Let's Talk Tech
Alcatel has packed some great specs into the Idol 3 for budget smartphone shoppers. Did they sacrifice camera quality to reach this price point? Let’s take a look!
Shop the Idol 3 on Amazon.
Gallery of still photos from the Idol 3.
Just because we use geek gear like smartwatches, doesn’t mean we can’t dress them up a bit. I’m a big fan of products that help our gadgets blend into our individual style and fashion. The folks at Popov Leather in Canada helped us out with some hand stitched Horween leather watch bands to dress up our wearable gizmos. Let’s take a look!
We’re all a little on edge about what our phones can do, how they store our information, and how other people might be able to access things like our location. It’s easy to get a little freaked out by technology you don’t understand.
Case in point, Nick Browne posted this video on Facebook, as he was concerned about something strange attached to the battery of his Samsung phone. (Language in video might be a bit NSFW)
Remember, every time you shoot video in portrait, God kills an orphan girl’s kitten…
That is a strange looking antenna to be found on a battery, but what Nick has torn off here is his NFC antenna. That’s the radio you can use for things like “tap and share” or “tap and pay”. It’s kind of odd that Samsung builds it into the battery, but it likely discourages folks from buying third party batteries that don’t include the antenna as it’ll disable the NFC function on their phones.
And let’s be honest here, while Nick seems to have some issues with race relations, if someone really wants to hack your phone, and steal your photos, they certainly don’t need to install an antenna on your battery to do it.
It does look a little strange, but we can learn from Nick here not to freak out and start tearing pieces off of our gadgets if they’re things we don’t understand. Thankfully for Nick, to restore NFC on his Samsung, all he needs to do is buy a new battery, and NOT tear off the label again…
zBoost sent over their ZB545 signal booster, which improves signal reception for CDMA and GSM 3G. For folks who can’t make calls or use data indoors, is this the right product to fix connection woes? Let’s test it out!
In a Tumblr post over the weekend, Taylor Swift voiced her disapproval of Apple’s streaming music promotion. It’s a great deal for consumers, as they will receive three free months of Apple Music, Cupertino’s competitor to services like Google Play All Access and Spotify. However, the tech giant initially refused to pay out royalties to artists on the streams played during that free promo.
Apple wanted to make their new service popular on the backs of musicians, with a service which will likely cut into album sales, and for the privilege of “Apple Music Exposure” and lower album sales, they weren’t going to pay musicians a dime.
In response to this policy Swift wrote:
This is not about me. Thankfully I am on my fifth album and can support myself, my band, crew, and entire management team by playing live shows. This is about the new artist or band that has just released their first single and will not be paid for its success. This is about the young songwriter who just got his or her first cut and thought that the royalties from that would get them out of debt. This is about the producer who works tirelessly to innovate and create, just like the innovators and creators at Apple are pioneering in their field…but will not get paid for a quarter of a year’s worth of plays on his or her songs.
Thankfully she’s high enough profile, that this blog post made a lot of noise. This morning Apple Vice President of Internet Software and Services Eddie Cue posted this on Twitter:
#AppleMusic will pay artist for streaming, even during customer’s free trial period
— Eddy Cue (@cue) June 22, 2015
It was the right play on Apple’s part as they’re way late to the streaming music game, and we’ve seen how other newcomers like Tidal have fared when hit with bad press. As they’re currently sitting on a war chest of over a hundred billion dollars, there never should have been any debate as to whether they would pay artists the pittance they receive for streams. Happily they’re on the correct track now.
I can honestly say I never thought I would ever side with Taylor Swift on a technology debate, but I’m sure many artists today are happy for her involvement.
***Update!***
LG is extending this promotion! You’ll be able to land a spare battery and a MicroSD card until June 30th! Pretty great incentive to shopping their newest flagship phone. If you were on the fence, you can check out our mega collection of G4 videos, or you can jump straight to shopping the LG G4 online.
LG seems to be sticking it to Samsung in two areas where the Galaxy S6 can’t compete: swapping the battery and expanding the storage.
For a limited time, people who have purchased the G4, or folks who will be buying the G4, can receive a free spare battery, a battery cradle, and a 32GB Sandisk MicroSD card for free. The promotion runs through July 6, and most outlets should be carrying the G4 in early June.
Carrier pricing for the G4 hasn’t been revealed yet, though T-Mobile’s contest values it at $600, well under the price of the 32GB Galaxy S6. As the G4 already has better battery life, will doubling that run time and storage for free tempt you over Samsung’s 64GB Galaxy S6 at almost $800? Drop us a comment below!
It’s been one of my most long lived frustrations with Skype. Sure I have apps that run on phones, tablets, and PC’s, but sometimes I just want to check a message from a browser. It never made much sense to me that when I would get an email alerting me to a voicemail, I couldn’t just check that voicemail from the browser I just got the email in.
Better late than never, Skype is now delivering their Skype for Web BETA plugin for everyone. Installing a little piece of software in Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari will now give you a pretty complete Skype experience.
In early use it’s been a nice way to balance notifications and alerts without having to keep the Skype client running constantly in the background on my PC. We still don’t quite have the dream of just being able to log into Skype on the web from any browser to check our messages like Google Voice, but this is a nice step in the right direction.
You can catch the full Skype press release below.
“Make a U-turn then GET TO ZE CHOPPA!!! Yeaaarrggghh!!!“
Teasing their new celebrity voice, the Waze team tweeted this pic out today.
Tomorrow, our BIGGEST celeb voice EVER is coming to Waze! Any guesses on who? (Hint: Look at those hands!) pic.twitter.com/At6Kxusnwd
— waze (@waze) June 14, 2015
I honestly haven’t been this excited for a turn by turn voice since I first got the John Cleese upgrade for Tomtom back in the day. We’re really curious to see how “funny” the directions might be, we’ll find out tomorrow, but until then, the jokes just write themselves…
“Who is your daddy, and what does he drive?”