Category: Articles

Posted on

Want to use a Flash Drive on a phone or tablet? Sony launches drive with full sized and Micro USB connectors!

Sony-2-in-1-USB-open-1024x866This one’s pretty much for the Android users.

Did you know that most modern Android Phones support USB host to some degree? That means you can often connect low power USB devices to your phone or tablet, and the device will recognize them. Does your phone lack a MicroSD? You can probably augment your storage with a USB Flash Drive. Of course this often means have to keep track of an adapter cable, one that will convert your phone’s Micro USB port into a full sized USB port.

Sony’s new 2-in-1 drive offers up a potential solution for this issue. With a full sized USB 2 jack on one side and a Micro USB on the other. This should make sneaker-netting your files between computer and mobile device much easier. While Cloud Storage can help expand our gadget’s capabilities, sometimes it’s just faster and easier to go old school Plug & Play.

Sony says the device will work on most Android devices starting with Android 4.0.3 and newer. Prices start at $20 for an 8GB drive and scale up to $63 for 32GB. Drives should be available starting January 2014.

Full PR after the jump!

Continue reading “Want to use a Flash Drive on a phone or tablet? Sony launches drive with full sized and Micro USB connectors!”

Posted on

Sprint debuts Samsung Galaxy S4 with support for Sprint Spark enhanced LTE

sprint_galaxy_s4Sprint has been working on improving their network through their Network Vision initiative, consolidating and removing outdated legacy technologies so they can push forward with faster and more powerful connections. Sprint Spark is the next stage of their LTE network. To over simplify, cannibalizing the old Nextel 800MHz spectrum and slapping LTE on it. Part of Sprint’s network woes in the past, their LTE was broadcast over higher frequency bands with poor building penetration. Moving LTE to 800MHz should mean much better connections for customers indoors and farther away from their towers.

Sprint currently offers limited Spark connection in five cities: LA, New York, Chicago, Tampa, and Miami. They will be adding an additional 100 markets to this list over the next three years. Network consolidation takes a little time apparently. Spark aims to deliver up to 50Mbps connections, and there’s the potential for it to support up to 2Gbps in the future.

Of course, what good is new network connectivity if your phone can’t use it? 

In the “coming weeks” a new version of the GS4 will be made available with tri-band support for Sprint’s various LTE channels, and it will be able to hand off connection between those bands with little or no interruption to the user. As far as the customer is concerned, it’s just a normal GS4, but with faster data in select markets. Whenever it’s actually made available, it’ll drop for $200 on a two year contract.

Hit the jump for the full PR!

Continue reading “Sprint debuts Samsung Galaxy S4 with support for Sprint Spark enhanced LTE”

Posted on

Google Sheets rebuilt to better compete with Microsoft Excel

new-google-drive-sheetsGoogle is getting more serious with their office and productivity solutions.

Sheets was one area where Google Docs solutions fell flat. It was good for basic usage scenarios (my wife and I share one for our household finances), but it was severely limited for more business-grade spreadsheet needs. Limitations like 400,000 cells and 256 columns, meant it couldn’t be incorporated into a mainstream workflow. No longer. Sheets has been rebuilt. Google has the technology. It’s stronger, faster, better.

According to the video posted below, you can now work with millions of cells, with no limit on columns or the number of cells you can cut and paste. The engine driving Sheets is smoother, allowing for faster scrolling, and offline support has been beefed up a bit for those times you’re working without a data connection. 20 new functions are on board for your programming needs, and Google is including custom views to help you organize the data you’re looking at without affecting other people who might be working on the same spreadsheet.

In all, a pretty formidable update, and good timing by Google as they’ll be facing more Office enabled tablets from Microsoft next year. Hit the video for more info.

Posted on

AT&T lighting up “Giga-Power” U-Verse in Austin

att u-verse gigapower austin txIt’s happening!

See, a little outside competition IS a good thing for us lowly consumers. AT&T is flipping the switch on a 300Mbps consumer plan for $70 a month. While currently that is about a third the potential maximum speed of Google Fiber, AT&T will automatically upgrade customers on that plan to full Gigabit broadband when it’s made available early next year.

Ordering a Double or Triple Play package with TV and Home Phone will net you HBO GO free for 36 months and a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. Customers opting for this package who are AT&T wireless subscribers will also receive 50GB of free cloud storage.

att uverse bundles austin gigapower double play triple play

Unlike Google Fiber, which remains focused on home internet packages, AT&T will be rolling out plans supporting businesses in the Austin area as well. For more info: www.att.com/gigapower

Full PR after the jump.

Continue reading “AT&T lighting up “Giga-Power” U-Verse in Austin”

Posted on

Android Device Manager now a Standalone App: Locate Lost Phones, Reset Passcode, Remote Wipe Data

android device manager on google play app protection remote lock wipe screenshotBabysteps people…

I still find supremely frustrating that we don’t have a kill switch option on our phones. A self destruct setting. Something that would make our glowing rectangles FAR less attractive to thieves. In the meantime, services like this help move us in the right direction.

