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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Microsoft XBox Music coming to iOS and Android devices.

xbox music streaming online radio launch ios android browser somegadgetguyOnline music streaming radio is a really competitive arena at the moment. You’ve got Slacker, Pandora, Rdio, Spotify, Last.FM, even streaming  terrestrial radio. Recently Google entered this market with Play Music All Access, and we’re pretty confident Apple will eventually arrive with iTunes Radio. Not entirely sure what the hold up with them is, as they kind of created the online music scene, but I digress.

Microsoft certainly doesn’t want to be left out of this market and they’re jumping in now with XBox Music.

The service sounds fairly familiar if you’ve used any other online music streaming solution. Microsoft has a library of around 18 million songs, and you can listen to unlimited music either with ads or ad-free for $10 a month (or $100 a year). After the first six months with the ad supported service however, you will be capped at 10 hours of music per day.

XBox Music Pass allows you to sync your music across all of your gadgets, from your XBox, to phones, tablets, and computers. That might be the smart play here by Microsoft, their music streaming will also come in iOS and Android app flavors. They have to know a large chunk of their XBox live subscriber base probably have phones or tablets from their competitors, but still might consider using the Music app built into their game console.

There’s also  a music discovery service called Smart DJ which should function like Pandora, and an update to Windows 8 will allow users to catalog music they find on other sites like Pitchfork to listen to later in their library.

This is good timing on Microsoft’s part. Sure they’re late to this party, but as they’re trying to move forward with their phone and tablet solutions, filling out the media purchasing options for their ecosystem means customers will be more likely to shop in their stores. As we’re getting set for the release of the XBox One, Microsoft is making a compelling argument for their console to be the front end of the entire living room. Plus iOS and Android users wont be excluded.

And, I did mention they were beating Apple to the punch here right? I mean… That’s just weird…

XBox Music

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Pics of the Nokia Lumia 1520 Phablet leak again – Now with more specs.

lumia1520photos5_1020_verge_super_wideThis is becoming a contender for my “worst kept secret in tech” award, but another round of leaked pics featuring the Lumia 1520 have SURFACEd on the Verge. It looks a lot like previous leaked renders, and it’s looking like we might have a legit contender for the first Windows Phone phablet.

Also leaked/confirmed are the specs powering this giant slab. According to the leaker, the 1520 will sport a 6″ 1080p screen powered by a Qualcomm 800 series chipset. 32GB of storage will be on board with the ability to add more via SD card, and 2 GB of RAM should keep all your apps happy. The bulge on the back is rumored to house a 20MP camera which looks similar to the camera bump on the Lumia 925. No 1020 PureView action here, but it should still be a fantastic performer. nokialumia1520leaknew9_1020_verge_super_wideThis would be an exciting development for WP fans, as it would bring Microsoft’s platform screaming up to the cutting edge of the smartphone hardware heap.

Seeing how tightly MS controls what goes into Windows Phone, this could also be a clue that we’re due a refresh soon, and I personally wouldn’t be surprised to see the 1520 released around the time that Windows 8.1 is announced. This would make a great flagship phone to show off a new OS update, while also reinforcing Microsoft’s commitment to improving the WP8 ecosystem. I’m looking forward to more news surrounding the GDR3 update.

(via The Verge)

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Qi wireless gadget charging coming to Mercedes Benz, BMW, Volkswagen, Toyota, and Porsche vehicles.

audi logo windows phone 8 nokia lumia 920 wireless charging QI mercedes benz bmw volkswagen somegadgetguyTalk about getting juiced up!

There are a pair of competing standards for wireless phone and gadget charging. Duracell and Powermat use PMA while Nokia helped developed Qi for use in their Lumia phones. You can also find Qi on Samsung and Nexus devices. It’s one of my favorite convenience features on the 920. I pop it down on the Nokia pad and it charges. No messing with cables, easy peasy.

Well now Nokia’s Qi standard is going to be getting a significant boost in terms of mind share. The group Consumer Electronics for Automotive (CE4A) works with European auto makers to standardize mobile interfaces. They’ve recommended that vehicles implement Qi wireless charging and the big four German auto makers are already on board. They’ll likely also make recommendations on where charging surfaces are placed inside vehicles.

This comes after Toyota has started offering Qi charging in the 2013 Avalon.

If you were backing Powermat’s PMA standard, fret not. GM is set to push their flavor of inductive charging on select cars and trucks as part of an accessories package in 2014.

Full PR after the jump.

Continue reading “Qi wireless gadget charging coming to Mercedes Benz, BMW, Volkswagen, Toyota, and Porsche vehicles.”

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Acapella ‘Abbey Road’ is kind of incredible. 16 minute Beatles medley on Youtube.

beatles abbey road alternateIt never ceases to amaze me what people can create. You’d think by now we’d have exhausted Beatles media, remixes, and mash ups. You would be wrong.

