Sometime ago I moved most of my credit cards over to an application that is stored on my iPhone and my iPad. The application is highly secured and encrypted, and it allows me to have all of my credit card information with me all the time without having to carry the credit cards themselves. I love using the app, and I see myself doing this more and more. This thing is, my credit cards aren’t the only cards that I carry. I also carry an assortment of different store cards and gift cards. For example, I was recently given a Starbucks gift card that has just five dollars on it. I have not been to… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I led a book group last week and, as always, I used my iPad for both reading the book and for sharing my thoughts about it. It worked great except for one thing; because there were no page numbers in the Kindle app I wasn’t able to refer to specific places in the book with ease. It was more than a bit frustrating. Well, Amazon just began to address that by releasing an update to their Kindle application for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. The update brings a host of new features; among them, the addition of real page numbers… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’ll be honest — I am not always on top of ordering gifts ahead of time. Even when I have a plan, or am told exactly what to purchase, I somehow always push it to the last minute. Luckily for me, I was ordering Sarah “Big Love: Season 4” for Valentine’s Day, and Amazon comes through like a champ by offering free “video on demand” rentals with purchase! See, without it I would have been without part of Sarah’s Valentine’s day present (bad Carly!) But thanks to the free rentals, we were able to start watching the show even though the DVDs won’t arrive until tomorrow. Sarah has her present, and I’m not in… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One of my all-time favorite mobile applications is Poynt, the location-based search juggernaut that helps you find businesses, people, movies, gas, restaurants, events — or even just the weather.   All from a single app so you don’t have to clutter your phone with five or six different options.  As soon as I pick up a BlackBerry, iPhone, or Android device (I swap between devices quite frequently ), Poynt is one of the first apps I load. Today, the Poynt team announced the ability for BlackBerry and Android users to share their locations and searches via Facebook and Twitter directly within the Poynt application. The feature is currently  for Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Australia.  Hit the jump for the full scoop on this enhancement.  With the various ways to tell your friends where you are — Foursquare, Facebook, etc. — will  you be using Poynt as your all-in-one solution?… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

  Recently, I wrote about the Android app Skifta that lets you access personal media you have stored on your computer — or in the cloud — and stream it to your TV, stereo or other DLNA enabled device.    iPhone users may have felt left out in the cold, but no more.   Twonky now brings media sharing to to your iPhone, turning it into the ultimate wireless remote control.  What’s great about apps like Twonky and Skifta is that you are not confined to the storage space on your phone.   Whether you have 8 gigabytes or 32 gigabytes of phone storage, you can now access, share and stream all of the photos, music and videos you’ve stored on your computer.  Twonky will stream that content to your TV or stereo and let you access much more than you can store with internal phone or even SD card storage.  In addition to DLNA, as of today Twonky will also use Apple’s Airplay and UPnP — so you can even stream media to your AppleTV,  Xbox 360 or Sony PS3.    Twonky is a $2.99 application available for iPhone.  If you install TwonkyManager or TwonkyServer, you can also wirelessly copy media fromyour network onto your phone — or [...]

The Palm brand may be gone but their vision, and their under-appreciated WebOS operating systems are alive and well thanks to HP. Today’s Gear Deal brings us one of the HP Pre devices, the HP Pre 2. The HP Pre 2 is the successor to the Palm Pre and features WebOS 2.0, a 3.1″ 320×480 display, a slide-out keyboard, a 5MP camera and hotspot capability. It has 16GB built-in storage and offers up to up to 5.5 hours talk time. As HP explains, the HP Pre offers “Mobility plus apps”. Speed up: this is the fastest Palm Smartphone yet1, 2 Simplify your life with the features of the new HP Continue reading on Gear Diary …

