Mobile travel applications let you select and track flights, book hotels and effortlessly manage all of those last-minute changes that will inevitably occur your trip.   The Gear Diary team are huge fans of travel apps like TripIt, but that’s not the only game in town.

If you are using a Symbian smartphone, you may prefer Psiloc’s World Traveler that features the  “HotelZon” plugin that lets you search and book hotel rooms in real time from a selection of more than 90,000 hotels worldwide.  That’s in addition to their free currency converters, world clocks for managing multiple timezones, weather and premium plugins for additional flight assistance.  Best of all, World Traveler is optimized specifically for your Symbian phone.   Read on to see even more features.

… [visit site to read more]

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While Judie, Larry and I were ordering our iPads earlier today, Carly was watching Amazon.com. She was curious what, if anything, Amazon might do in response to the iPad’s pre-order going live. This was especially the case since it turns out the iPad does something awesome for eBooks.

Turn it from portrait to landscape and… bam… you get two facing pages- just like the “dead tree edition”.

Carly’s comment, “I sure hope this puts a fire under Amazon for the next Kindle.”

Well that got me thinking. I did some research and… discovered that Amazon.com got an order shortly after the iPad went online from none other than the big guy himself.

For a peek into what might be going on at Amazon.com’s head office check out this exclusive picture…

… [visit site to read more]

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The iTunes App Store is filled with GPS applications.  Destinator 9 from Intrinsyc is the latest addition to the category. Destinator has been running on a variety of other mobile devices and GPS units for a while now and it’s achieved a large following.

The iPhone version of the application brings a rich, featured filled GPS client complete with real time traffic updates, on-board maps, voice guided directions, extended POIs and more.

I recently downloaded the free trial of Destinator 9 from the App Store and took it out on the road for a drive.

Here are my thoughts.

… [visit site to read more]

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I was sent a Toshiba 640GB Portable Hard Drive in “Rocket Red” to review, but since this one will also be given away, I was hesitant to use and abuse it like I might a memory device I would be keeping. Therefore, in return for this micro-review, you get a chance to win a pocket-size time capsule just waiting to be filled with your important documents and digital memories.

… [visit site to read more]

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Welcome to this week’s “State of the ebook”. As usual, we’re diving in with news, then looking at a few major stories that have been floating around the ebook world.

Click here to view the embedded video.

… [visit site to read more]

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Samsung has announced their E60 ebook reader, a basic 6 inch eInk device with a touchscreen and wifi…and it will be tied into the Barnes and Noble ecosystem. Honestly, I don’t entirely understand how this is a win for B&N or Samsung. The E60 is stuck living in the shadow of the nook, and Barnes and Noble ends up confusing their brand further.

In my opinion, Samsung would have benefited more from tying in with a store like Kobo Books. Kobo has made it their philosophy that they do not want to tie down to one reader, but be a content provider to all kinds of devices. Partnering with B&N means playing second fiddle to the nook constantly. Talk Barnes and Noble and ebooks, and everyone knows nook first and foremost. While it’s great to get the content boost from a large store, there are other dance partners out there. Plus, B&N says they’ll be opening their DRM up to all Adobe-compatible devices, so eventually that compatibility is not going to be anything special. And the pricing is a bit high for what you get. For $299, you get a touchscreen enabled reader with wifi, so you can take handwritten notes, which is nice. But on the other hand, that’s still higher than the nook, which has the potential for far more interesting functionality through rooting.

… [visit site to read more]

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We all know the Apple iPad went on sale this morning. We know that the WiFi only model will be available on April 3rd and the 3G model will come about a month later. We know that the device starts at a pretty amazing price point of $499 and that, when available, the 3G version will run an extra $130 regardless of the storage capacity. We know that a ton of additional tablets will begin shipping some time soon and that many of them will include such missing items as Flash and a camera for video conferencing.

I’ve ordered mine and I do want one sooner rather than later. (Big surprise.)

If the 3G … [visit site to read more]

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You see, I always assumed that I would sign up for the unlimited plan but the flexibility of the setup, and the ability to easily monitor my data usage, has me rethinking things.

… [visit site to read more]

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We all talk about how great it is to carry an electronic book reader. It saves space in bags, gives you new books at your fingertips, and tends to be lighter and more ergonomic than a regular book. I can’t think of a group who need to pack light and have new content to entertain themselves more than soldiers stationed overseas, and now you can help outfit soldiers with Kindles!

Len Edgerly is spearheading a donation campaign he calls “Kindles for Kandahar”; he wants to raise funds via PayPal to outfit as many soldiers as possible with Kindle 2s. It started after M-Edge outfitted a soldier with a K2 and accessories; the hope is that M-Edge will donate accessories for each Kindle purchased for soldiers. From Len Edgerly’s site:

… [visit site to read more]

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World’s only Apple-certified solar charger carrying case doubles battery life using cutting-edge solar panel technology to power up directly from the sun. (It) combines a powerful, state-of-the art solar panel with a lithium ion battery into a comfortable, soft touch, non-slip finish case to provide energy conscious consumers with the ultimate protective battery backup solution for every day use.

The Surge provides 30 minutes of talk time on a 3G network or 60 minutes on 2G after 2 hours of sunlight.

The Novothink Solar Surge is available now in Black and White from Novothink.com at an MSRP of $79.95 for iPhone 3G/3G S and $69.95 for iPod Touch(2^nd Gen).

The full press release follows.

… [visit site to read more]

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Which Lenovo products can you save on?