Industrious Youtuber JOSIV5 has created something kind of awesome in it’s simplicity. By slicing into the Beatles tracks on Rockband, he was able to pull the vocals out of the mix. What remains is a quiet reduction of some of the most recognizable songs in pop music history. Altogether familiar, yet an entirely new way to experience music we know so well. “Pure” Beatles if you will. Enjoy!

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Synthetic Benchmarks: HTC One Mini

htc one mini synthetic benchmarks somegadgetguy video reviewBenchmarks really can’t tell you how a phone will perform in real world situations, but they can show relative performance between devices. Android seems to be entering a phase of “efficiency”, with mid-range phones utilizing dual-core processors. Even the Moto X, which stands as a premier handset for Motorola, only uses two cores to get the job done.

Let’s take a look at how the HTC’s Mini performs in a number of synthetic benchmarks against its big brother One and an older handset running similar internals.

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Galaxy Note 3 first to feature new Qualcomm Radio Power Management. More run time, less heat.

qualcomm radio lte envelope tracking galaxy note 3 somegadgetguySo the radio in your phone is often one of the worst offenders in draining your battery. For all of our criticism surrounding powerful quad-cores, throw your phone into airplane mode, and it’s shocking how long that quad can run. We can only pack in SO much battery density, and the rest of your phone can be surprisingly frugal, which is why developments in radio management are so crucial to improving the smartphone experience.

Qualcomm has been working on Envelope Tracking for their LTE radio technology. To over-simplify, LTE is a little different in how it communicates with cell towers than 3G, which in the past has made it more difficult to adjust the power of the radio in your phone while maintaining a stable connection to a tower. Essentially, your phone’s radio tries to find an average signal to broadcast at, but often just runs at max on LTE, which is pretty terrible for battery life, and can sometimes result in a poor connection.

17 action menuEnvelope Tracking for LTE allows the radio to better scale with the quality of the tower’s signal. As the radio is working a brute force style signal, it should greatly reduce the amount of power needed to run, which should also cut back on wasted heat. Qualcomm is estimating a 20% reduction in power and a 30% reduction in heat generated by the radio. This should also provide a more stable link to the tower, hopefully resulting in faster throughput.

Now normally when we write up new tech like this it’s usually an article about researchers in a lab, and we’ll all have to wait for the breakthrough to eventually filter down into our actual consumer devices. The nice thing about Qualcomm’s ET gear is it’s already going to be included in the Galaxy Note 3. Likely one of the reasons Samsung went with Qualcomm’s 800 series chipset for its LTE variants of the note.

Hit the Qualcomm blog for better explanations of all the  science-y details.

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Ask GadgetGuy: Why SHOULDN’T I buy an iPad Mini right now?

ipad miniRoss from Facebook asks:

Hey Gadget Guy… tell me why I shouldn’t buy an iPad Mini, and what I should buy instead, and why it’d be better. I don’t want to admit to drinking the apple-flavored kool-aid, but I love my iPhone, and wanna get a pair of tablets for me and my special lady friend… yeah, we gotta get 2 because we can’t share. hehe…
Thanks!

No worries on “drinking the kool-aid”, I’d be daft to say Apple doesn’t make fine products. The Mini is in an interesting position at the moment however, and buying one now, might not be the best move.

It’s old hardware. It was old-ish hardware when it was released, essentially a shrunk iPad 2. This brings up numerous support questions, like whether it will receive two full proper updates of iOS, as the iPad 2 is most likely done with major updates this year. That and I would fully expect we’ll see an iPad Mini refresh this November. Plus for hardware almost three years old, it’s really expensive compared to the current crop of Android Mini tablets.

And to answer your question about what else to buy, I’d start by looking at the Nexus 7.

Nexus 7 - hero - press siteFor $100 less you get a MUCH nicer true HD 1080p screen, in proper widescreen (so if you watch movies, you don’t lose half your display to letter-boxing). Remember the current Mini isn’t a “Retina” device.

Other things like stereo speakers and NFC might be a wash, but it’s much more current technology.

It’s not out yet, but the LTE variant of the Nexus 7 will likely sell for about $20 more than the least expensive, WiFi only iPad Mini. Ouch.

In conclusion, depending on what you want to do with a tablet, an iPad Mini today would still be a fine purchase. It is a sexy little tablet. However, if you can hold off, treat yourself to more of a Thanksgiving present, you’ll probably get a better “bang for buck”.

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Friday Retro Fun: Walter Cronkite shows us the home office of 2001 (from 1967)

It’s always kinda cool to see how much futurists of the past got correct. It’s also kind of crazy to think that today a phone which fits in our pocket replicates all of the functionality on display here (and more).

Happy Friday!

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