OK, that isn’t the full story, but it is a funny enough image! There is clear irony here in saying “People say the music business is suffering, but it’s NOT.”, but what is the main point? Is it that despite being wildly successful across more than four decades, he is now getting royalty checks for as low as $0.03? Is it that while he has made $0.13 the record company has pocketed the vast majority of the money for his work? Either way, it is pretty funny to think about such small checks for such a major star. As some have mentioned, these are likely not the checks related to… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

LapWorks has announced a new iPad case that is different from just about any case we’ve seen previously. The new case is a folio but it is made from a transparent hard-shell to give maximum protection to your iPad while letting you still use it in a variety of ways. The LapWorks Crystal iPad Folio is …literally two transparent hard-shell cases that have been hinged together to open and close like a book. The result is an innovative new type of iPad folio that protects the iPad and allows it to be viewed from every direction. But unique new features increase its usefulness and functionality making this product a stand-alone marvel of ingenuity. Continue reading on Gear Diary …

During last year’s CTIA conference I saw a voice service from a company called Dial2Do.   There have been, and continue to be, a sea of voice applications — ranging from offerings from Vlingo, DriveSafe.ly, to Google’s own Android integration of voice-to-text, voice search, and application control.  So what is special about Dial2Do?   Their service can be used with any bluetooth-enabled phone and does not rely solely on an application running on your mobile phone. Plantronics recently partnered with Dial2Do, branding their joint service as Vocalyst and featuring it on two of their latest bluetooth headsets:  the Plantronics Savor M11o and the Plantronics Voyager Pro+.   Sure, you can listen to your email, send a text or even tweet hands-free — but even better is that if you are a user of applications like Evernote, Remember the Milk, Toodledo, Wordpress or Xpenser you can send reminders or updates to those services using nothing but your voice. Change phones?   No problem!  The service is device agnotstic, so you can use it for your iPhone today and then not miss a beat if you were to change to an Android smartphone later.  So put down your phone, stop texting and typing at those [...]

In case you haven’t heard of it, Spotify is a free-or-paid subscription music service that works differently than something like Slacker or Pandora in a few ways. First off, you can immediately stream whatever song you want from their massive library of publisher material. Next, the service integrates with your existing music to form an extended library available for immediate listening online even when you’re away from your home PC. But one of the biggest things about the service is the social aspect – sharing playlists of stuff you love with others is a form of music discovery that has taken Europe by storm. And if you are a paying member, you can… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’ve always loved watching caricature artists quickly plot out their exaggerated perception of their subjects, but this new offering from Orange UK’s The Feed takes the art to a whole new level. They are offering “secret portraits” of twitter users based on a tweeted self-description. I am about to enter mine, and I thought you might want to give it a try, too. Describe yourself in a tweet – and don’t forget the #secretportraits hashtag If your tweet intrigues us, our illustrators will dive into your Twitter profile to find out more about you They’ll draw a secret portrait based on Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Choice is good So we end this week with a Gear Deal that gives you a variety of different choices and nice savings on each one. For a limited time Lenovo is offering eCoupon Codes for most IdeaPads and IdeaCentre All-in-one Desktop systems which will save you 20%. And that 20% stacks on top of any instant savings that might be available. Our Gear Sponsor has highlighted some key deals and they include… 20% Coupon: LASTCHANCE for All IdeaPad U-series Laptops: U160 | U460 | U260 (15% off) 20% Coupon: LASTCHANCE for select IdeaPad Y-series Laptops: Y460 | Y560 | Y560d 20% Coupon: LASTCHANCE for… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I work at my home office in Austin one week out of every three, and so end up attending meetings via video conference a lot.  And if you have an experience similar to mine, you know that means a lot of staring at muddy, murky, pixellated images that are blown up on your screen beyond what was probably wise.  ”If only I had an HD camera on both ends,” you might think to yourself.  (I sure do.) Well, Genius wants to help you out there.  Their new FaceCam 1000 is a compact, 720p HD video that can capture still of up to 8 MegaPixels.  It has a manual focus lens, and 360 degrees of… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Maybe I’m revealing how ancient I am, or how old-fashioned my gaming habits are, but when I first saw the screen shots for Miniclip’s new iPhone 4 game, my first thought was, “Geez, that really reminds me of Sonic 3!” Of course, Sonic 3 couldn’t be played on a hand-held device with Apple’s Retina screen, Sonic didn’t have control over gravitation, nor did Sonic 3 only cost $.99.  (And certainly couldn’t be ordered just by downloading it from iTunes!)  But something about it definitely hit my retro-gaming, scrolling play sweet spot, and I will probably be checking it out.  And if me, why not you? Full information below. We are very excited to Continue reading on Gear Diary …