Android Device Manager was built into newer releases of the Android OS, but that didn’t help folks on OLDER versions of Android. Now you can grab it as a standalone app, and that makes me really happy. Again, we’re seeing Google side step manufacturers and carriers which aren’t updating older phones, and offering more of their OS services as standalone apss they can update and control. Wise move.

Android Device Manager allows you to track a lost phone, reset your password, and in the event you can not retrieve the device you can wipe it out to prevent your data falling in the wrong hands. We still don’t have a hard lock/brick setting, but at least we have better, officially supported tools to protect our Android phones and tablets.

Go get at folks. It’s compatible with Android 2.3 and newer models!
Data and device security is something we should all be on top of.

Android Device Manager on Google Play

Posted on

Another Tech Support Joke infographic from 4chan targets XBox Owner’s PCs

xboxone fake compatibility jokeLet’s just make it a rule that we don’t follow tech support advice from infographic pictures on the internet? Cool?

Following some epic pranks, like convincing iPhone owners their phones were now waterproof, sights were set on the XBox One. Backwards compatibility for our consoles is always a sticky subject. Our next gen consoles are not able to play the games of last gen off of the discs in our collection. The desire to do so though can lead people to do some rather silly things. Preying on that desire, a pic circulated detailing a set of instructions  to enable backwards compatibility. Instead following the steps in the pic hard bricked the console. Anyone else find it strange that Microsoft would include such an easy to find auto-destruct sequence? Just me? Ok.

Well now 4chan is following it up with an attempt at wrecking a few PCs. The steps outlined in a new “tech support” pic would have users cut out all the files on their C: drive in an attempt to fix their bricked XBox. Again, preying on people who are JUST tech savvy enough to find these things, but who don’t really understand what they’re doing. Thankfully this joke will probably prove less effective as Microsoft has done a much better job of protecting Windows OS files. You’d have to be an Admin, and savvy enough to disable UAC (Microsoft’s protection software), and if you could do all that, you’d probably know better. Even if you didn’t however, Windows can often re-populate the files.

xbox one joke fix infographic

Microsoft probably got tired of fielding tech support calls from folks who deleted their OS. Even I have an Aunt who once went tearing through Windows 98 and threw out a bunch of “junk” files trying to free up space on her PC.

If you’re reading this blog, chances are you’re smarter than the average bear. It’s that time of year where we’re often tasked with fixing family computers and tech, while doing this, how about we all sit our relatives down again and have a little chat…

Posted on

Qualcomm announces 64-Bit Snapdragon 410 chipset with World Mode 4G LTE

Qualcomm-Snapdragon-410 lte worldA bit techie, but stick with me.

We’re watching a smartphone revolution happen. It’s a little quiet now, but it’ll heat up very quickly. The exciting growth sector next year wont be in premier and high end phones. It’ll be in emerging and developing markets. We’ve seen hints of this with the popularity of the Nokia Lumia 520 and Moto G. Now Qualcomm is pushing forward with a new chipset designed to improve the mobile data experience for low-cost smartphones.

The Snapdragon 410 chipset is a 64-bit quadcore with integrated world mode LTE. We’re struggling to crawl out of the “chicken or egg” problem of delivering faster bandwidth to emerging markets. If they don’t have devices to support LTE, why build out the network? If there’s no network, why include expensive radios? The 410 aims to solve part of this problem by including LTE in a package which is designed for phones around the $150 off-contract price point. That’s Lumia 520 and Moto G territory.

The 64-bit addition could be interesting as well. Apple struck first, and we can take that as a clue or a cue that they might start merging the iOS and OSX ecosystems. We know Microsoft is working towards that with a planned release of “Threshold” in 2015, bringing Windows Phone and Windows 8 together. Qualcomm is now offering up hardware which might better facilitate that kind of software integration. Imagine Windows Phones, which can offer a robust computing environment like Windows RT for $200 or less powered by LTE data. Remarkable.

Read the full PR after the jump.

Continue reading “Qualcomm announces 64-Bit Snapdragon 410 chipset with World Mode 4G LTE”

Posted on

Chromecast supporting 10 new apps, Plex and Avia media streaming!

google chromecast tv hdmi dongle somegadgetguyDevelopers are moving forward with Chromecast integration, and it’s starting to look really good.

Announced today on the Chrome Blog, ten new apps have been officially added to the Chromecast repertoire. The list of standalone services includes VEVO, Red Bull.TV, Songza, PostTV, Viki, Revision 3, and BeyondPod.

What’s also interesting is the growing list of local streaming apps. Chromecast allows you to share a tab on your computer’s browser, but it wasn’t a great solution for streaming music or video stored on your computer’s hard drive. Now with Avia, RealPlayer Cloud, and Plex this process should get a lot easier.

Alongside recent additions like Hulu, HBO Go, and Pandora, the Chromecast ecosystem is looking a little healthier. Who needs a Nexus TV AmIRite?

Our setup and review video of the Chromecast!

Proudly powered by WordPress