Let's Talk Tech
We’ve played with the Martian. We’ve spent time with the Gear. We detailed the Toq.
Now it’s time to play with everyone’s favorite Kickstarter success sweetheart! Let’s take a look at Pebble, what the software looks like, how the screen responds to sunlight, and being soaked in water!
Is this the solution for wearing your notifications on your wrist?
This may be the best YouTube app for Windows 8 phones hands down. It even blows away the official YouTube app by a few miles. Idea Creator Corp went all out in designing this app. I have tried quite a few YouTube apps and was disappointed in what was out there until I found this app. The design is pretty well thought out. Once you sign in you will notice your home page and see the latest videos from your subscriptions. Slide over to the next page and here you will find live tiles that will display your subscriptions, hot videos trending, uploads, playlists, my videos, favorites, recorded and playlist all in a nice neat layout.
When you are watching videos with YouTubeHD you can actually watch them in portrait mode which allows you to leave comments while the video is playing and play video in landscape mode. There is also an option for 3 different live tile color schemes which is pretty cool!
The Good Stuff: Continue reading “App Review: YouTube HD by Idea Creator Corp”
We’re only a couple days into playing with the Pebble, and we have a full video hands on coming soon, but that doesn’t mean we can’t take a look at a few apps for this little wunder-watch.
With all the customization options available, the first thing you notice, a lot of the watch faces aren’t anything special. Mostly just static images with a clock pasted on top. Examining the wares at MyPebbleFaces can be a bit daunting when you first search through the site.
One of the first watch faces I stumbled upon, using the 2.0 BETA firmware on my Pebble, was Blockslide. It has a fun, almost Atari-retro look to the clock, with a date below the time. Instead of the time just updating, smooth animations slide blocks around to usher in new minutes and hours. It’s not only pleasant, but it’s smoother than I thought the Pebble capable of.
One of my pet peeves with Pebble s the lack of a stock battery indicator. Blockslide includes one via wrist flip. Twist your wrist over, and the time will morph into a battery readout for a couple seconds before sliding back to the clock. It looks cool. It looks really cool.
If you’re sporting a Pebble, this is a fun free watchface which has garnered a reaction from everyone I’ve shown it to.
Blockslide 2.0 (for SDK2) on MyPebbleFaces
Working in voice over, I know Sennheiser from their mics, and I think they make fantastic recording solutions. I don’t actually have a lot of experience with their various headphones, but my all time favorite pair of studio monitors are their HD25’s.
I was stoked to try out some of their consumer solutions on the show floor, and even used the built int headset mic on the Momentum to record the audio for this video. Spoiler: I was very impressed with the sound of that little mic…
Blue Microphones is enjoying something of a tech re-branding. From traditional recording solutions, to USB mic powerhouse. Now they’re tackling mobility.
Details are slim, and this video is barely a tease, but the word at Blue is headphones. Mo-Fi is a move towards higher fidelity mobile audio, and if anyone can shake up a market, Blue can. Considering the EQ tweaks and color Blue uses on their recording kit, their headphones could provide some interesting competition to the current crop of designer ‘phones like Beats By Dre, or the Nokia Purity.
Can we at least give Blue a thumbs up for using the accurate term to describe high quality audio? I’m so happy to see them not fall prey to calling their product “High Definition”. Long live “Fidelity”!
It’s in my hands!
One of the gadgets I’ve been most excited about this year is finally here! Qualcomm is delivering a really interesting smart watch solution, with a fantastic display. Also exciting, as this is the first product from Qualcomm where they’re trying to speak directly to consumers.
I’ve barely gotten it out of the shipping box, but let’s take a look at this sexy little piece, some of the set up, and a run down on the feature set!
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!
ROUND 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!”