Edward Kiledjian

I am often asked what headphones I would choose costing under $60 and my answer may surprise you... It's a $8 pair from monoprice called the 9927. 

You can read my detailed review here. 

Fast food is all about convenience and the above concept is a fantastic new convenience. Sure this won't work for people buying drive-through but for everyone else, this leans you can carry your entire meal with one hand. 

See this REDDIT thread

The Huffington Post has an interesting article that indicates that Bell will start tracking all your usage to deliver targeted ads. Effective November 16, the Bell privacy option are changing to allow them to do this to serve targeted advertising and to "improve network performance".

They will track your web history (ADSL, FIBE and mobile), application usage, call metadata (similar to what the NSA did) and your location based on cell phone tower triangulation.

They promise not to share your information outside of Bell but does that make you feel warm and fuzzy? Rogers also started doing this recently (Rogers Alerts).

These types of anti-privacy behavior should convince most users to leverage a private VPN service to protect their browsing habits from their ISP.

Huffington Post article here. 

You can OPT out of Bell targeted ads here.

Yesterday was a busy tech announcement day and in all the hoopla, the availability of Microsoft Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 was lost. 

If you are looking to overpay for a laptop that claims to be a tablet then you can now pick on up at a Microsoft store or in participating Canadian retailers.  Surface 2 (originally called Surface RT) is available for $449 and Surface Pro 2 sells for $899.

Microsoft Surface 

The super popular Uber taxi service is testing its offering in Montreal (Quebec). Uber taxis are limited during this testing phase but it shouldn't be "too" difficult to hail a taxi within a reasonable time-frame. 

What is Uber?

It is a smartphone app that allows you to hail a taxi. The app tells you where your taxi is and notified you when it arrives to pick you up. Uber also stores your payment information so you never have to worry about having cash on you. If you pay through their electronic service, they email you a receipt within minutes.

Launch special

To celbrate the testing launch of the Montreal service, they are offering users a $15 discount on their first taxi use. The discount code is UBERMTL 

Download the Uber app for your smartphone now

• Click here for iphone
• CLick here for Android

I travel to the US very regularly and before learning about Roam Mobility, I had to either pay my carrier exhorbitant roaming fees or try to find a temporary SIM card when I arrived in the US (which isn't always easy). Obviously having my US 3G coverage arranged before I start my trip is my prefered option and Roam has been my go to solution. I typically use the Roam Mobility SIM card with my unlocked iPhone 4s but during my last trip, I decided to take their Liberty Hotspot instead.

What is the Liberty hotspot

The Liberty Hotspot is a very small WIFI hotspot that connect's to Roam Mobolity's US network (aka T-Mobile) and deliver beautiful internet connectivity for up to 5 devices. The device itself is extremely small and I ended up carrying it in my dress shirt pocket most of the time.

The device has a small LCD monitor on the front that displays signal strength, battery left and the number of clients currently connected. Connecting a device is as simple as pressing the WPS button (if the client supports it) or using the pre-configured password printed inside the battery compartment. For the more technical audience, you can connect to a simple web interface and change the default WIFI name and password.

The kit comes with the device, a battery, sim card, USB cable and wall charger.

Roam claims the devices battery should last about 4 hours and my testing shows that they are fairly close. I was in the US for 5 days and kept charging and using the device. I found in my testing that the battery lasted between 3-4.5 hours depending on how aggressively I was using the internet.  

While in the car, I had a dual-port USB Charger that allowed me to keep my cell and the hotspot constantly charged. 

Why a WIFI Hostpot

There are dozens of use cases when a wifi hotspot could be useful but here are the ones I lived when in Wichita (Kansas) 

USE CASE 1 - Using a MAP app with traffic data

Although I have an on device GPS software (Navigon), without internet connectivity, I lose access to live traffic data. Using the Liberty WIFI Hotspot, I was able to use Navigon, Waze and Google Maps to ensure I always used the optimal route. 

USE CASE 2 - Connectivity in the hotel

Although my hotel offered free WIFI internet, there was 1 day where the hotel WIFI was "broken" and having the Libery hospot meant I could still stay connected.

Most hotel networks are considered extremely hostile and it is possible for a "bad guest" to steal other guests WIFI traffic. Using your own 3G based WIFI hotspot is more secure.

USE CASE 3 - Finding restaurants

Not knowing the area, I used Google Now almost every evening to chose a restaurant for supper. By having connectivity on the go, I could find good restaurants, check ratings and make reservations via OpenTable.

USE CASE 4 - Using VOIP Telephony to save money

When travelling, I typically use a free VOIP app called FONGO to call home (in addition to using FacetIme video and Facetime audio). I used FONGO for free calling back to my Canadian contacts. 

Should I use the data only Liberty Hotspot? 

Roam Mobility does offer a SIM card based voice + text message + data plan but this requires that you have an unlocked cell phone (which most people don't), it requires that you configure your phone to use the Roam Mobility APN and it only works with that one device.

