realist people.

Now some of you may be asking what apps are loaded on this OS? Sorry to keep you waiting. This is built on an Android kernel so expect Android's market to be downloadable. To those that develop for Android say it with me now, frag-men-ta-tion. I knew that you could.

As for the UI itself I will let you decide. Yes, I felt it very laggy as well. I hate the way they use gestures. Did you notice he performed one from the left, the right, and from the top? This was confusing to me. Add the obvious lag and I see myself using the gesture 2 or 3 times before I perform the task I want. Did I mention lag? Look at the time it took to get back to the homescreen from any app. 2-3 seconds is not acceptable from a dual-core processor.

Although there are many negatives with the UI I still feel they did some really great things. For instance, all the menus are shown as wheels and typically near the far ends of the screen. This was awesome because now you can use your thumbs for everything and never have to move your hands. Other tablets tend to use this, but not nearly as much. A great example of the wheel menu is in the browser. In the bottom left corner you see your history in a wheel display with tiny screenshots. However, when you use the video player the UI puts the controls in the center of the video completely negating the effectiveness of the wheel menus. Make the controls more consistent and I might put their UI on the top of Android tablets.

Is there a market for this alien like Android device? Yes, most definitely. Today there is a small market for anyone wanting to be different. A lot of consumers hate Apple and want an alternative, but might be bored with what Android has been spitting out the last year. To this I say wait for a price drop and think about snatching a Grid 10. Make sure you load your 720p version of Tron and watch the audio drag behind just like it did in the video above.

Hope you enjoyed the post everybody, feel free to check out the link below for more videos and how-to's about the Grid 10.
http://www.fusiongarage.com/grid-10/guided-tours

Laptops for Cheap Yo!

2011-08-11T01:19:00.002-04:00

Recently I have had a lot of people asking me what laptop they should buy. I am a little overwhelmed by this question because there is so much choice out there. Well, these days everyone wants to save money so all of these people asking for laptops all wanted something low cost. Hence the reason for this post.

Below I have put together a list of 1 laptop from many major OEMs that give you a nice range of power for under $600. If you get too low you either will get a very small screen or a very poor performing laptop. Also, tablets are not included at all, I will save that for another post. One thing to remember about pricing is that this is not the best deal you can find for these laptops. Many are just Amazon, Pricewatch, or Newegg searches. I actually went to a few of the OEM websites and noticed I could similarly spec these rigs for a little cheaper in some instances.

Standard specs for all models:

15.6" screen with 1366 x 768 resolution

1.3 megapixel webcam

4 GB RAM (speeds do vary)

integrated intel graphics so don't expect to do hardcore gaming

VGA and HDMI output

Optical drives (min. DVD read/write)

Wireless N

SD/MMC card readers

Windows 7 64 bit

Acer Aspire AS5742-6838 - $593.99

This beast is running the most powerful processor of the bunch. The i5 Intel processor running at 2.53 GHz will have no problems with your day to day tasks and should run HD content as easily as I run out of work at the end of my work shift. Acer also packed the biggest hard drive of the bunch at 640 GB. If all you want is a powerhouse for internet and documents and don't care about extras this is your match.

Dell Inspiron 15R 1198MRB - $595.88

Here is another very powerful and nice looking package. Dell has loaded the Inspiron up with a 2.4 GHz i3 processor very similar to the i5 in the Acer, but not quite as efficient. They also went crazy and loaded faster RAM at 1333 MHz instead of the 1066 every other manufacturer decided to use. A tip of the hat to Dell, but now for a wag of the finger. They only put a 320GB hard drive at the standard 5400 rpm. Dell also downgraded the LAN to 10/100 so not the fastest Ethernet connection. Dell did make up for it by offering their online PC backup utility.

All in all this is a nice piece of hardware, but did not quite have the features to put it on top.

Gateway NV55C38u - $464.99

Welcome to the slowest of the bunch. The old Intel P6200, which is still dual-core, but peaks at 2.13 while the i5 can use a performance boost to get close to 3GHz on some chip sets. All the features on this rig are pretty standard nothing that stands out except for some software additions. Gateway throws in their backup utility like Dell's and also has a social network launcher that logs in to Facebook, Youtube, and Flicker all at once to quicken your browsing experience.

