Let's Talk Tech
I love little gadgets like this.
I’m a stickler for file management. I like controlling everything about what files and media are on my various devices, where they live, and who I can share those files with. Leef has a handy little MicroUSB adapter which allows you to swap memory cards even easier! Even if your phone doesn’t have an SD card slot…
Continue reading “Review: Leef Access – MicroSD Memory Card Reader for Android!”
Amazon is getting into the TV hardware game. Following Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, and myriad game consoles – Fire TV will be another solution for streaming content over a data connection to your television.
A small, flat, square-ish box hooks up to your TV over HDMI and connects to your home network over WiFi to serve up streaming vide from a variety of sources. Of course Amazon’s videos are available, but at launch you’ll also have access to Netflix, Hulu, ESPN, Showtime, Crackle, Vimeo, Plex and more. Streaming audio services like Pandora, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn will satisfy music junkies.
Amazon is also pushing gaming with Minecraft, The Walking Dead, Riptide GP2, Asphalt 8 and more available at launch. A separate game controller is available to purchase for gaming.
Fire TV will have parental controls, and the ability to mirror Kindle tablets on your TV. If you want to share a photo slideshow for instance, you can “fling” it to your TV. You can also control the box via voice commands (demonstrated by Gary Busey below).
The unit is powered by a Qualcomm quad-core processor, and comes with 8GB of storage. There is a USB port for additional connectivity, and you can utilize Amazon Cloud Storage to augment you media streaming.
Fire TV is available to purchase now for $99, and the game controller is selling for $39.99. It’s walking into a highly competitive market with some established solutions. Do you think Amazon has the marketing muscle to make a dent here? Leave us a comment below!
I just got a brand new tuber!
Let’s go hands on with an unboxing and then see how it stacks up against the LG G2! Get ready for .5 kilograms of starch yo!
Good news for two phone companies looking to step up some competition.
Kantar Worldpanel released European sales stats for phones last fiscal quarter (ending February 2014)., and both LG and Motorola saw gains.
Moto was practically absent from previous analyst reports, but following strong sales of their entry level Moto G handset, has climbed to 6% in less than six months. Lending further credence to the idea that the entry level phone market is primed for serious growth over the next couple years.
LG also saw some great gains moving the LG G2. LG was ahead of the curve with processor and battery tech at the end of last year, unseating the HTC One and GS4 as being the powerful “normal sized” phones in the Android ecosystem. That boundary pushing attitude paid off with LG becoming the fastest growing Android brand of last quarter.
The Moto and LG gains also helped secure Android as a whole positive growth over iOS and Windows Phone, maintaining Google’s top spot for phones. You can read the full report below.
Continue reading “Analyst Report: Motorola Gains with Moto G and LG Moves up with G2”
Good news everybody! The UK is taking steps towards refining their copyright law, publishing new exceptions to their current set of regulations.
At play is new language which makes personal use copying way less illegal than it was before, and brings intellectual property law overseas into the 21st century. From the GOV.UK press release:
The changes make small but important reforms to UK copyright law and aim to end the current situation where minor and reasonable acts of copying which benefit consumers, society and the economy are unlawful. They also remove a range of unnecessary rules and regulations from the statute book in line with the government’s aim to reduce regulation.
The government has consulted extensively on these changes and on the draft legislation, and listened carefully to the views of a wide range of stakeholders. As a result of this process, the legislation published today strikes an important balance between enabling reasonable use of copyright material in the modern age with minimal impact on copyright owners.
Making personal use expressly clear could help clear up some of the legal grey area surround digital media duplication. Obviously this changes almost nothing in regards to distribution of copied files and file sharing.
Here in the USA, there’s often confusion as to whether personal copies are legal. Thanks to the DMCA, often the resulting copy is legal, but any methods used to circumvent copy protection are illegal. It would be nice if we could get similar clarification here as well, so hopefully this sets some kind of precedent for future negotiations with the RIAA and MPAA.
Changes to IP law should go into effect on June 1st. More info on the GOV.UK press release site.
We haven’t done a studio microphone review for a while, so it’s time to come back with a biggie. R0DE’s Classic II is a modern twist on a vintage-y mic technology. Not only that, the Anniversary edition comes in Darth Vader black, and it’s pretty sexy. Let’s take a look (and a listen)!
Shop the R0DE Classic II on Amazon.
In light of Reddit banning Tesla related posts over the weekend, there were actually a couple interesting stories coming from the electric vehicle manufacturer.
New York!
Following the disappointing actions of the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, and they’re success at sneaking in a ban on Tesla sales, the Associated Press is reporting that Governor Cuomo has laid out the details for an agreement between New York and Tesla Motors. The state will be examining how to strengthen automobile franchise protections, but Tesla will be allowed to keep its five retail locations in the state to sell directly to consumers.
Tesla Model S Battery Armor!
Following a pair of “extremely uncommon” collisions resulting in battery damage which led to fires, Tesla is introducing new undercarriage armor capable of crushing cinder-blocks. It will add a small bit of weight to the car, but Tesla estimates it will only reduce the car’s range by .1%.
Starting with vehicles manufactured March 6th, this shield comes standard on new Model S sedans. For those of you lucky enough to own a Model S made before that time, Tesla will install the shield on your car free of charge. More info (and shield tests) on the Tesla Blog.
Lower Priced Tesla to Arrive in 2015?
This one is from the rumor mill, but we’re deeming it as “likely”, that a new Tesla sedan will debut in 2015, as Tesla CEO Elon Musk is blaming himself for some of the car’s delays. In an interview with Bloomberg Musk said “I really am quite insistent that the production version be superior to anything we’ve demonstrated before.” There’s little room for error here as this car, often called the Model X, will represent the largest push into mainstream consumer sales. There’s plenty to focus on, and we know that Musk is also pushing for self driving vehicles to hit roads in the next three years.
An interesting meltdown happened this weekend on social news site Reddit. The popular site is divided into different categories, and the subreddit dedicated to Technology let slip they had banned stories related to the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla.
Reddit’s reputation is based on an almost obnoxiously user-generated democratic etiquette. On the ground level, users submit stories, and other users vote up or down for those stories to become more or less visible. With each subreddit, users also comprise the “governing bodies” responsible for maintaining order. This allows the people who actually own Reddit and keep the servers running to have a somewhat hands-off approach to Reddit’s daily operations. It also paints Reddit as being “pure”, a meritocracy, not owned by a corporate interest pushing some kind of commercial or political narrative.
Of course people are fallible and corruptible.
Reddit user canausernamebetolon posted that he had discovered an odd quirk in r/Technology, that stories with the word Tesla in the title were not showing up on the subreddit. Asking a moderator why that was, he was told “Battery cars aren’t ‘technolgy’ any more than normal cars are” [sic]. After pushing for more clarification, the user was banned from r/Technology with the following reply:
Car stories should be submitted to car-related subreddits. Please inform your supervisors in the Tesla Motors Marketing department.
Continue reading “Corrupting User Moderated Web Sites: Reddit – r/Technology bans Tesla stories?”