When choosing the Roam Mobility Data only plan via the Liberty Hotspot, you can connect up to 5 devices at the same time, you don't need an unlocked cellphone (since you connect to the hotpost via standard WIFI) and you don't need to play with any device APN settings. 

How's the Liberty WIFI Hotspot performance? 

I performed about a dozen speed tests and most averaged what you see above. Performance is far from the LTE based wireless connectivity we are used to at home but it is more than adequate for everyday use. 

I found connectivity in the major metropolitan areas much better (faster) then what you get as you go further away from the downtown core. 

I read 30-40 different T-Mobile review posts on various sites and most people reported that connectivity suffered greatly when you tried to connect deep inside dense buildings. When using it in a restaurant, my hotel room, or my office in Wichita, connectivity was acceptable. Anytime I went into a large store or mall, I could see my connectivity suffer and speeds drop dramatically.

Incredibly competitive pricing

As I was preparing to write this, I noticed that Roam Mobility dramatically reduced its data only plan prices (this week). [read the details of the new pricing here] 

You see above the incredibly lowered new pricing.  For my 1 week trip, I had a 1GB data plan which turned out to be more than enough even though I was using navigation daily, using VOIP to call back home, used it to VPN back into my corporate network and used it to browse the net. 

Remember that most Canadian providers charge you $8 a day for 50MB. If you buy 3 days of access but consume more than 50MB in one day (even though you use less than 150MB over 3 days), you will be charged overage fees. 

The Roam Data cap is available during the entire period and there is no daily cap. Plus for the cost of just 1 day and 50MB with Rogers/FIDO, you get 3 days of service and 300MB of data. 

Verdict

Overall I loved the device. It is small, light and easy to carry. Connecting my phone, tablet or laptop was quick and easy. Once I turned the device on, it connected to the US Roam Mobility network within 30 seconds and I was quickly up and running.

If you travel with multiple devices to the US then this is a fantastic option. I highly recommend Roam Mobility and love their Liberty WIFI Hotspot. 

A big issue for travelers is that carriers use different communication bands. Most Canadian cell phones support the "standard" bands (850,900,1900,2100 MHz). Newer Canadian providers and some American providers use other bands such as AWS bands (1700, 2100 MHz).

What does this mean to you?

It means that you will be able to use the fastest possible connection on more networks around the world. Previously (with an iPhone 4s), my connection sometimes dropped to 2G (or edge) networks which meant painfully slow connectivity when travelling to the US. With the new iPhone 5s, you will be on 4G more often and the connection will be much more reliable.

Since learning about Roam mobility, I never travel to the US without one of their plans (a review of their Liberty hotspot coming shortly). 

They offer competitive pricing and  great customer service. The team over at Roam has made a change that makes me even happier now :

Roam Mobility is now offering more data and cheaper prices

They are actually offering up to 3x more data for the same talk+text+data prices and significantly reduced their data only offering prices. 

Related Articles: 

• ROGERS' US ROAMING VERSUS ROAM MOBILITY
•  ROAM MOBILITY OFFERS COMPETITIVE US ROAMING FOR CANADIANS
•  REAL WORLD TESTING AND REVIEW OF THE ROAM MOBILITY SERVICE

So I decided to upgrade my main PC to Windows 8.1 yesterday and the upgrade is painfully slow. But once it was installed (on a non touch based traditional PC), I was greeted with these: 

Then when I started the desktop, I was greeted with: 

Problem is I do not have a touch device and getting rid of these message with my mouse was challenging.  

Come on Microsoft, why don't you make this easier?  You know I''m on a non touch PC. You know I'm upgrading from Windows 8 (so I know the gestures). Someone at Redmond needs to own the customer user experience.

Technology has empowered us to do incredible things and Google's quest to index all human knowledge has been an incredible multiplier. Now a 30 year old man of indian origin shares his story on Youtube. 

He lost touch with his Indian family at 5 years old and was adopted by an Australian foster family. 25 years later, he used fragments of old memories and the power of Google earth to find his original village, make his way back to that location and find his birth-mother. 

A beautiful example of how technology properly implemented and made available can make the unthinkable possible for everyone.

After about 30 days of availability, Apple's IOS7 is on 71,75% of all iDevices according to Mixpanel. IOS6 has 24.83% of the base and earlier versions only account for ~3%.

IOS7 has been the fastest adopted IOS upgrade to date and its a clear win for Apple because it minimizes OS fragmentation making app development and support easier. 

This may be why Google keep numbering its OS upgrades as minor .x upgrades (trying to bring everyone to version 4). Google has had to fight with carriers and manufacturers to make upgrades available to its users whereas Apple has a big enough stick to force everyone to play ball. 

Fixya just released an interesting report about mobile browsing experience and declared Safari the big winner. 

The Fixya team combed through 60,000 help requests for mobile web browsers and found that Apple's Safari mobile is the "most usable web browser". In second place came Chrome found in stock Android.

