Nuance has been making some big moves lately. They released Dragon Dictation for the iPhone and then the BlackBerry. They acquired Jott… and SpinVox. And the list goes on and on. Well Nuance has another announcement and it is a signal of what is hopefully coming to a wide assortment of smart phones in the near future. T-Mobile’s latest Android phone is the myTouch 3G™ Slide. Thank’s to Nuance the 3G Slide has a trick that makes other smart phones look a bit less smart. You see, the myTouch 3G Slide brings with it T-Mobile’s “Genius Button” and what makes the Genius Button so smart… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Let’s just cut to the chase with this Gear Deal… the HP Pavilion dv8t Quad Edition has a Core i7 processor, an 18.4″ 1080p display, 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 230M and 4GB of DDR3 RAM. It has an MSRP of $1449.99 but our Gear Sponsor has found a deal that knocks a full $500 of that price. That means you can get it for $949.99 with free shipping. That’s a pretty good Gear Deal! But wait… there’s more. With this deal you can get an additional $100 off an upgrade to 6 or 8GB of RAM AND $25 off any HP printer of $69 or more. Did we mention this deal gives you $500 off the price!!!!! H… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

(All photos by the author) I attended an event today at the General Motors Assembly Plant in Arlington, Texas, that gave me cause for deeper reflection. Chevy is celebrating the 75th year of the Suburban model. A single product with three-quarters of a century lineage – now that is something. It got me to wondering: In this modern era of “here today, gone tomorrow” and disposable lifestyles what new products would be able to survive 75 years. Sure, brands can live long lives, and of course basic concepts, but what about the individual nameplate, the singular moniker. Probably few things within our reach at this very moment can boast such survival skills… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

(Image courtesy Netsuccess) It sounds great…”Unlimited books and comics for your iPad!” But what is MyPadMedia? Well, it is a site that promises the holy grail to readers: pay them $50 ONCE, and the floodgates open for unlimited books. What books? Well, you need to pay to play, my friends. There’s a testimonial that claims to have read “the whole twilight series”, but if you want more you need to pony up some serious dough, sight unseen. From all appearances, it is a huge scam. Red flag #1: no searchable listings. Pay up, but they won’t tell you what you’re paying for! Red flag #2: no mention of what publishers are on… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The good folks at Speck are rolling out a multitude of ways for you to protect your iPad in style. The latest Speck case I’ve had a chance to try out is the Speck CandyShell for iPad. The CandyShell retails for $49.95 and offers… “Hard Shell. Soft Center. Looks Sweet.” Let’s take a look… From Speck… Our award-winning CandyShell just got bigger! This iPad case has a thin, hard-shell coating with soft rubbery interior lining, bezel, & button covers. The flip-back panel for dockability is the sort of Spexy little detail that makes CandyShell the tastiest, most functional iPad case around. The CandyShell features… * One-of-a-kind design; seamless hard shell case Continue reading on Gear Diary …

There has been considerable excitement in the Mac gaming community leading up to next week’s anticipated release of the OS X Steam Client (and the associated games). Now thanks to Phonorix we have pretty definitely looking information that Valve is working hard on a Steam client for Linux. According to the site: Less than two weeks ago we reported on the Mac OS X Steam client confirming the existence of a Linux client and then found more Linux references too. We then found the unreleased Steam Linux binaries that were under active development. Some still didn’t believe the existence of a Steam client for Linux with Source Engine support, but it’s something we Continue reading on Gear Diary …