As expected, HTC made a big showing this morning by introducing six new Android devices — the  HTC Flyer, HTC ChaCha, HTC Salsa and next generation HTC Desire S, HTC Wildfire S and HTC Incredible S phones. I hope to have hands-on pictures and impressions direct from the MWC showroom floor later today, but in the meantime, here are the press releases and stock photos. I’m a little worried about the Flyer tablet; it looks a bit thick in the included photo, but I love that it will have a 7″ aluminum unibody … HTC Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Photo courtesy of JAE C. HONG of the Associated Press The Grammy Awards, like most self-congratulatory industry events across the various media, are an interesting study in how they like to ‘tell a story’ framed by performances, themes, and the awards they give out. There is a mix of artists having major sweeps of categories, some years the awards are spread around, and there is even the occasional ‘surprise’ – which generally means the difference between two similar sounding pop stars from the same label and management team. Make no mistake on my opinion – I believe the ‘Awards’ at the Grammy Awards are as scripted as the rest of the show… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Let’s face it – by this time if you are still deciding on Valentine’s Day gifts you are pretty much in deep trouble with the object of your intentions. This isn’t meant as gift-giving advice. Nor is it a curmudgeonly rant about the ‘Hallmark Holiday’ – while the card-maker and your local florist certainly profit from February 14th, the celebration has historical ties. No … this is about the seeming ‘arms race’ in gift-giving. Initially I had started pooling loads of images from every email I had gotten over the last month touting the ‘perfect Valentine’s Day gift’, with the intent of overwhelming you with them. Instead, I simply put the… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

When I saw the Boogie Board at CES 2011 I was intrigued. The device is small, thin and amazingly light. It is a touch-sensitive LCD screen that truly makes it possible for you to never use notepaper again. Since it is always on you simply pick it up, jot your note and go. When I saw one at Brookstone yesterday I knew I just had to have one so… I bought it. It is a neat device that does exactly what it saws. And yet it is going back. Why? Read on to find out. From Boogie Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I only just got wind of this one and wanted to share it as soon as possible … for today only you can get the first-person shooter sequel N.O.V.A. 2 – Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance for $0.99 – an 86% savings! Here is the description: 6 years have passed since the events depicted in the first episode. Humanity is now thrown into a bloody civil war fought on one side by the central government of the Terran Orbitals and the self-appointed Human-Alien Alliance; a new organization with a mysterious origin and agenda. Kal Wardin left active service in N.O.V.A. years ago and now lives among the colonists of the desert planet Scorpius. But Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One of the great things about writing for a site like Gear Diary is the crew – I love reading all of the different insights and viewpoints and interests. Former editor Larry Greenberg contributed some really cool things – his Apple on TV, Smash or Trash, YouTube reviews, destructive reviews, and other fun things have always been a blast to watch & read! Larry has maintained his active YouTube site, and now Larry has a new tech site of his own Here is his welcome: Welcome to Run Around Tech. We’ve been chasing down the technology you crave behind the scenes for a few weeks but are now open to the Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The new look of textbooks? The iPad app Solar System, by Touch Press The discussion started out because my daughter Maggie, who is a freshman at the local High School, spotted an opportunity to get herself a device that she covets . . . an iPad. Here’s the deal:  Maggie’s school district is holding a vote on whether or not the parents think it’s a good idea to get the High School students iPads. The idea is that you get them an iPad as a freshman, they keep it for four years, using it for textbooks, note-taking, and whatever else, and then turn it in when they graduate.  (Whether they’re planning… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Time for another “State of the eBook”! Just a handful of news-y items this week, but with Mobile World Congress and the (possible) Borders bankruptcy this week, it’s going to get very interesting soon! Amazon: The HP TouchPad will have Kindle for WebOS when it launches (whenever that is!) It’s been a long time coming, so the four WebOS fans must be thrilled! If you’re looking for a way to loan and borrow Kindle books, you’ll want to check out Booklending.com. According to TechCrunch, it used to be called “Kindle Lending Club”, but the long arm of Amazon enforced their copyright, hence the name Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The partnership between Nokia and Microsoft that was announced the other day has caused some speculation that the Intel powered AppUp store in general, and the MeeGo in particular might be the losers in this story. Helena and I spoke with Peter Biddle, General Manager to AppUp Products and Services, and he said that despite this partnership, AppUp and Meego will thrive. Proprietary systems have a place in the ecosystem, and so do open ones. Further scaling the development of flexible, open software platforms and applications for all mobile devices, Intel demonstrated a compelling new MeeGo tablet user experience to be made Continue reading on Gear Diary …