RIM announced the name change from to annual Wireless Enterprise Symposium, aka WES, conference.  Now it will simply be ‘BlackBerry World’.   This change marks a further move away from focusing only on the enterprise, or business customer.    Typically the yearly conference is filled with Sales and IT staff from companies all over the world learning about the latest product and server-side offerings. Expect much more of a consumer focus at the BlackBerry World event as RIM tries to further push the BlackBerry brand against the Apple and Google Android Behemoth’s who are infiltrating business use due to the volume of users, demand and the updates both Apple and Google have made to support enterprise… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

As more and more of us use various social media services to connect with others and manage our lives the need to integrate these services becomes increasingly important. One good example of what is possible is SnapCal. SnapCal is a free iOS app that “Mashes-up Twitter, Google Calendar and Evernote to help iPhone® & iPod touch® Users Create, Edit and Share Events & Calendars”. It is a neat idea and Has already been downloaded by over 100,000 users. As the company explains, Infoteria Corporation today announced its latest version of “SnapCal,” an iPhone and iPod touch calendar app that lets users create, edit and share events through Twitter. Simplifying social events management, Google Calendar users Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’d like to thank everyone who entered our Lenovo M90z Giveaway; we have a picked a winner for our computer, and that winner is … abitnerdy Congratulations!! Don’t forget that there are still a bunch of other sites that have yet to start their contests, so you still have a shot at winning a computer for yourself or for your favorite organization; keep an eye on all of the following sites and enter often! Just remember that you can win only once, however. Dec 1 – Dec 5: Medicine and Technology Dec 2 – Dec 6: Geeks Room Dec Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Let’s face it, thanks to cellphones and iPods, wrist watches have, for many, been relegated to the role of fashion accessory. Sure, they still tell time the way they always have but almost all of us have a cellphone with us constantly and even the most rudimentary phone has a clock built into it. The result? For many of us watches are jewelry. That does not, however, mean watches can’t be bold, interesting and desirable. They can be and, with their line of E Ink watches, PHOSPHOR is out to show just how big, bold and technologically savvy a watch can be. That’s right, PHOSPHOR’s watches use the same e Ink technology found in the… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you’re anything like me keeping your data safe and secure is of the utmost importance. I’m talking about keeping it safe from hackers though. Sure that’s important but what I’m talking about it keeping it safe from life. With three kids at home I’ve got thousands and thousands of memories, in the form of digital pictures, stored on various hard drives. From time to time I take one of the portable hard drives with me, to a family members house, or on the road. Life has a tendency to throw bumps and bruises our way from time to time and making sure nothing happens to my digital media when it’s away from home is paramount… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Today Wyse, a cloud computing powerhouse behind the PocketCloud mobile virtualization suite announced they’re bringing the desktop to 250,000 users across Android and iOS devices.   Wyse has also brought updates with version 1.1 that improve performance, security encryption and an improved UI for Android devices for both the PocketCloud Free and Pro. Virtualization is key, because all those people you see around you on their shiny iPads or Galaxy S Tabs want to leave their laptops behind.   They don’t want to lug a laptop around the next time they travel.   They want to be able to access all the documents and applications they run at their desk while they’re sitting in that board meeting.  They want to be able to retrieve files and updates real-time. Smartphones and tablets continue to shine with innovation and help us further the mobile lifestyle of being able to access our information anytime, anywhere — but there’s always that last minute spreadsheet update or request from the boss to update that important document and get it out to the team asap.    Boot up a computer?  That’s so 2009.     If you have PocketCloud, you and your co-workers could simply access all of that information through your [...]

A few quick items today worth mentioning – a great set of games that supported a great cause is now easier than ever to play, a stunning graphical milestone in handheld gaming arrives, and one of the aforementioned Indie games gets a definite launch date for the iPad … and a cool video! Humble Indie Bundle Way back in May I wrote about the ‘Humble Indie Bundle’, which was a set of five games put together by a set of indie game developers being sold for ‘whatever you want to pay’, with the ability to split your proceeds however you wanted – with two charities alongside the five games! Well… Continue reading on Gear Diary …