While thumbing through the free issue of Stuff Magazine I picked up while at CES I came across an advertisement for Storm Watches. The UK based watch company has a ton of unique styles, some of which remind me of the Tokyo Flash genre of time pieces. The MK V features a shutter mechanism that protects the watch face but opens when you need to know the time. It’s made from brushes stainless steel and comes on a black rubber strap. It’s available in either slate or rose gold and retails for $186.60. The MK2 Circuit is made from brushed stainless steel… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

“Get your head outta them clouds, boy!” Well, obviously some programmer somewhere didn’t listen to his Daddy/Papa/Poppa/Pop/Dad/The Big Guy, because the whole cloud computing thing is really taking off.  (Believe me on this one; my day job is at a networking company.)  And now the clever folks at Octoshape have created a product called cloudmass, which allows you to deliver content through the cloud.  Octoshape says Cloudmass was designed to perform in centralized, shared, cloud infrastructures due to its unique ability to deliver high quality video globally without the traditional requirements of server or network infrastructure at the edge. In the content delivery biz?  Or simply interested in how the capabilities of content delivery are… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Now, while I haven’t been participating as such, I do know that Foursquare has gotten big.  Big enough for Jon Stewart to mention it on The Daily Show, which is, ya know, pretty big.  And so the folks at Ranker.com asked themselves, “Self, I wonder what Foursquare locations have the best check-in rewards?”  And because they’re the site that, ya know, ranks stuff, they went ahead and found out.  And now you can reap the benefits of their ranking harvest just by surfing on over and giving them a look.  They’ve got stuff from all over the country, covering all kinds of things, so the odds are pretty good there’s something there for you.  So Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Winding down this very long day of media introductions inside the Cobo Arena in Detroit, MINI, Jeep, Kia and Chevrolet put a wrap on the day’s events, and Jeep and Chevy each have anniversary parties this year.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Don’t forget: This challenge is benefiting The Haiti Plunge – They are building a road and a new medical clinic among other things in a rural part of Haiti. Please take a second and support them HERE. I’m sitting here in Cabo wearing one of my SCOTTEVEST T-Shirts. No, I have not extended my No Baggage Challenge for Charity beyond the planned week at CES. This is one of my cotton SeV T’s that Elana brought with her when she came in from New Jersey yesterday rather than one of my NoBC shirts… Those will be packed away for at least a week since I’m kinda sick of looking at them. Yes… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Honda showed off a new Civic that they say is still in concept form and Hyundai rolls out its new Veloster three-door coupe and teased the crowds with the Curb concept.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

It’s been a little while since Intel and Nokia came together to merge Moblin and Maemo together to create the MeeGo project.  Moblin started out as a project by Intel and the Linux Foundation to produce a Linux-based OS, interface and application stack for mobile internet devices.  In February of 2009, they merged with the Maemo project that was used by Nokia in the Nseries tablets like the N770, N800, N810 and the N900 smartphone.  Intel was nice enough to send me a Lenovo S10-3t convertible netbook with MeeGo preloaded so I could get a look at the state of MeeGo in version 1.1.  MeeGo has… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Approaching the middle of day one (and only) we get offerings from Mercedes Benz, BMW, Audi and Toyota.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Image Courtesy of CrunchGear If all the rumors are to believed, on Tuesday the 11th Verizon and Apple will unveil the iPhone 4 for Verizon. Unlike the hundred other times this rumor has made the rounds, there is reasonable evidence pointing to this time being FOR REAL. If you want more details on the rumor round-up, you can check out The Consumerist, who also has links to other places with more extensive coverage of each rumor element. Kevin at GottaBeMobile writes about three reasons why he won’t be switching to a Verizon iPhone. These are fairly pragmatic reasons, such as already having an AT&T family plan, Verizon having spotty coverage… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Mid-morning of Day One and Only for automakers at the 2011 NAIAS saw intros from Chrysler, Buick, Ford and GMC.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

When I first got my EVO 4G I was thrilled. I’ve become a big fan of the Android OS and have always held a special place in my heart for any hardware HTC produces. What immediately did not thrill me though was the EVO’s battery. In simplest terms, it sucked! I thought the battery on the iPhone 3Gs was bad, well the EVO’s is worse. After conditioning the battery and making some modifications to my phone’s settings I was able to greatly increase the amount of power I’m getting off each charge but on heavy usage days I’m unable to make it through the entire day without a recharge. Until now…. The Monaco Extended… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

David Goodspeed writes amazing articles about cars and the automotive industry for Gear Diary, and I love reading them. Personally I am fairly utilitarian in my auto pursuits, but my statistician avocation makes me sit up and take notice when what looks like inherently contradictory data comes along. In this case it is Toyota and their public image. First off they find themselves along BP, airlines and others on the ’15 most hated companies’ list. Toyota had what could be described as a ‘rough’ 2010 in terms of public relations, to the point where the former leader of product quality had to recall more than 10 million cars, and fueled more public… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

A while back the OpenMoko project created the goal of bringing out a Linux based smartphone called the Freerunner.  Then Google brought out what became the most successful Linux based operating system of all time, Android.  Well, needless to say, the writing was on the wall.  The clunky OpenMoko OS, with the behind the times hardware, was enough to make OpenMoko irrelevant in the smartphone arena.  Well, it seemed to be such a waste to throw out the work they did on the OS, so the next choice was to bring out another device.  This time, they didn’t even try to look at bringing out another smartphone.  They, instead, brought out the Wikireader… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Day one of the 2011 North American International Auto Show is going to be a very busy one, mainly because it is the only day that automakers will host press conferences. Given the congested nature of the day’s schedule I will break it down into several parts with a few brands already taking stage before many have had the opportunity to down their first cup of joe. Porsche, Chevy, Ford and Volkswagen lead off the morning.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Last summer at the big Star Wars ‘Celebration V’, George Lucas announced that the entire Star Wars saga would be coming to Blu-Ray in Fall 2011. At the time he said: The Star Wars Blu-ray Box Set will feature all six live-action Star Wars feature films utilizing the highest possible picture and audio presentation, along with extensive special features – including documentaries, vintage behind-the-scenes moments, interviews, retrospectives and never-before-seen footage from the Lucasfilm archives. At CES last week LucasFilms gave us more official details about the September release, and Amazon.com has set up pre-oder links at significant discounts. Here is the complete press release from the Official Site: The Continue reading on Gear Diary …