Best Buy is having a contest that’s just in time for Halloween. The goal is to rid your house of any frightening technology you have laying around.  And when they say frightening, they mean frighteningly old. Do you have freakishly old gadgets and gizmos at home?  If you do, head over to the contest web site where you can submit your photos along with a 140 word caption.  The grand prize winner, which will be announced on Halloween, gets a $3,500 Insignia Home Theater makeover including Geek Squad Installation.  Additionally, the first runner-up will receive a $1,500 Best Buy Gift Card, while the second runner-up will receive a $1,000 Best Buy Gift Card. If you old technology isn’t enough to scare you watch… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One of my favorite YouTubers, “AppStoreReviewer” launched his very own iPhone OS application a few weeks ago.  And best of all it’s now free in the iTunes App Store. ChillTwit is a simple and elegant Twitter client for the iPhone and iPod Touch.  The application has two features which seem to separate it from the other Twitter clients in the App Store. First, you have the ability to change the background the appears behind tweets  and second, you can change the bubble colors from nine different options. It may not be the most robust Twitter client around, but it includes… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Before the release of BlackBerry Desktop Manager for Macs, one of the best ways to sync your music, videos, and photos between a Mac and BlackBerry was doubleTwist.   In fact, using doubleTwist, you could easily sync media to a wide variety of mobile devices — including Sony PSP, G1, Palm Pre, Windows Mobile (5.0/6.0), and even iPhone (2.0 firmware).  What was great about this solution is that if you are in a household that utilizes multiple devices — you would have a single resource to transfer your media. Now doubleTwist has added what could possibly be the best feature (and the one feature that can keep the application relevant) — an integrated Amazon MP3 music store letting you purchase and sync music to hundreds of mobile devices.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Mophie, the company known for it uber-popular external batteries the Juice Pack and the Juice Pack air, has released some new charging accessories which work with USB compatible devices. Three of the new items stand out: The Low Profile USB Car Charger, which sells for $14.95, is very slim and should remain relatively unnoticeable in your car’s dash. The Hybrid Wall and Car Charger, which sells for $24.95, combines a car charger along with a standard wall charger.  The wall charger’s prongs rotate 270 degrees to ensure you’ll be able to plug it in anywhere. And finally, the Dual USB Wall Charger, which to me looks the coolest, allows you… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The big news thus far this week is AT&T’s decision to begin allowing VoIP services to access their 3G network on IPhone’s. It is a huge deal. It not only opens the door to greater choice for those of us who use iPhones but, hopefully, it means the beginning of wireless companies loosening up some of their restrictions and letting our handheld devices begin reaching their potential. If we, the end-users, are happy about the decision I have to imagine that people behind services such as Skype are jumping for joy. Well, they aren’t exactly jumping for joy but it is clear that they’re quite happy. For example the Skype blog has this to say –… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Sure the TomTom GPS mount I posted about today looks cool and all but it’s not cheap. Last week Dan posted on the price of the TomTom car kit and remarked at its somewhat steep price tag (the mount alone is going to retail for $120.)  At $120 Dan suggested that at that price users might as well just go out and get themselves a stand alone GPS unit. Well in a somewhat funny twist of irony Woot.com, the site that features one item for sale every day at what’s usually a very good price,  has the TomTom XL340-S 4.3” Touchscreen Portable GPS w/ Text to Speech, IQ Routes… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

We are all feeling the financial pinch!    Blue Plate Special is a weekly review of bargain apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Nothing over $.99. Scramble is the fast fun game of finding words in a jumbled grid. Compete with friends and play live with fellow word game fans. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Most everyone is familiar with Apple’s “There an app for that” ad campaign.  Many YouTubers have even gone as far as creating their own spoof versions of the ads.  Even Dan and myself made one not too long ago. Now it seems Verizon wireless has taken a “if you can’t beat them, join them” type approach to the ads and released a version of their own. Since there’s no iPhone available on Verizon Wireless just yet it seems the carrier has decided to take a shot at AT&T’s 3G coverage in attempt to lure iPhone users over. Watch the ad. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

