Veho 360 Bluetooth speaker review
Although this is primarily a European product, it is often easily available on ebay and I wanted to conduct a quick review for my readers. I received this as a christmas gift and have been using it daily for about 3 weeks now. Quick look The Veho 360 is a small cylindrical battery powered speaker. It stands 5 cm tall and 4cm in diameter. The device has a 2.2 watt speaker that shoots sound out from the top. On the side, it has 2 ports: a charging port and a 3.
Wozniak : believes some Android features are better than the iPhone
Before people start sending me hate mail, Woz still believes the iPhone is a better overall experience but believes Android performs some functions better. One of those features is voice commands and built-in navigation. With all the phanphare around SIRI, WOZ says the Android version performs better (for him at least). In case you missed it, WOZ went to the Google campus last month to take ownership of a freshly baked Google Nexus phone (although his Android phone of choise is still the Motorola RAZR).
Google acquired another 217 patents from IBM.
Engadget is reporting that Google recently acquired 217 patents from their big blue brother( aka IBM). The transaction was posted in the USPO assignment database on Tuesday. Some analysts have looked at the patents in question and have said they include techniques related to email administration, Instant messaging, video conferencing, presentation software and the like. Just a reminder that they also acquired another 1000 patents from Big Blue in July of 2011, 1023 in September of 2011 and bought Motorola Mobility which also had a vast patent portfolio.
Internet Explorer 6 is dead. Long live IE.
Many of us thought IE 6 was already dead but it seems we were wrong. As its share of the web browser market fell to below 1%, Redmond finally gave it a one-two sucker punch. IE6 is now officially down for the count. Roger Capriotti , the Microsoft director in charge of IE marketing said : “IE6 has been the punch line of browser jokes for a while, and we’ve been as eager as anyone to see it go away.
Smartphone activations don't matter (iphone or android)
Whether you’re in the Apple or Android smartphone camp, at one time or another, your side used creative statistics interpretation to justify why you are the market favorite. The numbers used most often are total activations or total devices sold. But how important are these numbers? Until a platform reaches critical mass, it is very important for the manufacturer to keep pushing the platform forward. With critical user mass come the apps which in turn will drive additional growth. So a platform needs enough users to make the platform interesting to developers but after that point, who cares!
Windows 7 Will Be Running on 42% of PCs
Gartner Research believes that Microsoft's Windows 7 Operating System will be running on 42% of all PCs by the end of 2011. Supporting this move is the fact that 94% of all new PCs shipped in 2011 had Windows 7 pre-installed. Another interesting note is that "Gartner's forecast assumes that Windows 7 is likely to be the last version of Microsoft OS that gets deployed to everybody through big corporatewide migration." For Mac OS fans, Gartner believes 4.5% of new PCs shipped in 2011 will run Apple's operating system and that this will rise to 5.
Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition has been acquired by Google
Google has quietly acquired a Pittsburgh company that has technology related to facial recognition. The company, PittPatt, was founded and run by 3 Carnegie Mellon University PhDs. No one really know why Google made the purchase or where/when it will be used but it is safe to assume it will be one more tool in their anti-Facebook crusade. We will be anxiously waiting to see how this “computer vision technology” will be implemented and deployed while adhering to Google’s mantra “Do no evil”.
Could Apple make a bid for HULU?
Bloomberg reported [on Thursday] that Apple is considering a bid for video streaming site extraordinaire – HULU. HULU announced that they have retained the services or Morgan Stanley and Guggenheim partners to assist with the potential sale of the company. About 2 years ago, the interwebs were buzzing about Apple starting a new streaming Television service. Obviously that never got off the ground. Could this be the missing piece to the puzzle? This new rumor is in addition to the others we have already read about other potential suitors, mainly Yahoo,Google and Microsoft.
Review of the free scan to cloud software - ScanDrop
I am a big fan of Evernote and use it to store all of my reference material (as explained in the GTD methodology). One of the key requirements to my online storage strategy is converting paper into PDF and getting it into Evernote as simply and quickly as possible. A while back I found a free software called ScanDrop which did exactly that. I use it to scan paper directly from my Brother multifunction device and then upload it straight into my Evernote [For Google Docs users, it supports that service too] inbox ready for processing.
The wacky world of Google+ (aka Google Plus)
I was finally able to get into Google Plus about a week ago and my overall rating is that it is interesting but.... For those of us that played with other ill-fated Google products (such as Buzz), it is refreshing to see that they learned their lessons. The Interface As you can see, Google has used a clean and easy to understand interfacehoweverit will take some getting used to. Dozens of prominent tech bloggers complained that Google Plus is simply a different looking Facebook.
GHSA determines road risk of using a mobile phone while driving
An American association called the Governor’s Highway Safety Association recently released a report that use of a mobile phone correlates with increased risk of accidents in the United States of America (USA). To arrive at their conclusion, the association reviewed 350 scientific papers, published between 2000 and 2010, related to highway safety. Their review clearly showed that distracted driving accounts for 15-25% of all crashes (ranging from small fender benders to accidents with fatalities). Nothing here should be surprising as it based on common sense.
Facebook has identity and your attention
Facebook has become the premium identity management company on the web with 500 million+ users. Just think of how many apps allow you to log-in using your facebook ID (aka Facebook Connect). In late 2010, Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook COO) stated that 10,000 websites integrate with Facebook everyday (that is over 3.6 million new sites every year). Facebook knows who you are, what you like, who your friends are, where you have been (Places) and what you are thinking about (status updates).