Image courtesy of T-Mobile Sometimes the best things in life really are free. T-Mobile has a promotion running on February 11th and 12th that is one of the best I’ve seen yet from a mobile provider. Sign up for a 2 year agreement, or add a line, and get ANY smartphone in the T-Mobile lineup for free. TmoNews has a screen snap of the rebate form showing a few handsets that will cost you a little up front, but will be refunded in some form or fashion. It’s a great way to get your guy or girl a brand new Smartphone for absolutely nothing, and show your level of commitment by having a joint plan together… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

This is so good, it’s almost hard to believe: Microsoft and Nokia have just formally announced their “Broad Strategic Partnership” as they “combine assets and develop innovative mobile products on an unprecedented scale.”  The joint press conference occurred at 2:00 a.m. PST/5:00 a.m. EST, and unfortunately (or is it fortunately?) I was still awake trying to catch up on things when the news came out. From a post titled “Open Letter from CEO Stephen Elop, Nokia and CEO Steve Ballmer, Microsoft” on the Official Microsoft Blog, here is a summary of what the two companies hope to achieve. (Note that the emphasis was added by me): • Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Are you excited to have ordered (or maybe even gotten) a new Verizon iPhone 4? Well we’re excited for you and to celebrate we’re giving away 3 Gray on Gray Hybrid kickBACK g4 Cases from Scosche. The kickBACK G4 is a glossy polycarbonate and shock resistant rubber hybrid case for the iPhone 4 that features an integrated kickstand for FaceTime and landscape media viewing. It features- Glossy polycarbonate exterior with fexible impact resistant rubber interior Integrated kickstand for landscape viewing Lay on the table design protects screen from scratches Flexible rubber protects volume and sleep buttons without reducing sensitivity Open design allows complete access to all connections and controls Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I love the products put out by Joby. The first time I saw them their rather unusual tripod, the gorillamobile, I wasn’t sure what to think. It didn’t look like any tripod I had seen and I quickly discovered that it wasn’t. Each leg had numerous segments which allowed it to be more flexible than any tripod I had ever used. It has seen a good deal of use and the legs have not loosened at all. When I saw the company come out with a number of iPad cases I was not surprised to find that they did not follow the typical path. No, their cases don’t look anything like the other cases out there… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Image courtesy of Arctic Last week in Pt 1 of the Arctic reviews, I took the P531 5.1 Surround Headset for a spin, and found that they were indeed impressive. This week I am checking out the P301 which is your basic 2 channel with adjustable microphone. I again turned to my gaming roots and suffered through a few more hours playing Black OPS on my PC. I like testing sound equipment with games because of the many different types of sound and how precisely you can measure the smallest of details. Black OPS has a quite the soundtrack, and when playing — if you have good sound, then you’re definitely at an advantage over… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Nuance, the leaders in voice-to-text and tech-to-speech technology, have brought their powerful Vocalizer Network connected text-to-speech (TTS) functionality to Jawbone’s ERA headset. The new integration brings a unique Caller ID by Name feature via Jawbone’s MyTALK platform by letting users load an address book onto the headset itself. Once this is done, as calls come in, the headset announces the caller’s name in “an incredibly natural sounding voice through a combination of pre-recorded names” As Travis Bogard, Jawbone’s vice president of product management and strategy explains “The Caller ID by Name feature of the Jawbone ERA takes the hands-free experience to an entirely new level, with callers’ names announced in an amazingly natural sounding voice Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The Chicago Auto Show brought powertrain announcements from General Motors anchoring each end of the economical scale. First, Buick. If we as consumers are not already befuddled by all of the “e” and “i” lower case leading letters for proper names in our world today, GM is going to throw another into the mix. eAssist. eAssist will arrive on a pair of 2012 Buick sedans ¬– LaCrosse and Regal – to up the ante in the fuel economy game. This new technology is a sort of “hybrid lite” if you will as the electric-assist motor and battery pack offer much lower power than in a full hybrid gas-electric vehicle such as the Toyota Prius… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If there is one thing that simply screams romance it is mowing down loads of enemies in Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Apparently Electronic Arts shares that sentiment, and has launched a $0.99 sale on many popular apps on the iTunes App Store. Sensing that they shouldn’t be left behind in the race to promote non-standard Valentine’s Day sales, Sega and Gameloft have followed suit. Oh who cares … all that really matters is that there are loads of great sales going on now! Here are the games from EA: Phone/iPod touch games: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Mirror’s Edge Tetris SimCity Deluxe Pictureka! Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Person A to Person B- “I want you to ask me two questions. The first is ‘What is your profession?’ and the second is “What’s the hardest thing about your job?’” Person B to Person A- “OK. What is your profession?” Person A to Person B- “I’m a blogging comedian.” And without waiting for the second question continues, “Timing!” Okay, so maybe the joke doesn’t translate to written text all that well but the truth is, often times, TIMING IS EVERYTHING. And no one seems to do the timing thing better than Apple. CES 2010 was filled with chatter about the iPad even though Apple wasn’t there and the iPad had yet to… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I was rather vocal in my displeasure over just how poorly the Mac version of Dragon Age was handled: they waited nearly 6 weeks after the PC release to say that a Mac version was coming, then released a Cider port and never communicated about patches until they dumped out the patches and expansions in rapid fire succession without much ado all at once. So I wanted to be out front with the praise for the latest development: Mac gamers will be able to enjoy Dragon Age 2 on the same day as PC gamers, as both versions will be on the same DVD! From a preview at MacWorld: At an exclusive event Continue reading on Gear Diary …

(image courtesy Engadget) It’s about time! Looks like the wait may have been worth it for WebOS fans, as they’ll be getting a Kindle app on the new WebOS Touchpad! They’ll also have extra bragging rights since the Touchpad version of Kindle will be the first to support Collections (though presumably this means Android and iOS will be hot on its heels). What’s very vague from the press release is whether Kindle will be coming to the Pre 3 or any other WebOS phones. Amazon doesn’t say, and HP didn’t mention it during their presentation today. It seems likely, but then again Amazon has ignored WebOS up until this point, and if they’re on the… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If there is one thing most console gamers have done over the last several years regardless whether they prefer Nintendo, Microsoft or Sony … it is waggle a cheap plastic guitar and pretend they could actually play! Regardless of the overly debated musical value of such endeavors, it is hard to debate that the games were just plain fun. However, after a few good franchise entries the series became simply a cash cow and Activision carted out a stream of half-baked entries and other obvious cash-grabs while the audience moved on to other games. Now Activision has completed killed the franchise. As noted at Gamasutra: “These decisions are based on the Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you list out the most amazingly talented guitarists working today, Steve Vai is sure to be near the top of that list. Now look at the best places in the world to get a musical education, and you will certainly have Boston’s Berklee College of Music on your short list. Now Berklee and Steve Vai are teaming up to put on the ‘world’s largest guitar lesson’ on March 3rd. Check out the official site for more details, and if you are so inclined tune in and help them make history! I know I will be there with my kids! And if you want to see him play BOTH sides of… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

We all know that a company will milk a property for cash so long as people are paying. Last fall I wrote about the excellent 40th Anniversary edition of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew. There were two different editions, each containing additional live material ‘never before released’. Both contained a Copenhagen concert DVD from November 1969, and the ~$100 Collector’s Edition also had the complete Tanglewood concert from August 1970. This is in addition to the OTHER 1970-ish shows like the Fillmore East dual CD release from several years back. The release note from AllMusic.com: Before looking into the musical quality on Bitches Brew Live, it’s important to note for cost-conscious consumers Continue reading on Gear Diary …

CardStar has come a long way since first hitting the scene and simply giving users the ability to store loyalty cards on their smartphones.    First they brought Foursquare check-ins to their application — and helped show local businesses the huge impact of location-based sales.  That’s one reason I am an avid user of Groupon.  I’ll get daily updates on my phone about various deals specific to my city.  But the one thing I’ve always missed is a way to get automatic deals when I travel.   As of today, I now have that convenience — thanks to CardStar’s brand new Groupon integration. When I travel from Atlanta to New York (or to any of the other 160-plus cities supported), I’ll  now get automatic deals on my phone based on my location.  No time wasted searching or finding coupons.  Even better — I get all of this direct within  CardStar’s application , so I don’t even have to manually  switch between applications on my phone.    Fast.  Easy.  Convenient.  It gives you deals based on the city you’re in — when you’re in it.    And it SAVES you money. If you use an iPhone or Android smartphone, you’re going to want to [...]