With my schedule I find myself with tons of down time throughout any given day. Being in Dr’s waiting rooms, bus rides in the spring during baseball season, or just sitting on a bench while my wife spends hours in the mall emptying our bank account…I always turn to one thing, my BlackBerry. While I have tons of games that could pass the time, RSS feeds to read, or movies to watch…sometimes I just want something more, something live, maybe even a newscast to watch instead of reading the news. Well SPB TV Is an application that shows live TV from across the world on your BlackBerry device. I was lucky enough to get advanced review copy of the application, here are my thoughts….… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Check out this cool demonstration from dynapocket that shows a Windows Mobile device running some lightning fast voice translation software. You speak the phrase, the device translates to both text and spoken word. I’m sure it would be a bear for lengthy conversations but for emergencies like “where is the nearest bathroom” it’s worth the money – whatever the ultimate price. Toshiba Voice Translation (YouTube) via Crunchgear Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Nanny cams come in all shapes and sizes.  From Teddy Bears to cigarette packs, it seems there’s a hidden camera disguised as almost any common household item these days. Now comes the “Mini MP3 Cam” designed by Chinese manufacturer Xiangyun Industry.  This time the video camera has been cleverly hidden inside what looks to be a second generation iPod Shuffle. The 1.3 MP video camera records 640×480 video at 20 fps in AVI or it can also take still .jpg images when triggered.  The camera has a USB connector for getting the media onto your computer as well. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Here’s another chapter in the ongoing rumor saga that is the Apple Tablet. This time Digitimes is reporting that the device will be built by Foxconn and will have a 10.6 inch screen.  Digitimes further suggests that Foxconn will ship close to 400,000 units in the first quarter of 2010. The Digitmes source also claims the tablet device will be very “e-reader” focused instead of music.  Dan has been backing this idea for weeks, and perhaps he’s right.  (Yes Dan, I said you “may” be right.)    The device is also rumored to include long battery life, quick internet connectivity and an easy to use user interface… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I wrote about the Mac application EventBox back in July. It’s a nice little application that allows you gather together a number of your different social media and keep it in one place. For example, I use it for my Google Reader feeds, and to keep track of both Twitter and Facebook. At the time the application was described in this way Do you use many social services? Annoyed that you have to run 6 different applications? Enter the new revolutionary social app, EventBox. All your services in one place, integrated. When you are busy doing your work, you don’t want anything to disrupt your focus. But you still want to read that message which just came in. This is where the HUD window comes in handy. Well, it turns out I wasn’t the only one who was keeping an eye on application. The folks at RealMac, the people behind RapidWeaver and LittleSnapper (two of my most frequently used Mac applications) were as well. They liked it so much, in fact, that they purchased it and are renaming it Socialite.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Recombu.com has gotten itself a sneak peak at one of the more highly anticipated devices to be released this fall.  When TomTom announced its new application for the iPhone they also showed its cool new in car mount.  The application was released weeks ago but so far nothing on the mount. While it should be along soon, little has been said or shown about it.  The video is short but gives you a nice look at what the device actually does.  Most important is the fact that TomTom says the mount should work with any GPS application running on the iPhone.  Smart move by TomTom.  That should open up more sales by those who prefer other GPS applications to the official TomTom one but still want to… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Don’t look now but Amazon has just dropped pricing on their Amazon Kindle from $299 to $249. On October 19 they’ll also introduce a $279 International Kindle with GSM capabilities (AT&T provides the service) in over 100 countries. According to Amazon 48 copies of eBooks are sold for every 100 physical copies of those books. Amazon has a resounding lead in eBook readers with Forrester Research estimating a 60% market share for the Kindle vs 35% for Sony. Kindle Continue reading on Gear Diary …