This is a very cheap competitor so it's value is high even though performance is less than par. But this Gateway is still a good buy for the mobile browser users that want the capability of a Windows PC.

Toshiba Satellite A665-S5176X - $599.97

So here is the winner of the comparison, but it is not perfect. It too has a very slow 2.1 GHz clock speed like the Gateway, but does use the newer more efficient i3 processor. What sets this laptop apart from the others is the features. Blu-ray is on board, that's right the most expensive optical drive for reading media is in this rig. use the HDMI out and you don't have to buy that $200 blu-ray player for your entertainment center. Also it has Dolby 7.1 audio just like those high price receivers.

Some also nice things to note is it boasts a 5.5 hour battery life giving about 2 hrs over some of the competitors. Also, Toshiba has loaded Harmon Kardon speakers that look really cool, but still aren't very loud due to power reasons. And one more thing to note. 1 USB 3.0 port is present. What does that mean? Speed that's all, but not much uses this new standard except for external hard drives, but think of the future and this could come in handy.

I don't think it's hard to see why I found this to be the winner. Sometimes a little more load time is worth the additional features.

MSI A6200-021US - 429.99

MSI brings the economy basement for this comparison. That doesn't mean it's all bad though. MSI brought a 2.26 GHz i5 processor to the fight, not too shabby. From there the stats get a little more negative. It uses wireless G, which to most people doesn't matter because most routers are only G capable. But those of us using N routers demand the faster speeds and lower latency. Also only a 320 GB hard drive is loaded under the hood.

Apart from two really big minuses this is still a good laptop and garners some attention at only 429.99

VAIO VPCEB4HGX/BJ - 579.99

Sony has actually made a budget friendly laptop worth buying. Usually Sony is known for overpriced underpowered devices, but times have changed. packing a powerful 2.53 GHz i3 it may not be our best chip set of the bunch, but is still very nice. I also love the keyboard style and layout.

This laptop is very much a Sony type of device; great looks and decent specs adorn this every day warrior. Yet, it only has 3.5 hours of battery life and is the heaviest of the bunch tipping in at 6lbs. Sony makes a nice competitor just didn't quite have the edge I needed to see.

Below are the my personal scores for each model and how I ranked them. Value was weighted by price/features so basically the most bang for your buck. I hope you enjoyed this little comparison and happy shopping.

<><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><>

	speed	memory	style	battery	features	value	total
Acer	9	8	4	4	5	7	37
Dell	8	6	6	4	6	6	36
Gateway	4	6	5	5	6	9	35
Toshiba	4	6	7	8	8	9	42
MSI	7	4	4	4	4	7	30
Sony	8	6	7	4	6	8	39

Does My Phone Have a Virus On It

2011-08-07T00:50:00.006-04:00

Here is a question I have heard a lot over the years. The answer is ... meh I dunno. No OS on the market tells us tech guys what is causing the lag, power cycle, or just random crash you are experiencing on your phone. So if anyone has told you the smartphone in your hands is being destroyed by malware, they really don't know. Below I have linked a great article Lookout Mobile Security just published. I advise people to read it, especially if you use Android.

https://www.mylookout.com/mobile-threat-report

Be cautious this is a security company that wants you to use their product, but I recommend them to Android users when I am not working. So why is this article so important? Well, 30% of people that use the browser on their smartphone click an unsafe link. And for those apps you download the numbers are getting worse and worse every day. The U.S. is looking at 2% of apps falling under the malware, spyware category.

So, I am going to give everyone a rundown of what this means for your phones.

What happened to all the color? All they use is gray now.

Apple

Not too much worry here. Your apps are sand boxed and are not allowed to play with other apps in most situations. Great to here right? Wrong! Safari is not a safe browser and does have openings that hackers can exploit.

A special note to all y'all jailbreakers out there (you know who you are). If you side load apps that are not approved by the iOS market you may be at higher risk. For instance, you download a 3rd party messaging app that has access to your keyboard. That's right keystroke logger. Now all your personal conversations are recorded and uploaded to some hacker's server without you knowing because text files are so small and you would never notice.

