Let's Talk Tech
Ok. I’m a fan of Microsoft’s recent moves, but this is hilarious.
Engineers at Google started to suspect that Bing was copying their search results, so they set up a sting, tying nonsensical strings of letters to dummy web pages. Quickly after indexing each page and fake word search, Google Engineers found they could search for the same nonsense and get the dummy page on Bing.
Microsoft has yet to comment on the matter, but it would appear that not just consumers, but even Bing prefers Google…
Spoiler alert: It’s a really good camera.
You can always count on Nokia to pack a great camera on a phone at any price point. The Lumia 830 is a mid-range phone, so let’s see if the 10MP shooter is a mid-range camera!
I can’t tell you how excited I am to see a full fledged video editor on Windows Phone. Now with some of the best cameras ever bolted onto our smartphones, we now have the ability to cut up high resolution video directly from the phones that shot it. Best of all this app is cross platform for any Windows device with a touch screen.
Here’s our full review, feature walk through, and tutorial of Movie Creator on Windows Phone 8.1! Enjoy!
Taking flagship smartphones out into rugged conditions can be a dicey proposition. The Lumia Icon is built solidly for day to day bumps and bruises, but it’s not really designed to be thrown around in rough situations. Thankfully OtterBox has a solution to improve that…
Shop the Lumia Icon Defender Case on Amazon.
More info on OtterBox products: http://www.otterbox.com/
iPhone 6 Defender Case Review
How the *#&^% Do You Remove an OtterBox Case?!?!?
Looks like we’re about to see a little mutual backscratching between former rivals.
Microsoft and DropBox are teaming up for a “strategic partnership”. Office integration will be opened up, so users will be able to view and edit any files saved online in DropBox. This means we should see updates to Office apps, hopefully with more Android compatibility.
Windows Phone users will also score in the deal as we’ll finally get an official DropBox app. Moving forward with Microsoft combining their apps for Windows 8 and Windows Phone, hopefully this DropBox app will also go cross platform.
App updates should drop “in the coming weeks” and online integration should happen early 2015.
I suppose a little cooperation between former cloud storage rivals never hurt anyone right?
It’s a huge day at AT&T. Big Blue took the wraps off of their release schedule for four huge devices.
Moto360
AT&T is becoming one of the better stocked retail outlets for wearable tech, and they were early in embracing smartwatches. Now the Moto360 has an official home at AT&T stores. Starting November 7th, you can get a Moto360 for $199 if you bundle it with the purchase of a Moto X Smartphone.
LG G Watch R
I TOTALLY CALLED IT! We have official pricing for LG’s round, premium smartwatch, and it looks like that extra bit of style will run you $299. It’ll be stocked and ready to buy starting November 5th!
Lumia 830
Windows Phone fans have probably been feeling a little neglected of late, but AT&T will be the first carrier to bring the Lumia 830 to our shores. The mid-ranger will sell for $449.99 or you can grab it for $99 on two-year contract. If you’re signing up on contract, you can also grab a free FitBit Flex for a limited time. You can see a brief hands on with the Lumia 830 from my trip out to CTIA!
Kyocera DuraForce
Kyocera is finally leaving their exclusive relationship with CDMA carriers, dropping one phone on T-Mobile, and now the DuraForce on AT&T. It looks like a redesigned version of the Brigadier which launched on Verizon a couple months ago, but there’s no word yet if the DuraForce will also have Kyocera’s incredible sapphire display. It looks like it’ll be AT&T’s most rugged phone however, and you can grab one for $389 or $49 on two-year contract. You can catch our long term review of the Brigadier to whet your appetite!
The rumors of a Microsoft smartwatch are true!
Taking the wraps off of a new app and new hardware, the Microsoft Band will retail for $199. It features a 320×106 pixel capacitive touchscreen, built in GPS, a heart rate sensor, skin temperature sensor, Galvanic skin monitor, UV and Ambient light sensors, and a microphone. They’re only rating it as dust and splash resistant, so it might not be a good option for swimmers.
Interestingly enough, there are two 100 mAh batteries, about half the capacity of the new LG G Watch R, but Microsoft is estimating 48 hour battery life.
While it’s built around fitness tracking, it will also pair with phones over Bluetooth for the standard collection of notifications and alerts. Happily, Microsoft is making this watch cross platform, so it will work with Windows Phone, iOS, and Android, though only Windows Phone users will have access to Cortana from their wrist.
The Band is being launch alongside a new Health app, which is also cross platform for Windows Phone, iOS, and Android. While Health is designed to be a fitness tracking service, both the Band and the app will leverage cloud services and will work with other fitness services like RunKeeper and UP by Jawbone.
Are these the features you’ve been looking for in a smartwatch? Leave us a comment below!
The cloud storage wars rage on! This is really helpful for me as I’ve got promotional DropBox space expiring this month, but I am an Office365 subscriber!
Starting today, if you’re paying for the monthly version of Office, you will now receive unlimited storage from Microsoft, with no restrictions for Home, Personal, or Student customers.
To put that in perspective, DropBox or Google Drive will cost you $9.99 a month for 1TB of storage, OR you could pay $9.99 for 5 PC’s and 5 tablets to have monthly access to Office, one hour of Skype calling, AND unlimited cloud storage through OneDrive.
Not bad at all. You can read all the deets on Microsoft’s OneDrive blog.