Posts

Posted on

Experts Q&A 02: Android Boogaloo! We’re answering YOUR Android questions LIVE!

experts round table androidROUND 2!
If you missed it live last night, our SECOND Experts round table is now available on Youtube, and this time we’re chatting ALL things Android! Your questions answered by some of the best minds on the web! Tablets, phones, OS updates, Chromecast and more!

The Experts this week:
Andrew Kameke from Mobile Burn – @AndrewKam
Warren Bowman from BWOne – @BWOneDotCom
Enobong Etteh from Boored at Work – @BooredAtWork
Russell Holly from Geek.com – @RussellHolly
Tshaka Armstrong from Fox LA – @TshakaArmstrong

Links to specific questions after the jump!

Continue reading “Experts Q&A 02: Android Boogaloo! We’re answering YOUR Android questions LIVE!”

Posted on

PlusUs unveils LifeLink cable for Apple and MicroUSB devices, smallest fold-able charge cable.

LifeLink in Hand PhotoLooks like ChargeCard has a little competition…

There’s just never a cable around when you need one, right? You use your phone to its fullest, and the battery will probably be dead by dinner time, if you’re lucky. LifeLink looks to help ease some of those usage issues. A small plastic card unfolds, allowing you to connect your phone to a computer, battery, or charger. If you’re losing your charge cables, forgetting to take them with you, or they’re becoming a rats nest of tangles in your bag, Lifelink could be a nice peace of mind solution to help insure you can recharge your phone on the go.

Available in Apple Lightning connector or MicroUSB flavors, they’re currently pre-order only, and should ship “early next year”. Grab one now for $19 during the pre-order period. The price jumps up to $24 when it goes full retail. A portion of every LifeLink sale will go towards a charitable cause of the customer’s choice. A very nice sentiment indeed.

Full PR after the jump.

Continue reading “PlusUs unveils LifeLink cable for Apple and MicroUSB devices, smallest fold-able charge cable.”

Posted on

Reddit explains new Terms of Service, responding to user concerns

reddit-alienWho owns what you create online?

In this age of social online services, we produce a lot of content. Every comment, photo, video you share is being stored on a server far away from you. Depending on where you share, you may or may not actually own the media you make. Take Facebook for example, it’s even become popular with Facebook users to post their own legalese renouncing Facebook’s control over their property. Though signing up for Facebook means you agreed to their Terms of Service, and such moves are pretty much bunk (Snopes).

Social news site Reddit recently updated their terms of service, and during any transition, users grow concerned about changes to the platform they invest so much time in. One passage in particular generated a lot of discussion:

Continue reading “Reddit explains new Terms of Service, responding to user concerns”

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

Proudly powered by WordPress