USBFever is one of Gear Diary’s go-to sites for peripherals–USB stuff like jacks, cables, chargers, and so on, but also tools, cases, and any number of other gear.  And every week, USBFever provides us with a list of new releases.  So for your edification, we try to give you that list every Monday, to help you keep up on your gadgetry needs. This week’s new releases from USB Fever: Anti Glare Screen Protector for Apple iPad Aluminum / Metal Back Cover for iPhone 3G / 3Gs Sync and Charging Desktop Cradle for iPad Snake-Skin Leather Back Cover for iPhone 3G / 3Gs USB Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Twitter released their “official” Android app on Friday afternoon, and I’ve been using it for a few days. Is it enough to unseat my current favorite (Touiteur), or even match up Twidroid and Seesmic? Read on to find out. Let’s start with the basics. Twitter offers the usual complement of “check for new tweets at x intervals”, and notifications appear in the status bar. You can set for an LED flash as well as an audible alert. All that works great, although the LED flash seems to be a bit buggy. The big downside is that when you are notified about new tweets and head into your timeline, you’re at the top of the… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Multiplied Media, makers of the hugely popular BlackBerry & iPhone Poynt application for location based  searching, haven’t been resting on their laurels.  They just rolled out another update for BlackBerry users that gives the application even more features.  One of the best updates?  If you use your BlackBerry for navigation using VZ Navigator or Telmap, you can get turn-by-turn guidance to any business or location you pull up in Poynt — without ever leaving the application! This beat multitasking, as you don’t have to exit one app to use another.  Poynt does it all for you!   This is in addition to already being able to… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Last week Dan relayed the announcement by Sony that they were killing off floppy disk production in his article So Long 3.5″ Floppy… We Hardly Remember You Anyhow…, and we all had a good chuckle. But for some folks, using a floppy is part of their daily reality. The BBC brings us a light look at folks still using floppy disks. But while many focus on silly things such as: 15. I buy about 100,000 floppies per year as I have a business that makes them into drinks mats, fridge magnets and toast racks. Ken Pork, London The reality is there are still loads of real-world uses out there for floppy disks -… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

(image courtesy Readymade) It’s time for another “State of the eBook”! This time there’s some quickie news, and then an examination of numbers. What’s for real, and what’s a smokescreen? More on that in a bit. Kindle: -The Kindle app for PC has been updated! Apparently it adds a few interface improvements. Hopefully the next step is going to be releasing some new Kindle apps (cough, Android, cough). -In addition, it looks like Amazon will be offering commissions to affiliates for Kindle books. B&N nook: -The nook may/may not have outsold the Kindle in the first quarter. The actual results are the subject of… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Image courtesy of bit-tech For hardcore RPG fans, few things stir as much interest as a game developed by Obsidian Entertainment, featuring the work of renowned designer Chris Avellone, and promising an unprecedented level of consequences for choices made throughout the game. Alpha Protocol is due out at the end of May, and the PR engines have been kicking into high gear getting ready for the release. There have been numerous previews for the game – too many to begin to collate or quote, but there are some interesting things we’ve learned. One came a while back from a company Tweet: Learned yesterday that it’s possible to get through Alpha Protocol without killing Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Not too long ago I did a review of Dragon Age: Origins, looking at the PC and console versions. Back when I was first playing the PC version the Mac version was announced and released, and I started playing – knowing that I would come back to provide a review on the port at a later time. The Hype: From BioWare, the makers of Mass Effect, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Baldur’s Gate comes Dragon Age: Origins. An epic tale of violence, lust, and betrayal, Dragon Age: Origins is a single player role-playing game (RPG) set in a fantasy game environment, and featuring three playable character classes, accessible in the form… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Jailbreak At Your Own Risk. We Are NOT Recommending It. We just did it ourselves and are telling you about it. A jailbreak that works on the current iPhone and iPad was released this morning. Larry gave Judie & me the heads-up that he was jailbreaking his iPhone; it took four seconds. I jumped in and jailbroke my iPad 3G. Judie is about to do her iPad, too. (The things we do for you on this site … ) We quickly got to work employing Categories to reduce the number of Springboard pages. Larry did some other mods, but I was most interested in one thing… running apps in the… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Larry swears by Clear-Coat, one of the up and coming scratch protectors for a wide range of devices. As I wrote yesterday, he didn’t even open his iPad 3G on Friday but instead opted to immediately take it to the Clear-Coat cart near him. That way he was guaranteed that his device would be protected from the first minute of its use. Larry had sent me Clear-Coats to try for both my iPhone 3GS and my iPad. I installed them myself and found the process to be easy enough. I am happy to say that, thanks to Clear-Coat, I am carrying my iPhone without a case most of the time. I did an okay job installing the shield but nothing… Continue reading on Gear Diary …