Let's Talk Tech
How awesome is it to be a Windows phone user? Pretty awesome since Microsoft just gave out an extra 20GB of space for Skydrive for Windows phone users! More space for your Skydrive is always a good thing! I received my email yesterday and I am pretty stoked to have the extra FREE 20GB for pictures as I take a lot! Check your email, and thank you Microsoft!
Continue reading “Microsoft’s Christmas gift for Windows phone users!”
My wish for you this year.
I hope you got the perfect glowing rectangle. The one with the right sized screen which perfectly fits your hands and is comfortable to hold.
I hope you got all the right accessories to use with it. Cables, and chargers, and cases. Batteries, and Bluetooth’s, and memory cards.
Whatever gadget, be it camera or quad-copter, I hope this year you got what you needed. I also hope you got what you wanted.
Most of all, during this time of year, I hope you’re safe, warm, well fed, and that you get to spend some time with people you care about.
Happy Holidays!
It’s 11 am on a Wednesday. I’ve pulled up to a non-descript warehouse space in Pasadena, so non-descript I’m not entirely sure at first if I’m in the right place. The sign above the door is from a water treatment company. It’s not until I’ve rounded the parking lot that I see a giant black bus with “LOOTCRATE” painted on the side. Peaking inside the warehouse I see an incredible number of small black boxes stacked up, about ten feet tall, but we’ll talk about that more in a bit.
I’m here to chat with Matthew Arevalo, one of the Co-Founders of Loot Crate. Loot Crate is a subscription box service focusing on geeks and gamers. Each month, for less than $20 after shipping and handing, a small black cardboard crate is delivered to subscribers’ doors filled with various products which might appeal to the geek chic. Previous boxes have had t-shirts, candy, stickers, gaming peripherals, sunglasses, and even a copy of The Zombie Survival Guide. Matthew has invited me in to take a quick peek behind the scenes.
Today we have the oh so sexy Kingston Hyper X 240gb 3K SSD. I have always used Kingston’s USB flash drives in the past, and when I received this bad boy in the mail I was super excited to get started!
Let’s start off with the packaging. The Hyper X came in this neat little well designed box. Inside the box the Hyper X was nestled in between 2 layers of a rubberized foam block along with all the other goodies in the box all neatly packaged. I opened the box to see what Kingston had in store for me. The Kingston Hyper X came with cloning software, a really cool anodized multi bit screw driver, mounting hardware for desktop towers, a case for using the Hyper X as an external hard drive, a USB cable, SATA data cable and a 3.5 bracket. Continue reading “Gadget Review: Kingston Hyper X 240GB SSD”
CHRISTMAS!!!
Title says it all on this one folks. If you need a little more holiday cheer, the standard definition version of Will Ferrell’s holiday classic is free today on Google Play. The HD version is only going to cost you a Fiver.
Go get at it folks! Today only!
I normally don’t pre-announce my videos and reviews, but I’m too excited not to share this one!
The Qualcomm Toq is on my wrist, and I’m super stoked to break it in and share my experiences using it. Part of why I’m excited is in watching a company like Qualcomm make such a direct move to interact with customers directly. Chances are your phone or tablet is using SOMETHING built by Qualcomm, but they don’t have a lot of consumer mind share.
Toq aims to change that.
My first impressions video will be posted tomorrow! Spoiler Alert: this thing is one sexy piece of smartwatch.
Finally some synergy!
When you have good video and music services on your popular game console, and you have a struggling phone platform, how does it take you this long to pair them together? Well wait no more Windows Phone users. If you’re tied into Xbox Music and Xbox Video, you can now utilize those services on your Xbox Windows Phone.
Xbox Music is a subscription service designed to compete against Spotify, Google Play All Access, and Pandora. It’s been available for Android and iOS, and now those of you using Windows Phones can get a piece of the action too.
Xbox Video is the movie purchase/rental service found on Microsoft’s game consoles. Now when you buy or rent films and TV shows you can watch them on your phone, tablet, PC or Xbox. It’s the next step towards total Live Tile domination, offering Windows solutions and services for every single screen a consumer might want.
Again, it’s been a little frustrating seeing how divisive the Microsoft ecosystem had become, with services not moving fluidly between different screen sizes. It’s one area Apple and Google were cleaning up, but now Microsoft looks like it’s finally getting it’s ducks in a row. Microsoft can a dangerous competitor when you give them a chance to catch up.
The branding is crucial here too. Notice these aren’t “Windows” services (what with Windows 8 still struggling to find positive consumer mind share), but “Xbox” services. Not a bad play considering the popularity of the Xbox.
Go get ’em folks!
Broadband improvements are somewhat stagnant here in the states. Many areas are under-served with few choices and high prices. While some areas are looking at Google and other companies to roll out Fiber to the home, many communities are hoping to see improvements over basic DSL. If it’s not economically feasible to roll out fiber or new wired service, the next best option is to provide service over the air.
Sprint and Dish are teaming up to test a 4G LTE to home service which could be a compelling solution for those needing more speed, but are ignored by traditional ISPs. Served over Sprint’s 2.5GHz spectrum, you would expect speeds comparable to Sprint’s current LTE offerings. Like Dish’s TV service, this should be a bit more stable than the LTE served to our phones, as your home is not a moving target. You shouldn’t even have to worry about poor building penetration of the higher frequency connection as an external receiver on your house will feed the connection indoors.
These trials will roll out in Corpus Christi, Texas next year. If you already have access to fast broadband options, this probably wont be your jam, but for those of you waiting out better options and services, this might be a good solution in the future.
Full PR after the jump.
Continue reading “Sprint and Dish partner for Fixed Wireless Broadband Service Trials”