We here at Gear Diary have already let y’all know about the wild success of the iTunes app store.  Now, Gameloft–a “a leading developer and publisher of downloadable video games”–has a little bit of breakout data regarding the sales of their specific applications.  At my house, Gameloft games are pretty popular, with my son totally hooked on Assassin’s Creed, Avatar, and constantly ding-donging me to get him N.O.V.A.- Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance.  To which I reply, “5 months until your birthday!”  (He is not amused.) Gameloft tells us today that they have “reached 10 million paid downloads since the launch of the App Store™ in July 2008.”  Which is, let’s face it, a bucket load.  So I guess they’re pretty popular other places than the ol’ Moran household, nu? Full press release after the jump.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Dan, Judie and Larry share their experiences and conduct a straw poll on the experience of AT&T service and CES! For more information on their connection strategies, check out Dan’s thoughts here!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

[image courtesy of SlashGear] True device convergence is still something that most consumers are still waiting on.  Sure, smartphones — specifically the iPhone — have really come the closest to the end-all-be-all device.  Sometimes, though, you really need want a bigger screen to handle all of your multimedia and web surfing needs. So, while the verdict on the Camangi is still out and Apple’s iSlate-uberdevice  may be a hopeful March release (if you have an extra $1,000 to spare), Cydle hopes you give their 7-inch screened M7 a chance. The M7 Mobile Internet Device (MID) from Cydle functions as an Internet search appliance, a digital photo frame and multimedia player (music and movies), and incorporates HDMI support. Sounds pretty nice, right?  Let’s take a closer look at Cydle’s press release for more details.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

MobileRead is reporting on a company called “LiquaVista” that will be demoing color ereader screens this week! They say it will be easy to read in sunlight, plus the screens have a fast enough refresh rate to browse photos and web clips! Pretty incredible if true, and between this and the Qualcomm Mirasol displays the ereader wars are going to get even more interesting soon! Via mobileread Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The Facebook app updated to Version 3.1 today.  The update adds push notification as well as sync your friends to the iPhone address book adding their profile pictures to the contact information. More after the break… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

MSI (Micro Star International) will be showcasing several new desktops and notebooks this year at CES. The roll call at CES will include the new G-series Gaming laptop, GE-series 3D entertainment models, C-series Core i5 notebooks, X-series ultraslim, U-series Wind Netbooks, and the Wind Top AIO desktops. They will also have some innovating concept models to see on the floor.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

In an interview at Asahi.com (link is in Japanese), Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that a new model of the Nintendo DS handheld (i.e. not yet another minor revision of the current model) is in the works, and will have a host of new features including an accelerometer, much faster processor and much higher resolution graphics. Read on for more.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

When I think Skype and video calling, I think of the weak camera on my macbook and netbook, and grainy, poorly defined video. In Store Solutions is looking to change that with their FREETALK Webcams. High definition video at an affordable price AND paired with a big provider like Skype can be a big impetus to adoption. Should be an interesting item to watch this year! Check out the press releases below outlining the new FREETALK products and the goals In Store Solutions has for them!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

So here we are at CES 2010. We are working to update as many of the images, videos and news posts as we can as quickly as possible. Larry, Judie and I are all using iPhones and discovering how truly great they are for mobile posting. We are able to grab a picture, use the app Polarock to add a caption and then upload it to the flash plugin on the right of the screen using iPicasa. We are able to grab video, add our intro and post to Vimio’s flash plug in on the site with ease. The entire process can takes mere seconds. Or at least it should… unfortunately the combination of the iPhone and AT&T’s network is turning out to be a bit… shall we say… weak. Seriously, the ability to connect to the net using our iPhones is hit or miss. And when we are in an event and numerous people are on their iPhones you can all but forget about being able to do much of anything. In part it is the iPhone’s less than stellar receptivity. In part it may well be one more example of AT&T’s rather anemic network. Most of the issue, [...]

Apparent is a company based out of North Carolina that is primarily known for barcode scanners, credit card readers and custom asset tags used by businesses to keep track of their inventory.  This year they’ll be showing off a brand new product at CES:  the Doxie portable scanner. Oh, I know.  You’ve seen portable scanners before.  So what makes the Doxie noteworthy in a sea of products?  How about being able to set up the Doxie to scan directly to cloud services like Evernote, Google Docs, Scribd, Backpack or Flickr?  Need to share documents via IM, Twitter, or e-mail?  No problem.  You can set up Doxie to do all of that for you as well.  That’s right, send all of your documents and photos  directly to the sites and services you use every day in one fell swoop.  No scanning, then saving, and then uploading.  Bada-bing, bada-boom.  Done! Interested?  Let’s take a look at the pricing and features. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

It may not get as much excitement as the 5 Android phones scheduled to hit AT&T later this year, but it is great news for Palm as they expand webOS to more carriers.  Verizon’s getting their own CDMA branded Pre and Pixi “Plus” models this year — and now the GSM version is finally going to hit the U.S. on AT&T’s network. One can’t help but think that Palm’s revamped mobile OS would have done much better overall had they not initially went down the exclusivity route with Sprint.  We’ll have to see whether 2010 helps Palm as their Pre and Pixi variants become available on more carriers.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

(image courtesy My Retro Space) Nielsen, the market research and television ratings company, has released some interesting facts about the state of media consumption in America. Since we are in the midst of Consumer Electronics Show madness, it will be interesting to see if any of their statistics play out in the releases we see this week. I listed a few of the statistics I found most interesting below; check out their list for yourself and then let us know if you found anything that surprised you!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Every now and then there is a vendor or developer who goes the extra mile and, in the process, ensure they have a customer for life. This is one good example. Last year I needed a good application for resizing and watermarking images for the site. After looking for a number of them I chose to buy ReSize me from developer Dare To Be Creative. Along the way I ended up buying a number of their other applications. They were all reasonably priced and I have gotten a good bit of use out of all for the past months. I really appreciate the high quality and usefulness of their catalog. Today the company outdid themselves… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Viddler video. Chevy and OnStar have teamed up to develop a mobile application for iPhone, BlackBerry and Android smartphones to remotely control features in the Chevy Volt.  The Engadget team got a first-hand demo at CES.  The app will let users lock/unlock their car, remotely startup, heat/cool and even set the electric car’s charge time.  In addition to actually owning a Chevy Volt when it finally comes out, you will need to be an OnStar subscriber to use the application.  No word on whether Chevy plans to integrate these features with OnStar for other autos in their lineup. While you won’t likely see the Volt hit the streets until the end of 2010… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Don’t you wish you could just whip out your BlackBerry at the next meeting and make jaws drop running your PowerPoint presentation directly from your handheld?  No?  OK, maybe just “the suits” and road warriors who want to ditch their laptops/netbooks behind for those impromptu business meetings will really be excited for RIMs latest product offering:  The BlackBerry Presenter. Just throw this 86 x 60 x 23mm bad boy in your bag and you’ll be able to connect your BlackBerry wirelessly to any projector that supports a VGA or S-Video connection, then just sit back and straight-up “Wow!” your colleagues with some impressive PowerPoint magic. Weekly status meetings… Continue reading on Gear Diary …