Some of the positive characteristics of Safari mobile, as highlighted by Fixya, were:

• simple user interface
• ability to perform multiple actions with a specific webpage (adding bookmark, adding to home-screen, mailing the link, sharing the link, printing the page, etc) 
• the powerful reading list feature built into the browser. 

Even though Safari won this fight, it isn't perfect and Fixya shared the top 5 user complaints about it. 

Although the MotoX wasn't the superphone we were all expecting (based on the rumors), it turned out to be a very solid phone that most users are extremely happy with. It is the always listening Android phone that is ready to respond to your every [voice] command without you every having to touch the actual device.

Rogers has been the exclusive home of the MotoX in Canada but now we get this tweet from Fido. 

No additional information has been provided (such as date, price, terms of the agreement, etc) but I will be watching closely. For any iPhone user looking to switch to a very strong Android phone, I would recommend a Google Nexus device or the Motorola MotoX.

I'm pretty excited Fido is finally getting this device. 

The PCMag team visited all corners of our great country to determine who has the fastest network. After all the testing and analysis, it turns out the Canadian king of speed is none other than Rogers. 

You can read their full article here. 

As you intuitively realize, not all networks perform the same in all markets but overall the editors of PCMag determined that Rogers provided the fastest overall connectivity on the 2600Mhz LTE band. Big Red was followed closely by Bell and Telus. 

Telus was found to have the fastest HSPA+ network but who really cares about HSPA+ anymore? 

"we used field-test software from Sensorly, loaded onto Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphones running Android 4.2.2." - PCMAG "How we tested"

I do wish they had used a device with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor which has an LTE category 4 baseband. This newer chipset typically results in better network performance. I don't think it changes the ranking but each provider may have had slightly faster top speeds.

As a Quebecer, I was particularly interested in how well Rogers performed in my own backyard and PCMag had an interesting comment: 

"Rogers performed especially well in Quebec, where its LTE network was extremely reliable."

Videotron, a Quebec only triple-play mobile service provier, was found to offer great value and respectable network performance: 

"While it's using HSPA+ rather than LTE, it has really admirable speeds and coverage, making it an excellent value for money"

In Southern Ontario, Rogers performed slightly better than Bell but the race was very close. 

If you are an Apple only smartphone (or tablet) user then you likely buy your movie content straight from the king himself but there may be times when the content is only available on Google Play Movies or that it is simply cheaper there,  Would you be surprised to learn that you can play Google Play Movies on IOS  with the original Google Youtube app?

First caveat is that you can only stream content using this mechanism (aka you won't be able to download the content and play it while offline).

Step by Step

Log-in to the Youtube app using your Google account

Click on the hamburger icon

Then Click on the little arrow next to your name

Then click on Purchases

You are the presented with all the Google Play Movies you have purchased and can immediately stream them at any resolution (up to the max resolution you purchased SD or HD).,

This is one more way to acquire and consume content on your IOS device. 

We have been expecting it and now Apple has confirmed that it will hold another launch event on October 22 at the Yerba Buena center in San Francisco.

Apple will be holding a simultaneous even in London (a live stream of the event plus a test area for whatever is announced). 

What are we expecting?

We expect to see a new very slim and light iPad. I expect a colorful but non-Retina iPad mini, the launch of the Mac Pro and maybe a quick shout out to OS X Mavericks, 

PhoneArena conducted an interested blind photo test to determine which camera produced the best most pleasing pictures. By removing brand bias, they wanted to see which device the public would chose rather than just voting as a fanboy for their preferred device.

Nokia based on Windows Phone may not offer all the comforts of the other established ecosystems but that incredible PureView 41MP camera blew its competitors away. 62% of voters actually chose the Lumia 1020 picture as the best. The Samsung Galaxy S4 came in at a distant second with 20% of the vote and the iPhone 5s came in 3rd with only 11% of the vote. The other 3 competitors were left picking up the crumbs: LG G2m iPhone 5c and the HTC One.

Bacon is a wonder ingredient and it makes everything better. You can eat bacon, sprinkle bacon, drink bacon or smell like bacon... Now you can even wash with bacon/

This soap is made with natural vegan ingredients such as coconut oil, avocado oil, castor oil and olive oil. After you have naturally washed the suds off, you are left with light fresh scent of bacon, making you irresistible to the opposite sex.

You can order your very own bacon soap here. 

Rogers and Fido have issued a press release notifying Canadians that their network woes are now in the past and the Rogers CEO classified the outage as unacceptable.

Some of my readers and twitter followers started messaging me around 1800ET asking if my Rogers/Fido voice service was working. It started as an intermittent outage in Quebec and Ontario then became a national solid outage.

It was fun reading the twitter complaints using the #RogersOutage hashtag. You could feel the frustration of Canadians because I felt Rogers did a horrible job keeping Canadians up to date. We don't know what happened. 

We then saw Canadian retailers using this as a marketing opportunity. A&W was one of the first twitter marketing campaigns I saw using the outage: