Author: Juan Carlos Bagnell

Juan has been obsessed with consumer electronics since before computers had GUI’s. Out of college he worked on a JIT computing contract which supported DOE facilities in New Mexico. He’s been featured on numerous podcasts and radio shows lending his tech insights. You can also find him in LA directing voice over actors and producing spoken word recording.
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Nokia Confirms Lumia Cyan Updates for Developer Devices Coming Soon

We’ve been posting about Lumias receiving the official updates to Windows Phone 8.1. While Microsoft is in charge of the overall OS, there are a lot of tweaks, updates, and drivers which come from Nokia. Those updates are named by color, and the most recent is “Cyan”, which along with performance improvements and bug fixes, brings a few fun features to the camera.

Those of us on the bleeding edge however have been running the Developer Preview of WP 8.1, and unfortunately the first round of Cyan updates has not been compatible with the official update. The only workaround has been to wipe the phone running DevPre, roll back to the old version of Windows Phone 8, then re-install the new WP8.1+Cyan. In updating my Lumia 1520, the whole process took a little over two hours.

Nokia’s Developer team on Twitter recently announced however that they are working on fixes so folks with proper Developer Devices wont be forced into this OS dance.

Unfortunately this isn’t directly addressing the number of developers running DevPre on non-Developer Variations of phones, or any consumers who were running DevPre on their own phones.

With these updates rolling out for Developer Variations however, we can hope that all folks running DevPre will soon receive official Cyan support. Otherwise a wipe and reinstall is the only way to go…

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Friday Fun: Bill Gates Takes Ice Bucket Challenge to the Next Level!

You can always count on Gates to take it up a notch!

Bill Gates accepts Mark Zuckerberg’s ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and nominates Elon Musk, Ryan Seacrest and Chris Anderson from TED to participate and raise awareness for ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

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Tudia SlimMelody Bumper Case for the LG G3 – Review & Giveaway!

I don’t always keep my phone in a case, but I like to have a couple case options for customizing. The fine folks at Tudia sent a few bumpers my way for the LG G3, and you can win one!

Shop Tudia SlimMelody Bumper on Amazon.
Shop Tudia SlimLite Bumper on Amazon.

Continue reading “Tudia SlimMelody Bumper Case for the LG G3 – Review & Giveaway!”

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Lenovo Sees Growth in Smartphones and Tablets, Leads PC Sales for Fifth Consecutive Quarter

lenovo-logo-1Everything’s coming up Lenovo!

The company announced their first quarter results for 2014, and the numbers are looking pretty rosy. Tablet sales are up 67% over last year, smartphones were up 39%, and Lenovo became the number one smartphone manufacturer in China.

PC shipments were up 15%, though it’s unclear what Lenovo is classifying as a PC and what they’re badging a tablet these days, as the company has led the charge on blurring the line between Windows 8 laptops and tablets. This is the fifth consecutive quarter Lenovo has led the market in PC sales, but for the first time in company history, they sold more phones than computers.

At a time where other established companies are struggling, Lenovo also saw a 13% gross profit increase over this time last year. Moving into next quarter, Lenovo believes they’ll continue to improve those numbers with their acquisitions of Motorola and IBM x86.

Full financial statement below.

Continue reading “Lenovo Sees Growth in Smartphones and Tablets, Leads PC Sales for Fifth Consecutive Quarter”

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Why Wikipedia is WRONG to Share the “Monkey Selfie” as Public Domain

David J Slater, a British photographer set up a camera in Indonesia to capture monkeys at play. One monkey managed to snap an extraordinary “selfie”.

Wikipedia claims that because the monkey hit the shutter button, the image belongs in the Public Domain. I disagree…

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T-Mobile Offers up $3 a Month “Pay As You Go” Phone Plan

T-Mobile LogoT-Mobile has been finding a lot of success at being a market disruptor, recently unseating Sprint and moving into third place among the largest USA carriers.

Their new tactic courts entry-level and pre-pay customers with a new Pay as You Go Plan. The plan starts off with a monthly minimum charge of $3, and it’s entirely usage based. Calls are $0.10 per minute, as are texts, which means you’d receive 30 minutes a month if you didn’t want to pay any more than the minimum. Data is purchased in daily or weekly passes. $5 for one day and 500MB of LTE, $10 for 7 days and 1GB.

It’s an interesting solution which looks to be targeting the business models offered up by companies like Ting and FreedomPop, low cost MVNO’s basing pricing on usage.

T-Mo’s full PR is below with more details.  Continue reading “T-Mobile Offers up $3 a Month “Pay As You Go” Phone Plan”

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Pro Tip: How I would Fix the Camera on the LG G3 (Exposure and Metering Tutorial)

The LG G3 is a monster phone on paper, with bleeding edge specs for a flagship. While we’ve really liked the improvements to the camera, there’s always room for improvement.

How would we fix LG’s camera? Let’s have a quick conversation about Metering and Exposure controls…

Shop the LG G3 on Amazon.

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Microsoft Details “Hyperlapse” Process for Smoothing Out First-Person Perspective Video

hyperlapseStrap a camera to your head, and your neck can be a pretty decent stabilizer, but engaging in sporty activities can give even the most rugged neck a challenge in producing smooth video. Speeding up a timelapse series can look extremely jittery.

Microsoft posted a video preview of their new Hyperlapse process, which scans through video for details, stabilizes the image, and creates a subtle 3D effect to help image to image transitions.

We just sort of take it for granted that footage from a GoPro, or other head mounted camera, is going to be shaky. Hyperlapse looks like it can provide some stunning effects. Fingers crossed we see this type of image processing at the consumer level soon. Continue reading “Microsoft Details “Hyperlapse” Process for Smoothing Out First-Person Perspective Video”

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