If you watched the Grammy Awards and saw the segment featuring Eminem, you might have noticed that Rihanna was terrible ‘singing’ Love the Way You Lie. In fact that whole song was pretty lousy, and it only got better when it transitioned into Dr Dre’s section. And even then for me the highlight was the haunting voice of Skylar Grey. She had some feeling reminiscent of Sinead O’Connor tied in with her own haunting and fragile sensibilities. Since then I was sent a link to a YouTube video of the original demo for the song by Skylar Grey who actually wrote it. What? Doesn’t the track listing simply say ‘Mathers’? Yes – but… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

There has been loads of press coverage about how Microsoft’s Kinect has sold 10 million units to become the fastest selling consumer electronics device ever. ‘Move over iPad and iPhone’ some reports say. But as usual, I see things differently … Here are a few thoughts: XBOX360 in General – I agree with those who say that Microsoft will end up ‘winning’ this generation. I also agree that Nintendo ‘defined’ the generation with the Wii and broadened the gaming landscape forever, but they are fading fast. Kinect Sales – selling 10 million of ANYTHING is amazing, but in particular a new relatively expensive accessory featuring unproven technology Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Sharp makes great HDTVs. And when a Sharp HDTV is featured as a New Gear Daily Deal you know you are going to save significant dollars. Well, that’s certainly the case today with this 26″ AQUOS LCD HDTV with built-in DVD! Normally $449.99 you can save a full $170 on this TV/DVD combination. That brings the price down to just $279.99 and it will even ship within 24 hours. You want more details? This TV features- 16:9 widescreen programs in their native aspect ratio A built-in side-loading progressive scan DVD player A PC input that easily turns your TV into a PC monitor A 5ms response time to enjoy Continue reading on Gear Diary …

(image courtesy of Apple) Apple’s iPad 2 adds new hardware, including a front and back camera. What is interesting is the difference in where and how their front facing camera works, compared with other upcoming tablet offerings. Apple, in typical Apple fashion, was “thinking different”. Rumors that Apple would be adding front and back camera to the iPad 2 were circulating for months, and now we know it is true. Apple almost had to put both cameras in, as all other tablet manufacturers are putting them in. It’s essentially become a “required” feature. So, what makes Apple’s approach so different from the others? When Apple released the first iPad less… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

We are huge fans of companies that take the time to thoughtfully design beautiful, elegant and functional device accessories. We’re even bigger fans, however, of those companies who take the time to thoughtfully designed beautiful, elegant and functional device accessories and then are open to going back and further refining their product even after it is out on the market; that is exactly what happened with the Powis iCase for the first-generation iPad. Judie received one of the early samples of this incredibly functional case at the end of 2010. She began the review and then was notified by the company that they had made a few small, subtle changes to the design to… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

all photos courtesy of mlive.com unless otherwise noted This morning many of us awoke to news of the 8.9-magnitude earthquake that had struck Japan’s northeast coast at 2:46:23 p.m., their local time. Aftershocks, tsunamis, fires, mudslides, flooding and other resulting disasters have been (and are still being) reported nonstop today from locations affected, including our own west coast. When massive disasters occur, I think that people’s first reaction is generally to look at what’s happened, reeling as feelings of shock and awe threaten to overwhelm. But now that we’ve had a moment to take it all in, and as we receive further reports of property that has been (and is being)… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Image courtesy of ClubLakers. Thanks Kobe. It’s always good to see organizations so willing to support our troops and veteran soldiers, and it’s even better to be a part of it yourself. After returning from a conflict or war, sometimes soldiers need help gaining their civilian life back and often times need to find new employment. Call of Duty Endowment is a program spearheaded by Activision Blizzard to increase awareness for our veteran soldiers. CODE often aids with large grants and donations that assist troops in getting back on their feet. We all know the video game Call of Duty Black Ops was crowned champ after its release last November, and it holds the “disputed” title of… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