Well you can get 15% off select ThinkPad laptops, 15% off most IdeaPad laptops and G-series laptops and 15% off ThinkPad X200 Tablet/W700. The savings are a bit less on other items but you’ll still get 5% off most ThinkPads (including X100e/Edge) and 10% off ThinkPad SL-Series.

To get this deal visit LogicBUY and enter the coupon code USPSTPATRICKSDAY. This code will stack on top of instant savings!

Lenovo Coupons: up to … [visit site to read more]

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If you bought a Moto Backflip, you probably noticed the odd use of Yahoo Search over Google, and the incredible amount of AT&T bloatware included on the device. Unfortunately, short of rooting it there’s not much you can do about either of those, but AT&T did something far worse to the Backflip that you WILL want to change.

Every other Android phone offers an option to install apps from outside the marketplace. Sometimes it is a beta (like the Swype keyboard beta), other times it is things like PDANet, a tethering utility, that isn’t sold through the marketplace. If you own a Backflip, AT&T completely removed this option. Many sites have belabored the “Android is supposed to be OPEN” sentiment, and I won’t continue it here. But I will share this tip, care of Android Central.

… [visit site to read more]

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Image courtesy of V-MODA

There’s some old saying the goes along the lines of “you’re only as good as the people around you.”  I feel the same way towards the relationship between my iPod or my iPhone and the headphones I use with each.  I may have the largest, most comprehensive music collection on the planet loaded on each of them but unless I’ve chosen a pair of headphones that allow me to listen to the music in decent quality what good is it?

I’ve carried a pair of V-MODA Vibe Duo headphones religiously for the past year or so.  They have a regular place in my left pant pocket not matter what I’m doing.  I find their feel and sound quality to be excellent and Dan agreed when I lent them to him during CES this year.

When Judie was contacted by V-MODA and subsequently reached out to the Gear Diary team to see if anyone was interested in reviewing their newest offering, the Remix, I jumped at the chance.

The Remix combines super quality audio performance along with the one thing that’s missing from my daily drivers (the Vibe Duo.)  A three-button remote, which allows users hands-free access to answer calls and control their music library.

So are the Remix headphones poised to oust the Vibe-Duos from my left pocket?

Read on to find out.

… [visit site to read more]

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We are all feeling the financial pinch!    Blue Plate Special is a weekly review of bargain apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Nothing over $.99.

My addiction to word games is still growing at a dangerous rate.  Forming words seems to have become one of my favorite past times!  I am not sure if my vocabulary has improved or if my ability to apply spelling rules has improved, but I am improving on a number of word puzzle games.  Several weeks ago I reviewed Word Warp Free for the Blue Plate Special.  I enjoyed the game and continued playing until I found Word Warp Xtreme which is the sequel to Word Warp Free.  Find out what new features are included after the break. … [visit site to read more]

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Larry sent out a tweet last week that immediately grabbed my attention: Coolest iPhone stand ever. http://bit.ly/aB9ANM http://twitpic.com/16jxfn.

Oh really?

And then I clicked the link and found myself agreeing …
… [visit site to read more]

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That’s right – the highly anticipated OnLive service that promises to deliver the hottest new games in high definition to gaming computers unable to meet the standard requirements, and also to set-top boxes in the future, unveiled some details such as the release date and pricing for membership today.

Bottom line: $15 a month gets you everything you need other than a Mac or PC, of course … oh, and also no games. … [visit site to read more]

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Oh the Alex Reader. It has so much promise: nice big eInk screen with a full android experience on the LCD screen. Reports have been very positive, and everyone who has seen one loves it. But hardly anyone has seen one…because Spring Design has been very silent about shipping. The ebook market is very, very crowded these days, and all eyes are turned to the iPad. But it’s more than just the iPad that could kill the Alex Reader…

1) Partnering with Borders: While it had some funny potential to partner with Barnes and Noble’s nemesis, Spring Design hitched their star to a burning building. Not only did Borders lay off enough employees that the day became known as “Black Thursday“, but they also eliminated the training supervisor position. So on less staff and no one taking point on training, Borders employees are going to do a bang up job selling the Alex Reader?!

… [visit site to read more]

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Now you can totally re-enact your favorite character’s Star Wars scenes after you get out of the shower, either as a Jedi or … as Darth Vader!

The Darth Vadar hooded bathrobe mixes Vader’s classic black fashion sense with an embroidered logo of his helmet – just in case anyone mistakes you for a vampire wannabe or opera fan. You know who you are, and you know you want one.

Add the Darth Vader lightsaber from Think Geek, and no one will mess with your Dark Side!

… [visit site to read more]

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In my recent Netbook Gamer on Bioware’s Neverwinter Nights, I highlighted the Premium Modules and even linked to an extended article reviewing them. At that time I mentioned that due to Atari losing the Wizards of the Coast Dungeons & Dragons license, Bioware was no longer able to sell the modules.

… [visit site to read more]

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Google Reader is a pretty powerful way to organize and read your RSS feeds. For the most part I use it as the engine powering and syncing my data beneath the surface but actually read my feeds using a 3rd-party app. For example, my Google Reader account gathers dozens of feeds but the app iNews organizes and presents it to me on my iPhone. I assumed I would do the same thing on my iPad (Google Reader beneath the surface, 3rd party app for reading) but now word comes from Google that they have “something completely different” that may be one of the most innovative ways to read RSS feeds yet.

… [visit site to read more]

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