Yes, Microsoft still has a mobile OS

Windows Phone 7

Right now, much like iOS, Microsoft sandboxes your apps so they play alone. This will be changing a bit with the next OS update this fall, but for now your 3rd party apps are pretty darn safe.

Heavy warning for the browser heavy users here. Internet Explorer is the hacker communities playpen. Not because it's easy to hack, but more because everyone wants to hack it. IE9 has shown far better security, but you will not see this upgrade until the update later this year.

Now, a small population may have done something called Chevroning your phone (this is just like jailbreaking an iPhone). You guys have the same scary scenarios as iOS, but probably more likely to see it happen.

Blackberry...where did you go?

Blackberry

Do you guys even have apps? Well, if you do, rest assure RIM is the best at securing their OS and does a great job at policing it. I ask you to be cautious with their future devices though. Blackberry uses all java based apps which do have holes, especially in the browser. Although RIM does a great job of policing these apps, the future looks less defined because they will start running Android based apps on their phones and tablets.

The open platform for me to poop on

Android

Oh boy, where to begin. If you use an Android phone just make sure you backup as much info as regularly as you can and pray a lot. You are almost guaranteed to have some app try to get ad generated info from you. What's bad is most the time you agree to let them. One thing I will give Google credit for is that their browsers tend to be pretty secure. Probably because hackers can easily just make an app to do all the work.

If you use an Android phone I urge you to be smart about what you download and do not download apps by USB unless you are absolutely sure it is safe.

So what to do if you think something has infected your device. Well, hard reset your phone. This means wipe that sucker clean and make sure all your contacts and other important info is backed up somewhere. Honestly, even wiping your phone may not solve the problem. People using Blackberry and iOS have ways of reloading their software from scratch, but Android or Windows Phone users would have to use more resources to reload their OS because the carrier or manufacturer won't be able to provide it.

oh, she just found out her iPhone can get spyware

I will leave you with just one positive note here. Most of the malicious software we download on our phones really isn't that bad. A lot of it is just to help revenue from ads, or report stats that maybe you just don't like giving out. Yes, there are developers trying to get credit card info or password. So just be smart, and if the app looks crappy it is crappy. I

Look Another Tech Blogger, AHHH!

2011-08-06T01:17:00.000-04:00

So what makes me so great? Another tech blogger? Why should I read your stuff?

Ok, I know the number of tech bloggers in America could literally support a city the size of Charleston, SC. I know there is fierce competition. I know I really need to be different. So let me make a case for myself.

I am not a journalist. I did not focus on writing first and then happen to have tech as a focus. I have a true passion for technology and how it effects our culture. Today all these blogs are trying to scoop the next device and break a big story. This blog is not to scoop stuff.

I think I just puked a little bit

Wait a second where did everyone go?

Ok those left in the room here is what I will do. The public needs true opinions without someone bowing to a sponsor or afraid to step on toes. You will get honest opinions and less editing from me.

Incase your wondering I do have credentials. I have a heavy focus in the mobile electronics world. I have spent 5 years in retail sales, management, and technical support with numerous large companies. Wireless carriers have used me like a preacher uses a collection plate (maybe one day I'll get to keep the money).

Before my long and current stent in the mobile world I was into home security systems. No, we could not make binary code cover your walls. Yes, the sign in your yard is more important than the system in your home.

Ok, so I have tech credentials, but do I have nerd credentials. Well, I have built my own desktop XP rig a few years back. Yes, it did overheat after a few months. Here is a tip about desktop building; don't buy the cheapest motherboard. I also have a modified Xbox with a 160 GB HDD in it, and have loaded about 6 different ROMs on my HTC Imagio. Yes, I void warranties. I recently voided my Toshiba Qosmio laptop warranty by yanking out the 64 GB SSD with a nicer OCZ 128 GB SSD.

To be honest I am amateur to a lot of tech out there, and you will see me pull on associates to help me on bigger topics than I can handle. Just try to stay with me and notice I try to see tech from the average consumer angle and not some guy trying to bag a deal with Apple. Enjoy the blog people.