My wife Elana is not a gadget person, not in the least. She would prefer to read a physical magazine or book and spends as little time working on a computer as she can. Don’t get me wrong, she’s not averse to technology but she doesn’t get excited by it the way some *cough cough* do. That noted, she has now had her 11″ MacBook Air for about 2 1/2 months, and she continues to gush about it. She loves it and describes it as “the best computer she has ever used”. The 11″ MBA is an amazing computer, and it is a laptop that just SCREAMS “I’m portable!!! Take me with you!!!”… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

March Madness selection weekend and the digital download sales are INSANE!!! As usual, everyone is getting in on the action with great deals. Direct2Drive has a huge sale, so I’m only showing games that are 50% off or more. And GamersGate had such a massive list that even the 50% mark didn’t work – so I just arbitrarily cut it in half. And as always thanks to the crew at Deals4Downloads for their help finding everything. So let’s get straight to the deals! Good Old Games: Weekend Sale – 40% off Gaming Gems Beyond Divinity (PC) for $3.59*, Save 40% Divine Divinity (PC) for Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I pretty well tore a hole into Dragon Age 2 the other day, including about the whole need to be logged in everywhere. But there was one thing I didn’t even think about – that an inability to login could prevent you from playing the game! But apparently that is EXACTLY what has happened to at least one person according to a report at BluesNews! Please review the EA Community Terms of Service, particularly sections #9 and #11. There are two levels of enforcement here: 1. BioWare community bans are forum-only and can be for as little as 24 hours. These bans should have no effect on your game, only your Continue reading on Gear Diary …

A little more than a year ago Thomas turned me on to DropBox. Until that point I had been using, and loving, SugarSync. SugarSync was one of the early services that allowed me to keep the information I absolutely needed available all the time accessible on just about any device I might be using. It was, for me, iDisk that didn’t stink. Well I recently went back to check out SugarSync again and was impressed to discover that a good service had gotten even better. First, the service has a full 5GB of free storage available to anyone who wants it. That right, you can store a full 5GB of information for the low… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Today’s Gear Deal brings us the 17.3″ HP Pavilion dv7 Quad Edition Laptop. This laptop is equipped with 2nd Generation Intel processor and is redesigned to make it better than ever. The HP dv7t Quad Edition has a brushed aluminum chassis in stream argento (metal) and is just 1.25-inch thin. It features Altec Lansing speakers w/Beats Audio and HP Triple Bass Subwoofer, a TrueVision HD webcam, a Core i7 CPU and 1GB of ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6570 DirectX 11 discrete graphics. The laptop starts at $1,249.99 but our Gear Sponsor has found a “huge 28% web-use coupon code” that brings the price down to just $899.99. It gets better. The unit will ship for free and comes with a FREE upgrade to Blu-ray… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

(image courtesy ArtMarketBlog) Over at Teleread, they have a very interesting, if unscientific, analysis of eBook pricing over the years. By taking prices from 2004 and comparing them to prices today, Chris Walters determined that there has been a slight drop in overall pricing, even if it doesn’t feel that way with the Agency Model taking away $9.99 price points! In a nutshell, Chris argues that the same books bought for $280 in 2004 would cost $213 today. Yes, it’s a subjective analysis, but as a random sampling it’s somewhat helpful. And he further points out that the average price for fiction titles was $17.21, which is still higher than the… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Posted January 29, 2010 So here we are on the eve of the iPad 2 release. The anticipation of the release of the iPad 2 prompted me to go back and look at some early posts we did on the iPad over a year ago. I hate to say it, but I think we largely nailed it early on. (OK, actually I don’t hate to say it… We pretty much nailed it early on! Yes, we knew this was going to be an amazing device from the moment El Jobso introduced it.) At the time of the initial announcement, we had a pretty good idea this was going to be an amazing… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

You want a dedicated camcorder that captures awesome video, has tons of built-in storage, features face detection and much more. And you don’t want some no-name brand. No, you want a name brand like Sony but you don’t want to spend a fortune on it. Well that’s where today’s New Gear Daily Deal comes in. This Sony DCR-SR88 Handycam camcorder has a 120 GB hard drive and all the features you expect from Sony. Normally $379.99 this deal will have it on the way to you within 24 hours for just $329.99. To grab yours just visit the product page right here. You want more details first? Okay how about this… 120GB Continue reading on Gear Diary …